The Big Diff - Digital Copywriting for Nonprofits

Writing for Digital
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Our guest presenter »
Tom Ahern
• Donor communications expert
• Advisory board member,
Hartsook Centre for Sustainable
Philanthropy
• Author of: on donor
newsletters; How to Write
Fundraising Materials That
Make More Money; Keep Your
Donors (with Simone Joyaux);
Seeing Through a Donor’s Eyes
• International speaker / trainer

© 2017 Tom Ahern / Bloomerang 1
“Tom Ahern … is one of the country’s most sought-after creators of fund-raising messages.”
The New York Times, Nov. 2016
The Big (little) Diff 
Writing for Digital (or whatever) 
 
Bloomerang Webinar 
September 21, 2017 | Tom Ahern

© 2017 Tom Ahern / Bloomerang
What’s NOT different: 
 
Words 
Pictures 
Content (take me on a journey, reinforce my values) 
Eyeballs (“friends,” followers, email addresses) 
Ever-more scarce attention spans (authentic wins) 
Need to focus on monthly giving (digital makes it easier) 
Frequency (tenacity pays off; digital is cheaper) 
Good headlines: Hook ‘em 
Need for clear OFFERS (calls to action) 
Need for emotional connection above all
2

In print, you have: 
 
“High touch” (can be felt) 
Refrigerator ready 
Leans contemplative 
Reading-oriented
3

In digital, you have: 
 
Video 
Audio 
Watching 
Clicking 
Action-oriented 
Quick completion
4

Donor Who?
5

How old is the average
American donor? 
 
[ ] 35 years of age  
[ ] 55 years of age 
[ ] 75 years of age
From my free, downloadable PDF e-book,
20 Questions: www.AHERNCOMM.com

How old is the average
American donor? 
 
[ ] 35 years of age  
[ ] 55 years of age 
[X] 75 years of age
From my free, downloadable PDF e-book,
20 Questions: www.AHERNCOMM.com

Source: Mark Phillips, Bluefrog
Her! PS: that’s all she
wants from your
organization.

47%
22%
17%
11%
4%
<35
35-44
45-54
55-64
65+
Donors by age (percentage)
9

Will you help it fly?61
70
87
70
Active donors
1st-time donors

75
11
exactly

Source: Steve MacLaughlin, 101fundraising, July 2017
Skew a little younger
I subscribe!

Wealthier online

About 10 degrees less loyal

The average lifespan of a
Charity: Water donor is 14
months. Once and done. 
 
Charity: Water is now moving
into monthly giving.
15
Source: personal interview, 2017

Greenpeace, founded in the US, 1971. Current US “members”:
250,000; 2.8 million worldwide. “Members” = money.
16

Blackbaud’s “Sustainers in Focus”
• Proven Practice #1: Ask new donors to give on a monthly
basis.
• Proven Practice #2: Convert multi-year, single gift donors
to sustainers.
• Proven Practice #3: Make monthly giving your website
default.
• Proven Practice #4: Use a credit card updater service and
update invalid credit card data.
• Proven Practice #5. Encourage donors to use electronic
funds transfer – EFT.
• Proven Practice #6: Steward your sustainers.
...from The Agitator, May 2017
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I subscribe!

Where are we
NOW with online
giving?
19

“Online Giving
Reaches Record High
in 2016 [at 7.2% of all
giving across US]” 
 
Blackbaud, Feb 22, 2017
20

Not there yet.
You still have time.
21

Why digital?
Because you have to be
where my eyes are.
22

Is digital the answer to a nonprofit’s
prayers? 
 
No. 
 
It’s as hard (even harder?) to raise
money online. 
 
These tools aren’t well understood yet. Everything
sounds like a silver bullet. Most are blanks.

It’s not either/or.
It’s both.
24

Tina Cincotti’s standard pack is typically:
• a 3- or 4-page solicitation letter, reply device, envelope
text/teasers, and a buck slip insert or lift note for up to three
donor segments
• as well as acknowledgement letters for each donor segment
plus one for first-time donors
• a series of up to four email appeals, and relevant web
content (language for home page button, online giving
page, gift confirmation page, auto-receipt).

FACEBOOK
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How Soi Dog makes money from Facebook...
NON-MONEY OFFER:
Sign a petition
A$K
NON-MONEY OFFER:
Give your email address
A$K A$K

Source: Pareto, Sept. 2015
The story
The offer

Stick to one call to action
Short and sweet
Make it easy to read and scan
Be personal and conversational
Be a welcome visitor
Once is not enough
Be mobile friendly
Ann Green’s Nonprofit Blog
29
I subscribe!

Source: Kivi Leroux MillerI subscribe!

