Today, a few friendly reminders from your Agents of Good about donor acquisition that puts donors – not your charity or your workplan – at the heart of the conversation.

Start as you mean to go on. Your donor acquisition message should resonate with your mission. If you’re stretching – or getting into ‘mission drift’ – with what you think is sexy right now but not really at the core of what you do, proceed cautiously. Donor acquisition is expensive enough – don’t fall for the trick of trying to get as many people in the door as you can, if the message using you’re bringing them in the door won’t be heard again.

And while you’re at it, create dedicated content on your website about the focus of your acquisition message. Whether you’re using direct mail, email, phone, face-to-face or a combination of methods, make sure your acquisition message is echoed on your website, ideally right on the homepage.

Your URG. The Agents have developed this concept called URG – your Unique Reason to Give. Really think about what you do better than anyone else and what makes your cause completely unique and special. And build your donor acquisition message with this at the centre.

Don’t Count the First Gift. Well, not really. Of course, when those first gifts come in, celebrate each one. Revel in the fact that you rose above the noise of our daily lives, inspired someone to act and moved someone to give. But then keep moving. Focus – ideally in advance – on what you’re going to do to secure that more important second gift. A thoughtful welcome package or welcome series. And a second gift ask – at the right time with the right message.

Chuck Your Thank You Letter. Create a brand spanking new thank-you letter or email that completely echoes your acquisition appeal. Fill it with donor love. Make sure your letter is about your donors as much as it is about your cause. Send it promptly. Promise your donors that you will keep them informed about their gift at work for your cause. And keep your promise.

Focus on Your Offer. What is the basic offer of your acquisition message? If it doesn’t cut right to the chase, and spell out clearly what you want, and more importantly what your donor can help you achieve, tighten it up.

Ask For One Thing. Don’t clutter up your acquisition reply form or web form with a bunch of crap – monthly giving, legacy giving, volunteer opportunities, events. OK, they aren’t crap. But they don’t belong here. They belong in a thoughtful and appropriate follow-up message. If you are going to have one extra thing, talk about what you’ll do with the donor’s information. Privacy statements are dull, but the spirit behind them is important: we promise we won’t do anything with your information that you don’t want us to.

Tell A Story – Or 2. Statistics, facts and other ways you demonstrate impact are vitally important affirmation messages. But make sure you tell a story, connect your donors with something that will speak to their heart, not just their brain.

Test Something. Anything really. But don’t waste the opportunity to not learn something about your message. Test a longer letter. A different subject line. Something.

Count Donors. Not Dollars. Your objective is to acquire new donors. Try to focus on the number of new donors who have joined your movement, not how close you are to breaking even on the investment. Of course, that’s an important consideration. But the more important consideration is the new people – living, breathing, caring and loving human beings – who have just joined your movement to make our world a better place.

SweetTweets: shows you your most popular tweets of all time (or since you started tweeted based on RT’dness)

First tweet: an app that can show you your first tweets to any user you follow (even if it is “yah i love coffee too lulz #coffee4evah”)

HashSmoker: an app that erases any new tweet stream you establish using any hastag (very popular with college kids)

Tweetaggedon: an app that blows up your account and erase every tweet you ever tweeted.

tweezer: an app that allows you to identify people who clearly should not be in your tweetstream and you can get rid of them – thx to @unmarketing

T’Creep: an app that allows every tweet from any person be forwarded to your phone, email, tweetdeck, twitter, hootsuite, for ever. Even if they set up a new account under a new name.

Twit-pid: an app that checks the stupidity of your tweet before you post it – so you don’t tweet something really dumb…

Twidder: an simple little app that 87 people use, thinking that it is twitter – and they don’t understand what the big deal is…

Twenius: an app that makes all of you tweets use really big and impressive words that no one understands but still respect.

Twhine: an app that removes any whiny words out of your tweets.

