When magic happens in fundraising

by guest blogger Annalise Briggs, Manager of the Monthly Giving Program at Mercy Corps.

As fundraisers, we try to be as efficient as possible with donors’ money. Oftentimes conversations about emotional content are mixed in with conversations about testing, converting emergency donors, revenue, retention, ROI and LTV.

That’s how it was when a small team of us at Mercy Corps came up with a “Comfort a Kid” idea — write a note to a child in Japan and we’ll give them to survivors of the earthquake in our Comfort For Kids program. New donors would receive a monthly giving ask and current supporters would land on a thank-you and ‘share this with others’ message. (See our message here.)

We wrote the copy, chose photos, developed the light box and landing pages, tested the email and then something magical happened:

Donors responded.

I read through the hundreds of personal and heartfelt notes from supporters to these children in Japan and tears welled up in my eyes. That was a magical moment in fundraising — to connect donors to a cause most will never touch or feel or experience in person, but who had the opportunity to be part of the solution.

It was beautiful. It was fleeting.

I then went back to look at open rates, click-through and monthly giving conversions.

But the magic, beauty, and emotion — that’s the real part of fundraising. The technical stuff, the numbers, and three-letter acronyms — those are just our tools.