Copywriting

Small details matter in direct mail — and, down to the tiniest of them, this Boys Town Christmas appeal gets it right.

Sixty-second TV spot. Scene: A blighted urban landscape. Soulful music. Camera pans right, and we see something odd about the buildings. They're turning into structures made of gigantic playing cards, and they're collapsing. Like, well, like houses of cards. Voice-over talks about the scope of the housing crisis, not in human terms, but in numbers.

Compelling profiles —of constituents, volunteers or donors — are powerful tools that a nonprofit can use to motivate donors and other supporters by illuminating its mission, demonstrating success and providing public recognition.

Unfortunately, a lot of these profiles — which appear in newsletters, on Web sites, and in PR/marketing materials and annual reports, among other places — are just boring and fall victim to what Kivi Leroux Miller calls the "tedious bio syndrome." Here, she recommends steps organizations can take to create powerful profiles that go to work for their causes.

The recession that has dragged us down for the better part of two years can't last forever. So here's an important question: As much as you've been wishing and praying for this crisis to finally go away, what have you been doing to prepare for it?

The human mind is like one of those kitchen gadgets featured in late-night infomercials. It beats, twists, separates, slices, dices and otherwise transforms everything that enters it. You gave someone a carrot, but before you know it, she's turned it into a bouquet of julienned strips.

Remember "Green Eggs and Ham," the famous children's book by Dr. Seuss? Sam wants X to try his new breakfast. When X refuses, Sam keeps trying to serve it up in exciting new ways — on a boat, on a plane, in a house, on a train — until finally X tries it and thanks Sam for his persistence.

When you raise funds, you're selling a "warm glow." Fulfillment of a religious or social obligation. A sense of significance. The most tangible thing you have to offer is a tax break, which most donors actually don't care about very much. To get right down to it, you're selling almost nothing.

A strong offer can make all the difference in helping your organization raise more money from prospects. In his session at the DMA Nonprofit Federation's 2009 New York Nonprofit Conference last week, Tom Gaffny, principal and founder of Tom Gaffny Consulting, examined fundraising offers to demonstrate what works and what doesn't.

Direct-response fundraising is the perfect playground. It's a blending of both art (something I highly value but readily admit to having no proclivity for) and science (Data! Testing! Measurability!). Direct response feeds both sides of the brain and provides continual opportunities for thinking outside of the box while allowing us to control the amount of risk.

Remember the story of the boy in Holland who noticed a hole in the dike? Fearing a leak could flood the entire town, he shoved his finger into the hole, potentially avoiding a major disaster.