E-newsletters: 
adapting the AARP
formula
31

One interesting
photo...
Micro-story: the
conflict....
Micro-story: the
happy ending....
Something to click
on (i.e., an offer)

EMAIL
33

Kivi’s checklist for your next email...
• What is its purpose? What's it meant to do? Spur donations or volunteering? What?!?
• Make it fast. Keep the layout simple and mobile-friendly. Write shorter articles (400 words –
max). Put an excerpt in the email and link to the full article on your website.
• Create great subject lines and other micro-content. The reader should know with just a
glance what the main point of a story is.
• Make it all about the reader. Email is a very personal channel. Adopt a more friendly tone.
Write as one person to another. Personalize. Do reader surveys and find out what they want
from your newsletter.
• Give the reader something to do. Every e-newsletter should include some type of call to
action. Ask them to share on their social network. Include a donate button. Give them a phone
number to call. Invite them to follow your charity.
• Segment your list. Don’t treat all subscribers and donors the same. E.g., build one list
consisting of volunteers only and another for donors. This allows you to create messages that
are more targeted and relevant, which means they are more likely to be opened, read, and acted
upon.
• Benchmark. Keep an eye on industry benchmark reports that share email metrics for the
nonprofit sector. Begin tracking data such as email newsletter subscribers, open rates, click-
throughs, actions (like donations) and unsubscribers.
34

Source: John Haydon
Email success: Tell a good story
I subscribe!

Source: John Haydon
Email success: Make it about them

Source: John Haydon
Email success: Tell them what their money will do

Source: John Haydon
Email success: Ask 3 times

Source: John Haydon
More email success tips:
• It’s OK to talk about the funding gap
(as long as the programs are great)
• Keep it short (2-3 paragraphs)
• Tell them they can say no
• Don’t ask for money all the time
(watch a video, sign a petition)

The purpose of email
and Facebook? To
drive people to your
website.
40
Where they
MIGHT make a
gift!

THEY START
WITH THIS
EMAILED
APPEAL...
41

CLICKERS jump here. Notice that the giving
page looks the same as the email. “I’m in the right
place!”

Things to do on a website...
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• Explore deeper: "For more information"
• Join an exclusive society such as the
Chancellor's Inner Circle
• Accept an invitation to an event
• Obtain a free, informative brochure
• Sign up for a special interest group (“If
you’re a butterfly lover, don’t miss...”)
• Take advantage of a special offer such as
a discount “for a limited time only, early-
bird special”
• Subscribe to your electronic or printed
newsletter
• “See more”
• Browse a calendar of upcoming events
• Traipse through a full gallery of event or
documentary photos
• See the progress on a new building
• Take advantage of a matching gift
campaign
• “Buy a brick”
• Take a virtual tour
• Learn more about volunteering
• Watch a short, fascinating video
• Get thanked
• Make noise (send a letter to Congress)
• Tell their own personal story
• Answer a survey
• Gift a cow to a poor family (Heifer)
• Enter a contest

The purpose of an
email subject line
44

It’s hard to punch
through. “The
average adult
receives 147 emails
a day.” ~ Digital Marketer, 2016

“For every 1,000
fundraising [emails]
delivered to
supporters, groups in
our study raised $40.”
96,000 emails will yield $3,840 in gifts.
The amount fell the next year to $38/1K.

Email Job #1: Get opened 
 
Play around with your
subject lines
47

If you have a 30% opening
rate, they like hearing from
you.
If you have a 15% opening
rate, you have work to do on
your subject lines and maybe
on your content.

I opened these emails!
NSFW: Sex Lives of the White-throated Sparrow [RI Audubon]
HGO wants to turn your love story into an opera! [Houston Grand Opera]
You=Awesome. We=Grateful. [AFP DFW]
The words you never want to hear a parent say [Spectrum, youth]
This video will give you chills... [Dunes Learning Center, MI]
Our Guests Have a Message For You [Loaves & Fishes Family Kitchen]
Help Map the Noise [Friends of the Blue Hills]
A thank you note (but with a discount) [Toms shoes]
49

Get opened!

President Obama’s Top 15 Moneymaking Subject Lines 
($690 million raised) 
 
1. I am just so happy 
2. I want to do this again 
3. My uncle Teddy 
4. This isn’t already illegal? 
5. My place, June 14th 
6. Karl Rove sent you a message 
7. Hey 
8. Me again 
9. Saturday night 
10. Up late 
11. I love you back 
12. Hell yeah, I like Obamacare 
13. I tried. 
14. Wow 
15. Clutch 
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PRONOUNS
IN RED
Get opened!

President Obama’s Top 15 Moneymaking Subject Lines 
($690 million raised) 
 
1. I am just so happy 
2. I want to do this again 
3. My uncle Teddy 
4. This isn’t already illegal? 
5. My place, June 14th 
6. Karl Rove sent you a message 
7. Hey 
8. Me again 
9. Saturday night 
10. Up late 
11. I love you back 
12. Hell yeah, I like Obamacare 
13. I tried. 
14. Wow 
15. Clutch 
52
AVERAGE
LINE LENGTH:
3.2 words
Get opened!

