See the new ad our Prime Minister won't be able to miss...

Animals Australia have produced a very compelling activism and fundraising campaign. Supporters can purchase specific campaign items - from a billboard to an ad on the back of a taxi - to protest the PM to end live exportation.

Below are the screen grabs of each of the pages that sit on the website - each is within a single scroll.

Is the website execution too confusing?

Will scrolling down through many different pages and interactive graphics distract visitors?

The email is immediately compelling and recipients are drawn to click-through.

Great use of dollar handles - tangible, achievable items

What Michael Jackson can tell us about Fundraising

Those who remember the 1988 video to promote the song will recall images of starving children, of old men in soup queues and evicted families pushing belongings along in shopping carts. That year, MTV reflected the horrors of the 20th century - of poverty, famine and genocide - to an audience of millions of teenagers.

Does Man in the Mirror have a negative or positive effect on audiences? Do viewers feel overwhelmed and despairing? Or are we encouraged to feel empowered to do something?

At the same time that MJ was at the top of the charts, Australian Sponsor-a-Child campaigns showed images of African children near-death and we were told that if we gave just $29 a month, we would save a life.

Today, aid organisations rarely portray the people that need our help as actually needing our help. Instead, child sponsorship advertising will focus on the outcomes and solutions.

I'd like to understand more about the philosophy of showing positive messages, rather than the need. Did organisations like World Vision and Oxfam make a strategic decision in order to combat audience apathy? Was there a belief that persistent negativity would fail to tell the whole story and were there concerns that this would have consequences for future giving?

Did donors respond in focus groups: "I don't like to see negative images on TV"? Did they say that starving children would not make them want to give?

If you show only the solution, your audience will not feel compelled to respond and fewer people will donate. As fundraisers, marketers and communicators, we all understand this, yet that knowledge is not often reflected.

It might be true to say that negative messages can discourage people from giving and even influence despair.

Perhaps negative messages give people the impression that the problem is unsolvable.

Along with apathy, a perception that the ‘problem is too big to fix’ is a charity’s worst enemy. And today, audiences are bombarded by problems that are too big to fix.

Footage of the war in Syria; the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people and pictures of people fleeing in their millions is experienced by audiences between episodes of The Big Bang Theory, over bowls of Cornflakes, or on You-Tube. Are these images - presented in a 'business-as-usual' context - normalising death and suffering and excluding the human story from the narrative?

Does Michael’s video provide a Need and Solution dynamic? What emotions does it evoke in audiences?

To only show the positive outcome of a story is the same as only showing the starving children in need.

By not reflecting the whole story, aid organisations are providing inadequate context. The Need or Problem is absent from the narrative.

It's impossible for armchair viewers to identify the relationship between African families drowning in the Mediterranean on CNN, and a drinking well in a Somali village that means a little girl doesn't have to walk 30kms a day to get water.

The reason people aren't able to connect with refugees fleeing Syria is the same reason that they struggle to understand why Jorge in Bolivia needs their help. Without the broader narrative, audiences are being asked to fill in the blanks.

Child sponsorship needs to be presented within a context of Need, Hope and Solution.

Man in the Mirror is not reflecting anything that we cannot already see on television. However, audiences are not expected to make the connection between poverty, death and famine and what they can do to help. Instead, images of starving children reflect a clear Need which is answered by a Solution. The story inspires us and we are invited to play a role in the solution, rather than to be shown the end result without any context.

Don't let the communications department hijack your survey!

Fundraising surveys are easy to get wrong.

There is one rule - above all others - that you should know and commit to memory before you begin.

Rule No. 1:

NEVER let your communications or brand teams know that you are developing a survey.

They will get involved, they will get excited and they will hijack your survey.

Should you need to defend the integrity of your survey, consider these discussion points which might rationalise why your fundraising survey shouldn't include market research questions:

"I'm sorry, [Insert name of communications person here], there are only 12 to 15 questions in my survey and there is no room for your brand learnings"

By mail, the audience is likely to be older and your fonts will need to be 14pt. So there won't be enough room for questions about supporters' income, or which newspapers they read
If sending email, the survey must be short to ensure you keep them engaged. You should assume that the online attention span of your supporters is far too short to be asking them questions about how much time they spend online.

"Do we have enough supporters for the results to be statistically significant?"

Whether the response volumes within key segments are large enough to accurately compare or not is irrelevant. Your communications and brand colleagues probably don't know enough about your the donor base to have an answer to this question.

"How will you make sure that the responses aren't biased to the most responsive donors?"

