6 Ways Your Boss Is Wrong

Is your boss killing your fundraising? If so, you aren't alone. Based on what I hear again and again from friends all over the fundraising world, it seems bad direction from bosses (or board members) is a 
leading cause of ineffective fundraising.

The reason? They're making a very common error: They don't realize fundraising is a profession. They don't know that it's a discipline with a body of knowledge, research and standards of excellence. Your boss, not being in the profession, has little to go on but instinct or what seems to be right. That pretty much guarantees bad direction.

Just as the medical profession figured out quite a few years ago that cutting a hole in your arm and letting you bleed isn't a great way to combat illness, professional fundraisers are past the hunch-and-guess stage of our craft.

Your boss wouldn't want his doctor, his IT guy or his plumber to operate on hunches and guesses. It's time he started relying on facts and knowledge from his fundraising professionals.

Here's how we'll start the change. Below are some of the most common and destructive boss misconceptions about fundraising. I urge you to share this article with your boss and any other ill-informed authorities as needed. Perhaps they'll believe it because it's printed in a reputable magazine. And it's not just me saying this. Anyone with solid professional experience in fundraising will agree with these things.

Misconception No. 1
: 'Nobody reads long letters'

This is probably the most common bad advice from the boss. She simply can't imagine that anyone has the time and patience to read more than a single page. She seems to believe that not only will a long letter go unread, but that it will depress response.

We don't know how much of our letters donors read. But we do know this: In test after test after test, longer messages get more response than shorter ones. There are all kinds of theories why it's so. But the theories don't matter as much as the established fact: Longer messages work. If they aren't reading them, they sure are responding to them.

There are exceptions to this, but they're rare. So 
rare that your working assumption should be, "Make it as long as you can afford it to be." A super-short message is a lousy bet that a responsible fundraiser will seldom make.

Misconception No. 2: 
'We'll win more donors over by 
telling them about our success'

I think the boss has a little pride on the line when she trots out this belief. After all, she doesn't like to publicly say, "All is not completely hunky-dory on my watch."

Thing is, donors are much more responsive to problems that need to be solved than they are to glowing descriptions of accomplishments. Think of it this way: Which of these situations would be more likely to stir people to action:

1. A toddler running full tilt toward a busy street.
2. An attractive sign that says "CHILD TRAFFIC INJURIES AT THIS LOCATION ARE DOWN 53 PERCENT SINCE 2009."

It might feel better to show the world your effectiveness than to admit you need help. But the revenue you'll raise by admitting you need your donors will feel a lot better than the problems you can't solve because your fundraising isn't working.

Misconception No. 3: 'We ask too often. We're making donors angry. Let's give them a break. Then they'll give more.'

It seems to make sense. Typical donors give one to three times a year. Why do we ask them more than that? Aren't we just being annoying?

The truth, based on decades of experience and frequent testing, gives us an ironclad fundraising 
principle: The more often you ask, the more often they'll give.

If you cut back on the number of times you ask, donors will cut back on the number of times they give. Not only that, but donor attrition will increase as you reduce contact. The only thing you can expect to get by asking donors less often is less revenue, short term and long term.

The challenge a smart boss should give you is more like this: "How many more times can we afford to go to our donors?"

Misconception No. 4: 'People would give 
more if we impressed 
them with how huge the problem we're tackling is'

This is another common boss notion that seems right — but it's oh-so-wrong. That's because of a quirk of the human brain: The bigger something is, the less we can connect to it. Stalin reportedly once gloated, "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic."

Sadly, he was right. Statistics don't move people. Stories of individuals do. So when the boss tells you to describe the problem in all its massive statistical glory, he's asking you to decrease your fundraising effectiveness. Donors don't give because a problem is big. They give because a problem is solvable.

Misconception No. 5: 'Everyone hates telemarketing'

Your boss hates telemarketing. I know I do. You probably do too. That's why so many nonprofits have rules against raising funds by phone.

That's too bad, because the telephone is one of the strongest fundraising channels around. You can add a lot of revenue on top of what you're raising in other media by calling donors.

There are certain donors — quite a lot of them — who love getting those calls. They prefer the human contact of a call over the less-intimate connection of mail or e-mail. They like to talk, and find a call to be rewarding 
and worthwhile. They make 
telemarketing work.

It's always a big mistake to universalize our feelings onto others. The fact that you hate something doesn't tell you that other people hate it.

Misconception No. 6: 'The writing isn't good. 
I'll spruce it up.'

This is the worst boss comment of all. When she says this, your blood should run cold. She's about to spruce up your fundraising the way Gen. Sherman spruced up Atlanta.

I've been through this drill so many times, I can tell you with great confidence that the very qualities that the boss has pegged as poor writing are what make fundraising effective. Her red pen is about to surgically remove everything that's strong in your fundraising copy. Compared to other types of 
writing, fundraising is:

• Casual. It's colloquial, informal and designed to be read with little effort. Short (often incomplete) sentences. Brief paragraphs that don't conform to standards of composition. A less-than-rigorous adherence to the rules of grammar and usage. If you try to bring copy up to the formal standards of academic or business writing, it won't get read — so it'll raise less money.
• Simple. Good fundraising is about action. It's not about the methodology of doing it, and it's not about the philosophy of why. If your boss wants to push the how and why, that's going to bury the what — the action you want donors to take. And that means fewer donors will respond.
• Repetitive. It says its one simple point over and over again. That long message we talked about earlier is actually more like a series of shorter messages stitched gracefully together.
• Emotional. The decision to give comes from the heart. That's why fundraising copy wears its heart on its sleeve. It appeals to the emotions without shame. Appealing to reason doesn't work very well. It's not the dignified style you learned in school. And writing so emotionally would probably get you drummed out of your nonprofit-management program. But emotional writing is what works.

I hope you can persuade your boss to pay attention to these things. More importantly, I hope your boss can learn to trust the knowledge of fundraising professionals like you. We can't afford more guesswork. These are tough times that demand high-level professional knowledge. Bad direction from bosses probably costs the good causes of the world millions of dollars every year. Let's change this. Our work is too important to let it slide. FS

Jeff Brooks is creative director at TrueSense Marketing and author of the Future Fundraising Now blog. Reach him at jeff.brooks@truesense.com