Twootfour: an app created by a Canadian (of course) that allows you to tweet no more than 24 times in one day

Twunchuation: an app that makes sure you say “you’re” instead of your, etc. #neverlooklikeanidiotagain

Tweathalizer: an app you have to blow in before you are allowed to tweet… (to make sure you aren’t loaded – duh).

tweetular: an app that makes it look like hundreds of ppl are RT’ing you and @’ing you…

FTW: an iphone or blackberry app that does crappy little fireworks on your display when you achieve something random #likegetacoffee

last one: tweener: an app that lets you quickly RT everything everyone says a half second after it’s tweeted

Any other brilliant ideas? Please share!

With that in mind, we want to offer you 10 ways to keep your donors at the heart of what you do, each and every day… Not for the sake of it, but because they really should be!

10. Read what you are working on – your letter, newsletter piece, email – aloud to someone who doesn’t know what you are working on. Make note of all the words, phrasing and timing that don’t feel write or that you’ll stumble over. You’ll change at least 5 things. Guaranteed.

9. Count the you’s. From the fundraising genius Tom Ahern. Count the number of times you say “you” in your piece. You should have way more references to “you” than to “we”, “us” or “ABC Charity”.

8. Make a promise – and keep it. In your next appeal, tell your donors you’ll report back to them with the outcome of the project you’re raising money for. And do it.

7. Invite personal contact – and mean it. Put your name on a thank-you letter or email. Ask your donors to connect with you directly if they have questions or would like to speak with you. (Please – no more info@charity.org!) Better yet, pick up your phone and call and thank a donor. It’s infectious.

6. Fall in love with Gary. Gary the Donor – the imaginary friend created by Good Works – is great for bouncing things off. Are you connecting with your donors’ mind, heart and soul?

5. Rewrite your thank you letters and thank you call scripts. Find the time. It’s worth it.

4. Use your heart. Your donors deserve your love. Show it.

These last 3 we call the Kimberley MacKenzie trifecta. She does all of them (and some of these others above) every single day. That’s badass.

3. Put a picture of a donor – or a letter from a donor – on your desk or post it on your wall.

2. Put an empty chair in your meeting room and imagine you have a donor in the room with you. It will change lots of what you say and how you say it.

1. Look through your mail every day for 2 weeks. Read the little notes donors write on your coupons – the good, the bad and the ugly. Respect the shaky handwriting. Remind yourself that you are in a conversation with your donors – you’re not just broadcasting.

As a final note – in the header we used the heart from our logo. Most people assume it is a clever way of showing a “o” for “of”. The smarter ones assume it represents our love of the sector, our clients and ultimately the very fact that we are in a industry of sharing and showing love… and they aren’t wrong. But the real reason is to remind us who really matters and is at the heart and core of everything we do. Do I really need to say who?

P.S. This “Top 10″ was inspired by a terrific series by Josh Bowman, 10 things I’ve learned. Thanks Josh!
EDIT: special thanks to Agent Clare McDowall for sending us in this missive from the field! “On the board and highlighted!”

My daughter Sadie spent a few precious minutes (as long as she ever sits still) on the lap of her great grandfather recently. They shared their love of the natural world looking at the bright orange Oriole and the vibrant Indigo Bunting, and whenever she saved a bug from the pool she proudly brought it to him. He beamed.

My other great grandfather, my dad’s dad, (whose name was Gage but we called him Charles) died before Mason was born. And I came to wonder what would happen if Mason sat on his lap with our iPad. Once he got past the magic of the touch screen, I think he would find the real magic in the language of action that technology has given us.

“Favourite” is a verb to my kids. “Mason, can you favourite this video?” asks Sadie when it’s not her turn. “Favourite” is an action.

“Follow” is also active. In my grandfather’s mind, a follower would likely just be someone other than the leader. But following in our language now is half of a relationship. An active, engaging relationship based on mutual interest and an ongoing conversation that happens when you want, where you want.

