| |
| |
|
Copywriting Information |
|
|
|
Fundraising Letters: Where To Find Creative Ideas For Your Appeals
How do you make your fundraising letters creative and fresh year after year when your needs don't change all that much? I am not talking about new initiatives. I'm talking about the programs that you run year after year. The membership drive that you run year after year. The funds that you must raise to cover administrative expenses and salaries year after year. How can you request funds for these things over time without boring your donors into apathy? Learn a lesson from Jack Foster. Jack Foster spent 35 years working in creative departments of advertising agencies in the United States. One of his challenges was doing the advertising for Smokey Bear. Here's how he describes his predicament: The first thing the writers and art directors had to do every year was come up with a basic poster. The rules for the poster never varied: It had to be a certain shape and size; it had to feature Smokey; it had to be simple enough to grasp at a glance, clear enough for even a dunce to understand, and (if it had words) brief enough to be read in three or four seconds. The mission of the poster never varied either: It had to convince people to be careful with fire. In other words, every year we had to come up with the same thing only different. And we did. Indeed, every year we came up with 20 of 30 different ideas for posters. Every year. For over 20 years. Over 500 posters, all featuring Smokey and all trying to do the same thing and not a one of them the same. I faced similar challenges when I worked at advertising agencies as a copywriter, and as a freelance copywriter for direct response agencies that create fundraising letters for international non-profits. The work was tough, but I discovered that writers and art directors could indeed create original fundraising appeals year after year for the same clients who needed money for the same things. Here are some lessons I learned along the way, tips that will help you present your case for support to your donors in creative ways over time. The secret is knowing where to look for ideas. Here's where I look. Challenges in the field One place to look for original ideas is the field. If your charity is involved with child welfare, then your "field" may be the homes of your foster parents. If you are a small but international humanitarian organization, then the "field" for you is the towns and villages where you operate overseas. As you sit down to create a brand new appeal letter, look to your field and ask yourself what challenges you are facing. These challenges can often be translated into a compelling ask. Let me give you an example. Doctors Without Borders is an international aid organization that sends volunteer doctors and nurses to places where no medical infrastructure exists, usually because of war or natural disasters. Since they never know where the next tsunami or civil war will strike, they need to have sufficient funds on hand at all times so they can respond quickly to a humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world. This means their fundraising letters must ask for funds for no particular emergency, but for emergencies in general. A tough challenge. Doctors Without Borders has met this challenge year after year in creative ways. Here is just one. They realized that they often sent their volunteers into emergency situations that were created by water. Either there was a flood or there was a drought. Either there was too much water or not enough. In a brilliant move, Doctors Without Borders crafted an original fundraising package that presented this global need. They told their story in such a way that the need was obviously great, though not necessarily looming. Donors who received the appeal understood that Doctors Without Borders needed funds on hand to meet the challenge of floods or droughts at anytime. But they also understood that their gift to the organization might be used to help victims of a cholera epidemic, or people displaced by a civil war. By looking to a challenge faced in the field, Doctors Without Borders created a memorable fundraising letter campaign that did nothing more than raise money for their general fund in a novel way. Your frontline staff Another source of creative ideas for fundraising letters is your staff, particularly those at the front lines of your ministry. The men and women who carry out your work face to face with the public have dozens of stories to tell about the needs that your organization meets and the people it helps. Many of these needs can be translated into an appeal, not for a special project, but a request for general funds to meet a given need. Here's an example. In talking with the staff of a ministry that works with inmates in Canada's prisons, I discovered that most inmates have a problem with anger. Their tempers often land them in prison. And, while inside, they grow even more angry. As you can imagine, a compelling theme for an appeal letter would be inmate anger, and how a donor's gift supplies the funds that this prison ministry needs to help inmates conquer their anger and lead productive lives upon release. Milestones Is your organization celebrating a 10th or 100th anniversary? Then you have the ingredients for a compelling appeal, provided you link past successes with your plans for the coming months and years. Have you just served your millionth meal? Or planted 500,000 trees as of this week? Translate your milestones into compelling proof that your organization needs your donors' continued support, then put your proof on paper in the form of a persuasive fundraising package theme and mail it. Recent successes Similar to milestones are recent successes. One organization I wrote for won the Nobel Peace Prize. That became a theme for one mailing. Another organization I know of retired their debt early, and announced the fact with an appeal for funds. The key to keeping your fundraising letters engaging and a joy to read with each passing year is to present your work in new ways. As Foster put it, "to come up with the same thing only different." And the best places to look for those creative ideas are your clients, volunteers and staff, and the challenges they face each day in carrying out your mission. About the author © 2005 Sharpe Copy Inc. You may reprint this article online and in print provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the author" message).
