All your questions answered
Our goal is to work with passionate fundraisers and good people rather than empire building. The focus is not on becoming the biggest agency ever but on working with awesome fundraisers to produce excellent work, relieve suffering, and bring more joy and kindness into the world.
You get to work with our results-focused team, which means everything we do is focused on loving and caring for donors. Together, we’ll inspire your donors to give with emotional storytelling. We’ll help you thank them for their kindness and generosity in creative ways. We’ll work with you to show them what their awesomeness has achieved. And then we ask once more, beginning the cycle all over again. That’s the proven path not only to raising more money but to deeper donor commitment.
We’re also passionate about educating fundraisers. For us, it’s not about closely guarding the secrets to fundraising success. It’s about equipping you as fundraisers with the knowledge and tactics you need to make sound decisions informed by evidence-based fundraising strategy. As we work with you, you learn from us (and we learn from you too)! That’s also why we offer training in our areas of expertise. If it’s better for your non-profit to train someone in-house about copywriting or fundraising then let’s do it. It’s not about us losing work, it’s about how we can best serve you.
Finally, we are also donors ourselves – you cannot be a fundraiser without being a giver yourself.
We have a very good track record of improving fundraising income as you can see here (link to testimonials). Many charities we work with have seen appeal income increase using direct response copywriting strategies and tactics. They’ve also seen overall individual giving income increase through our work with regular giving and high level donors.
But of course, this can’t be guaranteed. Increasing fundraising income depends on:
However, what we can promise is that we won’t take on your job unless we have a reasonable expectation that you will get a decent return. Sometimes, a non-profit wishes to proceed anyway because they understand fundraising is a long game and they need to start somewhere. In this case, we can give you an expected scenario of income and risk and the returns you can reasonably expect based on the factors above, our experience and industry benchmarking. In some cases, we may direct you to fundraising practitioners who specialise in areas where you’re more likely to have success at your stage of fundraising development.
We don’t charge by the hour. We quote a project fee after talking to a prospective non-profit client about their needs, donor base, previous fundraising activities, past results and fundraising culture as well as their job requirements.
With the growth of the business, that is no longer possible. June has creative and strategic oversight of all projects and aims to empower the writers she works with to best practice in all aspects of fundraising copywriting.
We get asked this question a lot. Hence I have put together the following document that gives you an overview of how much time to allow.
We focus on copy only although we often provide design notes or supply mockups on supplied copy. However, we are not a full service agency and actual design is not included in our services. You will need to use your own designer or we can recommend someone.
We can also advise on design so it works together with the copy and to avoid common problems which reduce direct response readability and decreases income and response. These may include using tiny font, large slabs of reverse text and squashing parts of the Johnson box into a corporate style banner.
This is a very common attitude and can only be changed through ongoing fundraising education. Also, we need to shift thinking from fundraising as a cost to viewing fundraising as an investment. To help with this, we suggest the following:
1.We can run a fundraising primer for your Board and senior staff to help debunk fundraising myths, outline your growth opportunities and view benchmarking data.
2.We work with you on a test campaign to try and get a quick win to encourage your execs to invest more in fundraising.
3.We encourage you also to get yourself educated about fundraising. Go to fundraising conferences, read books and subscribe to blogs like ours. Here are a few articles to get you started:
Our approach has always been driven by donor centricity. However, we recognise that many charities wish to make their fundraising more beneficiary-centred and less saviourist. We have been exploring evidence-based ways to take into account the needs of donors AND to do no harm to participants and their communities.
This is why we are interested in philanthropic psychology and other similar approaches, based on research and testing proven to increase donor income and response. Although the language approach may appear to overlap with strengths-based or rights-based fundraising, they are not the same thing.
Here are some articles related to this subject.
Or you can download a package of resources we’ve put together. Download Here
Creative – As a person of faith, June is passionate about following in the footsteps of the Creator who made us all. We’re all about using our storytelling talents to create a better world with more love, kindness and grace. We want to care for His creations whether people or planet and show God’s love in the world.
Giving – This is about reflecting the example of God who gave us the greatest gift of all – Jesus. Beyond that, we use the art and science of encouraging donors to be financial givers to great causes. We believe that giving to others is a vital expression of our faith. We want to create change through love in action, expressed by giving money.
Note, this doesn’t mean we only work with Christian organisations. We love working with any non-profit that is doing good stuff in the world.
June works from Melbourne, Australia, and uses various contract writers.
June is always interested in hearing from other fundraising copywriters. Please contact her as we often need help with ad hoc jobs during busy periods.
Many of the non-profits I work with tell me they’re committed to moving away from saviourism. Over the past few years, I’ve encouraged them to
This is the last in a series of four posts reflecting on a conversation about donor-centred fundraising and growing donor love with Professor Jen Shang
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