The Five Best Ways to Fail at Fundraising

Not everyone loves money. In fact there are hundreds and hundreds of mosdos in Brooklyn alone that hate it and have incorporated many corporate practices to ensure that gelt stays where is belongs - in the donor's pocket.

For those of you that want to escape the inevitable success that responsible fundraising brings, I have compiled this handy list of the five best ways to fail at fundraising.

Get Emotionally Involved:  Blame every setback on your own personal faults. Take every "no" as a personal rejection and an insult to everything you believe in. Start looking shtilerheit in to getting a real estate license.

Let the Donor Read Your Mind: The best kept secret is that donors are telepathic - they can read your mind. Give your donors great service, but never ask them to support your mossad or mention anything about your needs. They can and will read your mind, and one day - one day! - surprise you with an outstanding donation.

Hoht Rachmones!

I make a habit of reading every solicitation letter that I recieve. Everything from the No. 10 envelope to the reply card makes an impact on the reader, and so I find it fascinating to have look at what other mosdos are trying to capture the donors attention and money.

I recently received a beautifully done direct mail appeal from a prominent, local mosad. Everything was al osar - there was definitely a lot of money dropped on making sure that the envelopes, letter and reply card were professionally and beautifully done. I have no way of knowing what the returns were on this particular campaign, but I suspect they'll be mediocre.  

Why? No rachmones on the donor.

The appeal itself was huge blocks of text written in small font. There was some kind of inspirational story in there, together with some jive about guiding the next generation - I don't know... Well written, pretty, but also very hard on the eyes and a burden upon the reader. 

There are many practices and techniques that help to ensure readability in direct mail and other solicitation materials, but that's not what I'm hokking just now. My real point is that quality communication is more essential than ever, while quantity - especially in the Twitter age - is fast becoming harmful. Here's a few points to remember to have rachmones on your donors:

1. Be Concise : Time is valuable. When you communicate with donors about giving, always get to the point promptly. Long hakdomes do nothing for your presentation, and are almost always tiresome. Contrary to our intuition, lengthy presentations are less convincing that those that are concise and focused.