If Mason talked about his apps, or something viral, Charles would likely would think he was contagious.

As a man who raised four energetic boys, I think my grandfather would plug in to our language of action, and the technology of interaction.

Mason is a digital native – he never knew a world without an infinite amount of information at his fingertips. Would my grandfather have the same struggles with what I am calling “digital imperialist parenting”? Just as history has shown us empires that insist they know better than the indigenous peoples – do I know more about technology than Mason just because I am his mummy?

After about half an hour of tv/iPad/computer my internal alarm goes off and I think “you need to get outside and run around”. But when what the kids are engaging with is actually expanding their horizons, does it make sense to unplug?

So Google Earth is OK but YouTube parodies about poop and farts aren’t?

After I put the kids to bed last night, I revisited this site done by Arcade Fire: www.thewildernessdowntown.com

And I imagined Charles sitting with Mason on his lap, watching Mason enter our address. They would share a few precious minutes together, and Charles would point out where they play ball hockey together on our driveway, and where they hold hands when they cross the street on the way home from school.

Our language changes us. And we change our language. But love and action (and interaction) endure.

“What do you mean… con-ver-sa-tion?”

“You know… talk? where you look someone in the eyeballs and listen, and laugh, and focus, and share? ….hello?”

tumbleweeds…

“Can’t you just tell me what you will charge to do ______?”

Sigh.

Way back I wrote about “RFP RIP“. The process of requesting for proposals is fundamentally flawed in so many ways, we have almost entirely given up on responding to them. We don’t need to respond to them. Why would we when we have charities/clients who see the value in our experience?

Every one of you are unique. Your needs as an organization and cause, your donors, your history, your unique reason for support, your staff, your dreams, your hopes… all unique.

Do you want me to give you a boxed solution and cost for that? Is that all you deserve?

I don’t think so.

What you think the solution should be, might not be.

It starts with a conversation – between you and us.

Let’s talk about everything and anything (and don’t expect us to sit there and talk about ourselves for an hour – it’s not going to happen). Let’s talk about your failures, your successes, your dreams and hopes… And for God’s sake – let’s talk about YOUR DONORS! What do they want from you?

It starts with a conversation – between you and us.

But if that conversation starts with – “We want to do ______, how much will it cost?” then the conversation is over.

Dear Ms. Nit-Picker,

This is an open letter to charity staff members who edit fundraising appeals. With special focus on those of you who aren’t direct response fundraisers or have a clue about fundraising strategy. Just like with my Dear Mr. Fancypants blog, here are some of my inner monologues on the subject.

Ms. Nit-Picker: “Agent Jen, I’m changing this thank you message to ‘The ABC Foundation is deeply grateful to its donors’.”

Well done, Ms. Nit-Picker. You’ve taken a genuine person-to-person thank you and made it a vacant grammatically correct org-speak.

Ms. Nit-Picker: “Agent Jen, here is some background information so you can write our year-end appeal.”

Wow, Ms. Nit-Picker. Your ‘Implications for Proposed Brand Strategy’ 52 page document would be great for starting a fire, and your ‘Diagram of Core Supporter Filters’ shows me that you’re real smart. I’m a little more interested in what you’re raising money for and inspiring your donors to act. But hey, is that just me?

Ms. Nit-Picker: “Agent Jen, I don’t like how this sounds. It’s too emotional. Last year’s appeal was approved by all levels of management. Can you lift phrasing from this instead?”

Sure, Ms. Nit-Picker. Why tell your donors anything new? Doesn’t really feel like you’re taking much of an innovative approach to what you’re doing anyway.

Ms. Nit-Picker: “Agent Jen, I don’t like the call to action as ‘Yes! You can count on me this holiday season!’. Can we work in language from our new 2-paragraph mission statement?

Seriously? No.

Ms. Nit-Picker: “Agent Jen, we want to get more online gifts. Can we focus on a process that gets them to give online?”