Research by direct marketing is fundamentally flawed because the people who respond are already your best supporters
As a fundraiser, you already know how to contact the most responsive prospects. What you don't know is how to exclude all the people who won't donate
What would be far more interesting for communications and brand marketing is a survey of the people who don't reply to emails or direct mail. These people could tell you what the rest of the country thinks about your cause and that might influence their marketing and communications strategies.

Marketing and communications surveys can be very valuable to not-for-profits and the insights might support brand design, engage board members and help drive awareness strategies. But there is no room for marketing questions in fundraising surveys.

John the APPALLED charity call recipient - set straight.

John calls charity phone calls SCAMS and is disgusted that deceptive agencies earn 40% 'commission' on monthly gifts made to charity.

I had to set him straight:

"Hello John,

The company doesn't receive commission from charity gifts. They do however receive a one-off fee - for each call, or in some instances, per supporter who makes a committed gift.

Organisations use specialist agencies because it is a more cost effective way of asking supporters to give monthly. Agencies retain passionate teams of experienced fundraisers - which is too expensive for most charities to do themselves.

Monthly gifts are important because they give the assurity of donations month-to-month - enabling them to react to emergencies or plan for changes in demand.

I hope this understanding of regular gift fundraising and your experience hasn't eroded your trust in your favourite charities."

FEELINGS And How to Destroy Them: Stories that move people (Another fundraising blog about storytelling)

A lot has been said before about emotive storytelling and its importance to fundraising. We walk away from presentations by Tom Ahern or Ken Burnett and we say "yeah! That makes sense!" Alan Clayton is rumoured to make people cry in his masterclasses. And if you're open to being confused by dead-pan humour, Sean Triner and Mark Phillips can be pretty convincing.

And, while we say we "get it", do we really get it?

When you read George Smith, Terry Murray, Mal Warwick, or even great advertisers like Bernbach and Ogilvy, they all say something about Feelings and connecting with people. And that is what all great fundraising does.

I, like most people, enjoy the illustrative language, the humorous anecdotes and puns and the - almost expletive - never-ending rants from fundraisers like Jeff Brooks. Yet the Twitter accounts, the daily feeds and blogs, the multiple conferences and masterclasses, volumes of beautiful books and countless success stories from other charities around the world fail to influence some fundraisers.

And then it dawned on me.

Maybe one more blog post will do the trick. Perhaps THIS repetition of the 'tried and tested', the black and white facts and irrefutable proof might make the difference. Will you tell me I'm dreaming?

Whether in vain or not, here are 5 Core, well-rehearsed and ever preached passages that no direct mail letter should ever exclude:

1. Find a story. A real human story. Tell that story it until the words bleed from the paper.

2. There must be a clear and present NEED. If your organisation isn't able to articulate a real problem that requires it to fundraise, then don't bother writing the letter.

3. The SOLUTION is YOU (no not you, the supporter). A supporter's gift has the power to save, change or improve lives. Your task as a fundraiser is to convince your supporters that this is true.

4. People give to PEOPLE, not organisations. Your readers are not donating to you. The charity is merely the facilitator of a donation, not the recipient. If you want to sell your organisation to supporters then get a budget like McDonald's or Coke.

5. Ask. Don't forget to ask for something. Anything. That three syllable word in your title implies that you are responsible for raising funds. To do so, you need to ask. If disguised behind a real purpose as dictated by points 1 through 4, it might actually convince people that you need something.

With any luck, these 5 points may have just made the world a better place.

"We have the lowest administration fees of any other Australian charity..."

Out of touch.

I hope that this statement is an oversight and that the leadership doesn't realise it is published on the website.
However, the wording on this Frequently Asked Questions page is undoubtedly an indication of a cynical culture and an unfriendly, even hostile perception of the not-for-profit sector in Australia.
The statement is unfounded, inaccurate and overtly egotistical. Please take it down.

Which NFPs make the loudest noise about the Cost of Fundraising?

How do Australia's largest NFPs communicate their cost effectiveness? Are the most sophisticated fundraising organisations supporting positive messaging around the cost of fundraising? Or are they perpetuating a negative, misinformed perception that is harming the sector as a whole?

The best fundraising in Australia comes from both large, sophisticated charities as well as smaller, more agile and necessarily frugal ones.

The same is true for the approach that the sector takes when approaching the question of cost effectiveness.

This survey conducted last month compares the use of Cost of Fundraising messaging and infographics across the largest and most visible not-for-profits across the sector.

By comparing where on the website an organisation communicates how donations are spent, one can get a sense of how much value is associated with this message by each organisation.

Many organisations produce graphics to help express visually where the money goes and to show their cost effectiveness. It aims to combat a perceived negative public sentiment that suggests charities aren’t spending enough on the cause.

Are organisations being foolish to spend money on producing messages that communicate how great they are at saving money? Or are we assuming that audiences – our supporters – are fools?

