Help the beneficiaries of your mission by helping one donor at a time to be the hero of your nonprofit.
Let your donor be the hero of your fundraising appeal
I – along with many of my colleagues – often stress the importance of focusing your marketing communications on your donors. Write donor-centric copy.
In addition I often advise you to avoid statistics, large numbers, and data dumps of information.
Instead show the difference a donor makes in one person’s life by giving to your charity.
Another important point worth repeating is this: Write your appeals with ONE person in mind.
Ideally have a name for the recipient of your email, direct mail letter, tweet, etc. You would even be well advised to create a profile (name, picture, age, interests, etc.) of your typical or ideal donor.
Write to your ideal donor. Help her (or him) understand what a BIG part she has in helping people. Make her the hero of your appeal. Help her feel rewarded, empowered, enriched, fulfilled, and joyful about all the good she is doing as she diminishes the “bad” stuff.
Moral of this post? Help one donor at a time see how they can help one soul in need … and do this through stories and donor-centric copy in all your marketing communications. That’s my simple 3-part formula for nonprofit copywriting.
Stated yet another way: Have ONE donor in mind as you write. Talk to the ONE donor about ONE person in need and let the donor be the hero of the story (not your nonprofit). Believe it or not, this approach boosts response so you raise more revenue and you can help MANY people in addition to the ONE you wrote about.
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