Get opened!
53
“Countdown” - URGENCY HELPS DEFEAT INERTIA

ABUNDANT THANKS punches through for sure
Get opened!

 
One charity’s “best-performing-ever” subject line: 
 
You’re a hero. Here’s why.
55
Get opened!

[subject line that worked]
A goat named Tom Ahern
PERSONALIZATION also helps
Get opened!

Email Job #2: Fan the flames 
 
We’re in this together
58

“You” is good.
Names are good, too.
BOTH are forms of
personalization.
“I can join a noble HERD!”

Give me a story to tell
I sent thousands
of dollars worth of
medicine to sick people
I save a
polar bear every
month!
I’m a
decent
person. I’m following the
Scriptures.
Source: Jeff Brooks and Mark Phillips 60

Welcome to a
family of worthy
purpose
61

6 million mobilized. 700,000 dead.

63

“Synthetic family”
64
Source: Russell James III, 2014

Email segmentation 
 
“We’ve been sending more email to the most
engaged segments of the list (the top half,
basically) and we often get over 40% opens.
When they love you, they love you.” 
 
2017 Kivi Leroux Miller

And you will never
have that many true
believers.

88% of dollars raised comes
from 12% of the donors 
 
~ Jay Love, Bloomerang, April 2017, via Pam Grow
67

Source: Jeff Brooks

Don’t just ask me to
DO something.
Ask me to FEEL
something.

Anger
Duty
Exclusivity
Fear
Flattery
Common emotional triggers used by
copywriting pros in fundraising
Greed
Guilt
Hope
Salvation

Source: NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, in Emotionomics
“Negative emotions are
linked to survival – and
are much stronger.”
The amygdala

Source: Jeff Brooks reporting on AMA Journal of Marketing Research, 2011
73

Connect with
what’s already in
their heads!
75

“Donors are staggeringly
ignorant of the causes they
support.” 
--  
Richard Radcliffe
76

DONORS MAY BE IGNORANT, but what they
DO have in abundance are their own
personal values, interests, beliefs,
connections, experiences, upbringing, lost
loves, secret passions, regrets, fears,
angers, hopes, and built-in empathy
[except for psychopaths]...
77

“Your donors have identities (e.g. bird
enthusiast, cancer survivor, caregiver of
someone with mental health issues,
member of local community, religious
person who is giving in concert with their
faith) that explain why they chose to give
to you. You are simply choosing to ignore
it.” But they won’t. 
 
DonorVoice, May 2016
78

“mental nod” =
“values match”
79
Inspiration: Dr. Siegfried Vögele

Mental nod!
“DONATE” in
contrasting
colorEye contact

You’re in my home, brain and face:
“Why are you here?”
Bad guest or good?

To make ME
feel good!!!
82
Important!
Wanted!
Needed!
Proud of myself!
Happy!
Pleased!
Entertained!Surprised!

How’s your donation 
landing page?
83

Source: Jeff Brooks, September 2014
Every time I look at an online fundraising
program that’s not gaining traction, the most
damaging part of the program, the single thing
that’s turning away donors before they can
give, is poorly built giving pages.

Just for you, if you thirst to star... 
 
FREE 10-lesson e-course
that teaches you how to
create a GREAT donation
page. With Caryn Stein 
 
http://learn.networkforgood.org/enroll-in-the-ultimate-donation-page-
course.html
85

Source: Network for Good

Do you really
need my help?
Where’d the cute
kid go?
This looks like a
form...yuck.
Why is monthly giving
the right thing to do?

Email Job #3: Click-through 
 
Give me something
important or interesting
or fun to DO
88

vision 
enemy 
hero 
served
Source: Stephen Pidgeon and Tangible
89
“Me?”

Pareto, Australia

“Humans are driven by a will to
establish meaning in their lives.
They need purpose.” 
 
That’s your real job, in donor communications: 
to bestow purpose in exchange for support.
91
Source: Neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, via the For Impact blog

Donor comms 101
92

 
You ask. You thank. You report. 
 
Appeals, thanks, & newsletters work together.
93
The virtuous circle...

Appeals, thanks, & newsletters work together. 
You ask. You thank. You report.
94
The virtuous circle...
The part the charity
cares about
The part the donor
cares about

Your thanks and your
newsletters are your HUGS!
95

Personalization
Personalization
Take me on a journey
Gratitude/credit
Personalization
#4 of 7 thanks “What did my money
do?”
Gratitude/credit
96

My
free
how-to
e-newsletter…
www.aherncomm.com
I subscribe!

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