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It’s that time of year when most nonprofits craft their annual appeal for an end-of-year effort at fundraising. One of our clients, Cincinnati Animal CARE (CAC), did an especially good job this year on the appeal shown at right.
There are some good lessons here for any nonprofit organization and end-of-year appeal:
- It starts with a compelling story (emotional appeal) about a discarded dog named Coco (personal, not generic relationship).
- It’s visually impactful. Can you avoid that eye contact?
- It has a happy ending (of course it does, and yours should too).
- It demonstrates the value-add of CAC in many ways--from services many don’t realize they provide to the amount of money required to provide them.
- It provides impactful metrics of how CAC is both effective (gets the job done) and efficient (with little waste and a lot of bang for the buck).
- It provides a rational appeal for those folks where emotional appeals don’t work or those who need more than a tug on the heartstrings (see #5).
- It provides the various actions that a prospect can take to provide a solution.
- It’s a soft appeal that stays positive.
The bottom line, and you all know I’m a bottom line kind of guy, is that it truly does hit on all cylinders. Make sure your appeal does too.
Have a Happy Holiday everyone!
-Tom
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