MORE RESOURCES:
Copywriting - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Writing for People and Search Engines Writing for the search engines is much different than writing in any other medium. Search engines are finicky, but they love text, so you're talking their language. Segmenting Your Target Audience Through Your Copywriting Ask any copywriter what the first commandment of copywriting is and they'll quickly tell you "Know Thy Target Audience." In order to write effectively you have to know this one group of people and know them well. Six Reasons You Don't Need a Technical Writer (and Why They're Dead Wrong!) I know, I know. Times are tough. How Not to Write a Press Release Several years ago, when I was working for an agency, I was fired from an account. What that means is the client didn't want me writing for him anymore. Headlines That Pull, Persuade and Propel! When writing direct response copy, there are a few things that can maximize the responsiveness of your message. The first and most important element that can turn any website, salesletter or ad into an action-generating mechanism is the headline. 7 Easy Tips on How to Improve Your Sales Letter Instantly Would you like to get more sales from your online sales letter? Here are 7 easy tips that you can improve on your ad copy instantly and generate more revenue:1. Have a Strong Call to Action. Internet Marketing 102: Copy What Works Internet Marketing- Forget the experts, latest software program or even that book that someone is selling to get on the "best seller list" and the 200 free ebooks they are offering you. Here is what REALLY works, and it's something that you learned in kindergarden. 3 Steps to Great Copy Nothing irritates me more than being told that there are '3 Secrets' to great copy. Worst still are those marketing promises that say something like, "3 Secrets that the copy gurus don't want you to know". Writing Tips for Your Website Now that your website is up and running, it's time to add content. Fresh content will make your site interesting and keep people (and search engine crawlers) coming back. Copywriting Businesses - How You Can Get Started Do you have the training and skills needed for copywriting?Are you looking for a way to get your foot in the door?Will you have what it takes to succeed with your copywriting businesses?For many, these three questions drive them day in and day out to become the person that people demand time with. Still for others, the business aspects of copywriting have just been easy to get. How To Really Connect With Your Customer In Your Copywriting One of the least talked-about areas in copywriting education is voice. This is probably because it's tough to set general rules for something that's so personal to each of us. How Cliffhanger Paragraphs Capture Readers About 50 years ago, movie serials kept theater crowds coming back week after week. Each episode ended with a "cliffhanger," a suspenseful unresolved problem. Grammatical Mistakes DONT Sell When you receive a sales letter with typos or grammar mistakes in it, do you take it seriously? Probably not. As soon as I see a few eighth-grade English blunders in any marketing effort, I quickly decide the author's product or service is not deserving of my time. Progressive Headlines Guide Customers To Buy Headlines are, without a doubt, one of the most important elements in copywriting. As has been said countless times before, if you don't get your readers' attention with the headline, the chance of them reading your copy is virtually none. Want to Make More Money as a Freelance Writer? Here are 10 Reasons To Consider Copywriting Looking to chuck that full-time job for a life of full-time writing? Or maybe you've already dumped the day job but aren't quite as busy as you'd like to be. Why not take a closer look at copywriting?Copywriting, also known as business or promotional writing, can do more than put a few extra bucks in your wallet - it can also help you develop as a writer. Discover Your Creativity You have a choice. Do you want to be constructive and positive in a unique way? Or do you want to be destructive and negative in a unique way? History has proven the futility of the latter goal. Website Advertising: 10 Tactics To Make Your Ad Copy More Impactful If your ad is not generating a lot of sales, the reason may be because it is not effective.Here are secret website advertising tactics to make it more impactful and therefore generate more orders:1. More Insider Secrets to Great Copywriting - Judging Your Target Market This week we're going to reinforce the training that Recruits of my Red Hot Copywriting Bootcamp are drilled on. In case you didn't read my last article we covered what you MUST do before you write a single word of copy. 11 Ways to Get an Editors Attention I worked as a business magazine editor for about 20 years. During that time, thousands of news stories and press releases crossed my desk. Copywriting 101: Exclamation Point, Friend or Foe? My name is Ann and I'm a grammar geek. There, it's out and I'm relieved.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
