Welcome to Propper Fundraising, the website collating fundraising blogs and articles written by some of the best fundraisers, leaders, marketers and data professionals.
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Christian H Propper
10 Common Myths About Our Visual Brains
Brain science is commonly taken into consideration when developing marketing and communication strategies, particularly concerning visual content. After all, the best way to influence behavior is to understand its drivers. And behavior is driven by our psychological brains. At the same time, basing a strategy on invalid data can quickly waste time and resources.
Unfortunately, when it comes to understanding our visual brains, plenty of myths clutter the published universe. To save everyone a lot of wasted effort, Samantha Lile at Visme
has debunked 10 common myths about our brains and their visual abilities.
https://visme.co/blog/common-myths-visual-brain/
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Don’t fear the Rich List
How to deal with rich people? John Baguley writes in this blog:
“I have worked on many highly successful capital appeals and a few that didn’t quite reach their target. Time and again that failure was due to the inability of the team to engage with wealthy people as human beings and not as representatives of all that is wrong with society. The feeling was often that they ought to give because they were rich, with no thought about real engagement over time with their kindness and goodwill.
“Crucially, this sometimes manifested itself in the act of asking, which I have seen done almost as an act of bravado to show the person asking was not afraid of the task but, unfortunately, that resulted in a slightly offensive demand lacking any humility.”
Read this blog for John’s tips on dealing with the rich.
https://www.charitychoice.co.uk/the-fundraiser/dont-fear-the-rich-list/726
25 Facts and Stats about NGOs Worldwide
Raising money is hard work, and sometimes, just sometimes, we need some great facts to help remind ourselves that we are doing great work to help society and the world improve.
#NGOFACTS is an ongoing online campaign that highlights important data about non-governmental organizations (NGOs), nonprofits, and charities worldwide.
You can join the campaign by sharing facts and stats about the NGO sector in your country using the #NGOFACTS hashtag on social media.
Facts include:
Nearly one in three (31.5%) people worldwide donated to charity in 2015 and one in four (24%) volunteered.
Click the link below to read 24 more and feel inspires.
http://techreport.ngo/previous/2017/facts-and-stats-about-ngos-worldwide.html
8 Steps to Writing Successful Fundraising Letters
We’ve covered tips on how to write successful appeal letters before, but this list by Marc Pitman really breaks it down into eight easy-to-implement steps. This blog simply can’t be ignored.
https://npengage.com/nonprofit-fundraising/fundraising-letters/
Data compliance officer: the next big role in fundraising?
Fundraising charities rely on information about their supporters to survive; such as names and addresses, financial information and other private data. Information such as this will always be integral to the fundraising process, and the storage and safety of this information will be too.
GDPR’s rules around proving consent necessitate new processes at the back and front ends of data collection – and it’s going to be hard work. The fundraising sector has a lot of fundamental changes to make in a short amount of time.
Jenny Daw, editor of The Fundraiser, wonders that with so much to learn and do, there may well be a need for organisations to take on new talent and skills to push these changes through.
New edition of What Small Charities Need to Know About CRM Systems
Ivan Wainewright acknowledges that buying a new CRM system or fundraising database is a daunting challenge for most charities and not-for-profit organisations, so he has written this book to feature issues that smaller not-for-profit organisations need to consider and be aware of.
This free book has been written for people whose day job is not the procurement or implementation of new databases, so it’s extremely helpful for any fundraiser thinking about stepping outside of their comfort zone.
https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/02/16/new-edition-small-charities-need-know-crm-systems/
Radical Transparency
What does Jennifer Coleman-Peers mean by ‘radical transparency’?
It’s about pushing beyond the norms of honest and open practice to be open to the extreme, to share all the most important aspects – both the good and the bad – and in doing so to build trust in who we are and what we do because everything is there to see.
It tells your supporter that you have confidence in the commitment, vision and expertise of your organisation, and that despite its inevitable failings (because we’re all only human) it is working in the best way it knows how to make the biggest possible difference to your cause.
For more information on how radical transparency can make your charity and your leadership become more authentic, please read Jennifer’s blog below:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/radical-transparency-jennifer-coleman-peers
How to Build a Major Donor Program from the Ground Up
Most organizations have plenty of donor prospects, without having to go outside and look for prospects who aren’t connected to you.
Claire from Clairification Fundraising Coach suggests you don’t start with the most out-of-reach prospects. You can be a major donor prospect rainmaker without having to go outside or reach too far.
Even small current donors may be juicier prospects than “whale” donors with no connection to you or your cause.
It’s as easy as ABC: Access. Belief. Capacity.
It all boils down to this:
- Who you know you can get to.
- Who believes in your mission.
- Who has capacity to give.
These are the folks with whom you’ve already got a foot in the door. They are your best prospects for upgraded giving, presuming you’ve treated them well.
