Michael Mitchell posted on LinkedIn about a time when an executive director’s mother-in-law opined that a fundraising letter should be much shorter, because she wouldn’t read something that long.
Read it here. It’s interesting.
His conclusion will not be surprising or controversial to experienced fundraising professionals:
The next time someone tells you your fundraising letter is too long, ask them which donor questions they’d like to leave unanswered.
The post sparked a long, detailed, and interesting discussion.
With a troubling feature: Most of those speaking up against long messages give as their reason some variation of: “I wouldn’t read a long letter.”
That is bad data!
How you respond — or, more accurately, how you think you would respond — tells you nothing about how something is going to perform in real life.
No professional worth their salary should ever use their own conscious preference as a guide for their fundraising. Don’t listen to people who do that!
Listen to good data. Which is nuanced, complex — and trustworthy. You’ll raise more money.
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.
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