Hey friends, it's Ayda Sanver of Ayda Sanver Consulting (aydasanver.com) and I'm a certified fundraising executive and nonprofit
consultant, and I was at an event today where I was sitting at a table with some
very savvy nonprofit executives and we were talking about the importance of
nonprofit marketing and storytelling and the one thing that came up over and over
and over again is to find ways to explain to donors or potential donors in
your marketing emails, in your letters, and on your web
site what it is you ACTUALLY DO
and not use programmatic language when you explain it. Use language that's
everyday language that people can understand that is heartfelt and true. So
many examples floated around.. trying to think of one off the top of my head. I'll
just make up something.. not, you know, say "We enable such and such to perform such and such and such and such.." You know, we help people enrich their lives through
finding housing," or I mean, just use real words for crying out lo
ud!
You know you're not writing a white paper! I know, here's the example I was
thinking of. I had a recent client that retained me to edit their year-end
appeal and this year and appeal was single spaced eight point font and three
pages long! The moment you pick it up you don't want to read it. You just want to
put it down! Another colleague that I've known from a Facebook group said, a
non-profit colleague, said if it's "TLDR" no one's gonna read it! It's called Too
Long Didn't Read! "TLDR!
" So, on first glance, if you get a written
communication from a non-profit and it looks too long, and there's nothing that
jumps out at you - there's no photo there's no underlining or bolding, the
font is so tiny that even a young person has to squint to read it. you know much
less me, then there's a problem. There's a problem! So what I advised that client
was exactly this. I said, "I will rewrite this for you starting from scratch -
but I want you as the founder to speak to me about why
you started this
nonprofit." And you know what? She was so eloquent in her heartfelt passion on why
she started this nonprofit! I looked at her and I said, "None of what you said is in this letter you know this letter reads like a brochure!" Actually, worse I mean it
reads like a hmm.. I don't know ..a textbook! It doesn't read like something that's going to convince someone to give to your
nonprofit. So, I got it down to literally one page with very heartfelt language
and quotes from her on
why she started this and why she needs to raise the
money and how this is going to impact 40 students in in a in a
disability program in another country that have no resources - and that's the
story she needed to tell from the beginning. But you know living in her own
head, as most founders and some executive directors do, you live in your own head,
and when you live in your own head, you can't get out of yourself and view what
your organization does from the outside. From the outside, you have
to explain the
impact, and you have to use good storytelling techniques and so many
people out there that are great to follow that explain how this is done - I
learn from other professionals all the time! Excuse me.. follow their blogs I'll
post some links in this video comments, but again- it's just.. you know it's been a while
since I made a YouTube video, so while it's on fresh on my mind, I wanted to
talk about nonprofit marketing and storytelling. I hope you found this
helpful! Ffeel free
to reach out to
me through my website aydasanver.com a y da sa nver dot-com and I look
forward to hearing from you thanks so much!
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