For more details, visit:
https://clairification.com/2017/01/12/build-major-donor-program-ground/
9 top tips on making Facebook ads work for fundraising
Award-winning fundraiser Emily Casson shares nine brilliant tips to start your journey on social media fundraising advertising. Facebook advertising is a great tool to start, or grow, your digital fundraising. Emily started using Facebook advertising nearly three years ago and now recruits over 10,000 new regular giving donors a year at a positive ROI, plus many more event participants, legacy pledgers and other supporters. Follow the link for some top tips that apply whatever your budget or cause.
https://greatcharityspeakers.com/2019/04/21/9-top-tips-on-making-facebook-ads-work-for-fundraising/
Giving Day – The Ultimate Guide to Success
A Giving Day is a 24 hour digitally driven fundraising and engagement campaign with the goal of rallying a university’s or nonprofit’s community behind a particular cause.
The original and most famous Giving Day is #GivingTuesday and has since been embraced by universites and nonprofits across the globe looking to run their own campaigns.
In this plan from Hubbub, you will gain a clear idea of the steps required to launch a successful Giving Day campaign. Much of this is targeted at universities, schools and colleges, but is applicable to the whole nonprofit sector.
An interview with Justin Coghlan, co-founder of the Movember Foundation
Good fundraising ideas don’t come around that often, but every now and again an idea comes around that transforms the sector. Here is the story of how the Movember Foundation started in 2003 and turned into a major event raising over £400m.
Be inspired and perhaps try that idea in the back of your head (or under your nose…).
https://www.nursinginpractice.com/article/interview-justin-coghlan-co-founder-movember-foundation
Better to be kind, than to be right?
In this leadership blog, Shaun Horan discusses how the need to be “right” holds some leaders back: “you can’t bring people with you if you are only focused on yourself.”
Shaun continues: “Kindness should be seen as an antidote to this. We all know being kind makes us, and everyone around us, feel better. So why don’t we use it more often? Probably because it can also make us a little vulnerable – what if someone takes advantage?”
For more on how kindness can have a positive impact on fundraising, follow the link below.
https://www.halpinpartnership.com/debate/better-be-kind-be-right
Free Stuff! 51 Stunning Presentation Slides You Can Customize [Plus Templates]
Creating a presentation powerful enough to stay in your audience’s mind is key whether you’re presenting to potential prospects, showing off your incredible KPIs at your board meeting or sharing best practise with other fundraisers at the next CASE conference!
Visme has put together an incredible selection of free presentation templates that will ensure you stand out.
Free Stuff! Really Good Emails
More free stuff and this time we focus on email templates. Emails are a key method for non-profits to communicate with your supporters and getting the design right is key in getting your message read.
Really Good Emails is an amazing resource with over 4000 real email campaigns to inspire you PLUS if you sign up for free, the code behind the email for you to tailor to your needs.
Free Stuff! Free tools for you – Hands-On Fundraising
Every week, Mary Cahalane provides expert fundraising advice in her blog – I could easily reshare her blog here every week (hint – sign up to the Hands on Fundraising blog).
Anyway, Mary’s post at the beginning of the month really stood out for offering links to loads of free content to help fundraisers get creative. There are sites listed which offer free photos, photo editing, graphic design, office tools but what really stands out is the list of writing tools!
Miss it, miss out!
Long Read: Head to Head – A Conversation on Behavioral Science and Ethics
An exploration of the intersection of compliance and ethics programmes and behavioural science may not immediately strike you as a top candidate for your summer reading list – especially a fundraising reading list – but it would be a mistake to miss out on this review of a research paper by Meredith Niles. She considers how the learnings could be applied to fundraising to provide us with some well considered new perspectives.
Long Read: What does it take to deliver an outstanding donor experience?
Hundreds of development professionals shared their views in the sector’s first professional study into what it takes to deliver an outstanding donor experience.
Holly Palmer, Lee Durbin and their team on volunteers crunched and analysed the results to produce a pretty unique report, chock-a-block full of insight. This is an essential read for everyone involved in HE fundraising.
https://hedonorexperience.com/research-report-fundraising-in-higher-education-the-donor-experience/
Long Read: The philosophical dispute between fundraising and data protection
At the end of 2016, when the ICO fined several charities for breaching the Data Protection Act 1998, Ian MacQuillin, wrote a fascinating philosophical piece on how charities are perceived by different types of people.
Even though this feels like a long time ago, it’s still as relevant today as it was back then. Whenever you feel that GDPR and data protection are not your friend, have a read of this.
Long Read: 2020 Vision in Fundraising
This long read by John Baguley from International Fundraising Consultancy is split into several parts and what the team has learnt as they gear up to the firms 20th anniversary. focus on their top 20 tips to help us fundraise more effectively.
These 20 key facts every fundraiser should know: some are basic and some are outside any box we have ever found. None should be forgotten as we seek to grow our income and influence.
Part 1: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising/
Part 2: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising-part-ii/
Part 3: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising-part-iii/
Part 4: https://groupifc.com/blog/2020-vision-in-fundraising-part-iv/
Long Read: DPN Legitimate Interests Guidance – GDPR
The Guidance prepared by the Data Protection Network is a practical tool aimed at helping commercial and not-for-profit organisations to assess whether or not they can rely on Legitimate Interests as a lawful basis for processing personal data under the GDPR.
The Guidance covers:
- Understanding what Legitimate Interests are
- Identifying areas of processing where Legitimate Interests may apply
- The Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA) – the 3 stage test
- Transparency and the consumer
https://www.dpnetwork.org.uk/dpn-legitimate-interests-guidance/