One of the most familiar tactics in fundraising communications is having a quantified goal as the centrepiece of a donor campaign.
The number is set and subsequent messaging provides progress updates and implicitly or explicitly urges the audience to help hit the target amount. At the planned end of the campaign, we usually see a success announcement, or a soft extension of the goal deadline if it needs a little more time.
Glance through fundraising emails you’ve seen in the last while and you’re likely to notice that some goals are just…. goals. There’s a number to hit but little that relates to anything beyond the number.
Moving the needle
Let’s say Denim & Steel has a goal to grow revenue by 10%. If we simply raise prices by 10% on existing clients, they’re going to ask what’s going on. If we cite our new revenue goal, how would that go over? A goal is nice, but in of itself has no value to our customers.
On the other hand if we cite increased capacity, or new service features, or even external forces like inflation, it’s much easier to understand and even possible to get behind.
We’re not questioning the need for funds here, or the goal amounts. What’s at issue is that just saying you have a goal isn’t effective motivation for donors.
Connecting donors on a rational and emotional level with fundraising goals takes more than showing a number. And that connection happens by relating the financial goal with concrete outcomes or changes that fit the organization’s mission and values.
Cost comparisons
Let’s try some examples of campaign messaging.
“We’re raising $10,000,”
vs.
“We’re raising $10,000 to continue the amazing programming you enjoyed this past year.”
Not terrible. Citing recent success is good but this is vague. How about:
“We’re raising $20,000,”
vs.
“We’re raising $20,000 to send 20 fifth-graders to Space Camp.”
Good! A specific ask with a specific goal. Let’s try:
“We’re raising $50,000,”
vs.
“We’re raising $50,000 to sustain our work against a sudden jump in costs,”
or
“We’re raising $50,000 to address emergency repairs to our facility.”
Also good! It might not be inspirational but it’s transparent and relatable. Finally, consider:
“We’re raising $100,000,”
vs.
“We’re raising $100,000 to fund two new outreach positions that will introduce our services to new neighbourhoods and serve up to 200 people in need in the first year.”
Great! Very specific and connects operational costs with the mission.
What messages are the easiest to get behind? To us, it’s the ones that enable donors to envision the outcome that their donation makes possible. To put it more bluntly, the goal of a campaign has to be something that fits the charitable work. And the more specific the outcome the better, because it differentiates the activities of the organization even more.
A moment of truth
Although these examples may seem contrived, they’re rooted in truth. We’re not naming names, but of the last 10 campaigns we came across through our own inboxes in the past three months, 4 were using a “help us meet our goal”-style campaign. These campaigns take for granted that donors didn’t need to be reminded much of the organization’s work, let alone specific outcomes.
If you’re a fundraiser, you might read this and recall past number-goal campaigns that went just fine. That’s good, but we have to face that the success was withdrawn from the bank of brand goodwill. The only way to refill that supply is to show outcomes that regenerate interest and belief in what that brand stands for. Breaking out of the hamster wheel of campaign messaging can feel hard, but cultivating real connections with your donors is effort that’s worth the work.
Private corporations have cornered the market of those who just care about dollar-value goals. Nonprofit campaigns need to resonate with more profound values and point to outcomes that donors can believe in. To be a charitable goal, there’s gotta be more than just a number.
Reorienting how we think about donation communications is just one aspect of the work we do with clients to modernize and energize donor development. You can learn more at our Services page, but the best way is to get in touch and set up a call to talk about how your organization can transform fundraising.