#sigh…

You, our readers, and you, our clients have given us a lot to think about – and work on – in the first half of 2011.

Some highlights for us have been:
- Creating custom essential reviews for charities who want to know how they sound and look across every donor touch point, and then what to tweak, fix or overhaul.
- Our Second Harvest truck package… Who knew so many donors would fall in love with a truck?
- An afternoon in a sunny board room where we got to converse with the top minds of an organization, spend a little time navel gazing but ultimately giving donors a clearer reason to give.
- Working and plugging into the knowledge of so many of the worlds best fundraisers… David Love, Gwen Chapman, Jonathon Grapsas, Tom Ahern, Damian O’Brien, Sean Triner.
- Many road trips and hours riding with my partner Jen, in and out of Toronto for conferences, meetings, events.
- Working and plugging into the minds of some of the best clients you could dream of who only have one thing in mind… How can we care about our donors more? How lucky are we?
- Helping our good friend Jono create and hang out his own shingle in his home country of Australia. We know Jono and know flat earth direct is gonna to be a complete success.

When I sit back and reflect, which I don’t do enough of, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to do what I do, with the people I do it with.

But part of that reflection means also looking ahead. And now is the time for that, especially before we enter in the fall (traditionally the busiest time of the year).

My view from the deck.

So I’m taking a break. A real break. My first since Christmas – to head up north to a lovely little cottage on a quiet lake in northern Ontario.

Taking a break to stare out the window at the falling rain, to spend time with my quickly growing daughters and lovely wife.

Taking a break to listen to the silence and be far away from the daily comings and goings of everything.

But, I’m taking advantage of that time to do some navel gazing of my own and some thinking about you too.

How can we be better? How can we continue to do the best work (and what is our best) for our current and new clients?
How do we manage growth without “growing”?
What sort of things do we excel at and what sort of things do we suck at?
And so the list goes.

I had a light bulb go on in my head this week while in a meeting. A client said to us, ‘you folks are obviously champions for the donors‘ and it reminded me, that like the advice we give to you week after week and meeting after meeting, that as long as we keep your needs front and center… that so long as we remain as client focused as we possibly can, we will keep moving in the right direction whatever that might be.

So, with that, I’m shutting down the computers, and turning the lights off here at AOG HQ and packing up the van.

Thanks for an amazing, inspiring and collaborative first six months and we can not wait to see what challenges you have for us in the next six.

Hope you find time for your own break.

On Facebook.

Me and 21 million (almost 22 million) of his closest friends received this post in our feed this week:

Rather than setting a goal of millions of dollars for this campaign’s first big deadline on Thursday, we’re setting a goal of 450,000 grassroots donors. So far, 404,954 people have stepped up to own a piece of this campaign. Will you join them?

And the teaser below reads: “We believe that the true strength of our campaign is the number of everyday people owning a piece of it…”

When we talk to our clients about donor acquisition, we always talk in donors first, then dollars. If you are building your movement, inspiring people to join your cause, you will think of them as people, not as payments.

Check out the site here: http://www.barackobama.com/get-involved

Recently I sat on an awards committee where part of my role was to review the all of the applications… but I realized (especially after having to read 1 paragraph like 6 times) that somewhere we have lost our way.

I’ve sat in boardrooms, I’ve read blogs and have been part of webinars where I’ve had to ask people to repeat what ever bullcrap they just spewed because I just didn’t understand what they were trying to say.

Now I’m no genius by any measure, and I also realize that my work depends on the ability to write and speak at a level that almost any one of any type of education can understand…

But what is this fear of being clear?

As always, Seth Godin nails it is his blog post today “Writing naked (nakeder than Orwell)“.

Here are Orwell’s rules, edited:

If the goal is to communicate, then say what you mean.

Preach on Brother Godin.

This same donor was recently in the office and asked casually if Ruby would ever write him back. Needless to say, we were enchanted with Jack and Ruby’s correspondence, so this week, Ruby writes back!