Creative

What makes a good fundraising story? Like a good movie, it’s not the challenge or threat, or the vision and end goal that provide the excitement, though they are essential ingredients. What provides the excitement is the journey; the tension of the underdog hero battling the villain and facing adversity; the uncertainty of not knowing if the hero will win; the emotional energy of wanting the hero to succeed. Even better, it’s the knowing that whether the hero wins or not is down to you.

Here’s a very smart, efficient way to present your fundraising appeal. It's called the "MPI" formula: how much money you want to raise, what project it will fund and what impact it will make. The formula works because it makes you define a concrete goal: Define the money (M) you seek. Define your project (P). Define the impact (I) it will make.

One of the hardest parts of fundraising copywriting is that, to be truly effective, you have to be a genuine advocate for your client or organization. That means you have to genuinely feel what you want your readers to feel.

Remember that you're sending engagement communications to donors. Your most important job is to keep them motivated to donate.

With limited resources and a focus on programming over media outreach, it’s often difficult for nonprofits to find the time to devote to a comprehensive communications strategy. However, with the new year fully in swing and many organizations looking to expand their impact, this is the perfect time to take a few simple steps to maximize each opportunity to spread your message. Here are five key things to remember when developing your nonprofit organization’s communications strategy for 2014.

One of the hardest parts of copywriting is that, to be truly effective, you have to be a genuine advocate for your client or organization. That means you have to genuinely feel what you want your readers to feel.

Donor retention is often overlooked, and because of this, nonprofits aren’t using email as a key retention tool. That likely means more email “asks” this year (donations, event registrants, advocacy actions) and fewer retention emails, like reporting back to donors and building relationships.

The risk this poses is if most emails ask for something, people may start tuning out everything. To make “ask” emails more effective, constituents need to also see results consistently from your organization. They need know that progress is being made and feel the momentum.

When you're building a powerful, emotional message, the last thing you want is for the reader to get distracted by trying to understand what you mean. So be brief, be cogent, be powerful, and know when to stop.

In our new Question Marc column, a frustrated fundraiser asks, "Why didn't people respond to my year-end fundraising letter?"

What we write is designed to generate strong emotions. And it’s why we have to be certain that what we write takes readers into the world we want them to be in.