From Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog, Message isn’t working? Here’s a three-point diagnosis. Some typical ways fundraising goes wrong:
- Falsely assuming that information results in action.
- Forgetting that we’re not the audience.
- Treating marketing as an afterthought.
In my experience, #2 is the most common and most destructive of the three. People at nonprofit organizations become obsessed with creating messages they think would motivate them — and thus radically mis-communicate with their donors.
It’s difficult to get outside of your own head. It’s even harder when there’s a group-think in the organization that’s seeking self-pleasing messages.
Effective fundraisers are the ones who talk to donors, not themselves.
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.