The COST of Fundraising

Fastmap/IOF research says "integrate"

Key insights from the fastmap research into perceptions of engagement channels on behalf of the IOF UK

The results suggest that:

• A multi-channel approach is likely to be most successful

• Those targeting 55+ females would be unwise to ignore traditional media

• Carefully-designed back-up material plays a key role in converting interest into support particularly collateral that links to other channels

• Some channels are more likely to generate low rather than high-value donations. This knowledge gives fundraisers the power to match their objectives with the media they select. Maximise recruitment versus immediate donations

• Viral fundraising activity such as the Ice Bucket Challenge and Movember have resulted in people engaging with channels in a different way by challenging and sponsoring friends and colleagues, texting photos and videos and spreading donation phone numbers

Download here: tinyurl.com/pn7s6rd

Cost of Fundraising Infographic

For many NFPs in Australia, the cost of fundraising is a confusing topic. It can be frightening to many leaders who are new to fundraising. And it is difficult to determine an approach given the complexity of the subject and the often misunderstood perception of the donating public.

It's not surprising that organisations with smaller ambitions and less focus on individual giving fundraising will want to challenge the perceived high cost of fundraising among the public. They are quick to point out that gifts are largely going to the cause and they place more importance on communicating strong return on investment statistics and a cost effective approach to administration and fundraising.

Experienced fundraisers would point out that they are wrong to do so; organisations that go to great lengths to tell supporters and website visitors that they spend only 12c in every dollar on fundraising and administration are perpetuating a common misconception that charities should spend all the money they raise on the cause.

I was surprised, and a little dismayed when I started to look at cost of fundraising communication across NFP websites in Australia.

The cost of fundraising infographic is very attractive - and some organisations have created some eye-catching designs to express their penny-minding approach to improving lives or beating cancer. It is very disappointing that some of biggest larger charities - with huge acquisition budgets, large in-house teams, greater efficiencies of scale and larger media buying power - are touting the same cost of fundraising messages as those that have less understanding of what's at stake.

Let's open up some more constructive dialogue on the topic.
Please comment if you have an opinion.

There's nothing emotive about Tax.

It's that time again. Fundraising managers phone their counterparts to try and gauge the success of their Tax appeal as the June 30 deadline draws near. And as the opportunities to change the course of the campaign are whittled down to the last two days of the financial year, the flip of the coin is to send a desperate appeal email in a last ditch attempt to improve success - or avoid disaster.

And most organisations are getting it wrong.

Tax deductibility is a rational concept and it isn't a strong reason to give. Reading the multitude of emails that arrived today and will inevitably arrive tomorrow makes me feel we have completely dismissed so much of what we have learned as fundraisers.

- people give to people
- emotional engagement with the cause will convince people to donate over any rational reason
- the biggest motivating factor is engagement or proximity to the cause

In the last attempt to encourage donations before the deadline, it doesn't seem the best strategy to forget what we have learned. Tax deductibility might be a secondary, rational reason in support of the main argument. But we shouldn't lead on it. Let's hope there is some stronger, more motivating content next year.

More asks to high-value donors = more income

I don't suggest that asking for large gifts by mail is the right approach. However, this blog, published by everybody's friends at Future Fundraising Now references a study discussed on Grizzly Blog and points to the importance of frequent communication and asks for donations of our higher value supporters in much the same way as standard mail responders.

Future Fundraising Now: More mail, more money

More mail, more money

Posted: 03 Dec 2014 04:59 AM PST

The Grizzard Blog shares one of those scary pieces of knowledge that live in the major donor world: Stop Mailing The Major Donors!

Actually, don't stop mailing the major donors.

The post reports on a test where five hundred $500+ donors were sent a list of the 12 direct mail appeals they were scheduled to receive in the coming year. They were given the chance to opt out of as many of those 12 as they liked. If they didn't respond, they'd get all 12.

37%, of those donors returned instructions. The highest number of appeals any of them selected was 3.

At the end of the year, they compared the group that received all 12 mailings to the group that had identified those mailings they wanted.

The result was interesting: The donors who received all 12 mailings gave 35% more than those who restricted their appeals.

This is a bit of a surprise to me. It's normal for a group getting less mail to give less. But usually, giving donors choice -- any kind of choice -- results in more giving. I'd have expected the positive impact of choice to outweigh the negative impact of less contact. Silly me.

There may have been something about the nature of this choice that pointed the donors in the wrong direction. If you think about it, those donors said no over and over again. Nine times or more. That sets a pattern.

But there's an important lesson here: Less mail, less giving. That's true in nearly every situation. Including major donors.

Never assume donors will give more or retain longer if they get less contact. It almost never works that way.