Ever needed a cure for the 3 am panic?
I know you’ve been there too.
It’s 3 am. Your eyes are closed, but your heart is pounding and your mind is racing.
Your appeal is due to mail and you’ve got…
Nothing.
Try to rest. Because when the morning comes, you will get started on your next appeal.
Maybe I can help. Here’s what I do.
Don’t panic – just think
Set aside some uninterrupted time. Don’t answer the phone, and don’t check your mail. Just think. Don’t think about words yet. Just think about ideas.
Think about a donor – maybe one of your actual donors, maybe a profile you create from what you know about your supporters. (If your organization is like most, you’ll be picturing an older woman.)
Think about what you want to say – who will a donation benefit? What will change – what would be better, or what would be worse without her help? How much will it take? Then think about what you’d say to your donor if you were talking face to face.
Think in terms of stories. Do you have any stories you can share?
Write something, anything.
Now you can start writing. No panic. And don’t think too much. Let your emotions guide you and just write. No editing, no worrying about grammar, or even whether you’re making sense. Just do it.
Walk away – or try to sleep!
At this point, I take a break. Do something entirely different – crunch some numbers, check those email messages, get up, and get a drink. Set your appeal on the back burner.
Because here’s the really cool thing: your mind is still at work, even though you’re not aware of it. Let it do its thing – often the best ideas happen away from your conscious and logical thoughts. (You know, in the shower or at 3 am?)
Cut and paste
After a while, come back and review what you’ve written. Start moving things around so they make more sense. Look for emotion. Probably, somewhere in the middle of what you wrote, you’ll notice it. Grab that and move it to the top. Now you’re on your way!
But…
OK. So you’ve done all this, and still… it’s not there. Don’t panic if that important first line just isn’t singing. If it helps, some of the better letters I’ve written have started this way. Don’t despair!
Get inspired
When I get stuck like that, I look for some external inspiration. Go to your swipe file. Read some pieces you think are great. Is there something there you can adapt? (Someone once told me there are no really new ideas – so take a great idea and make it your own.)
Quotes are also great. Google some connected to your mission. See where that takes you.
You might find a perfect quote that provides the right start to your piece. More likely, you won’t. But that’s OK – because it really wasn’t about a quote, it’s about getting you to think in a different way.
Walk away… again, with no more panic
Now that you have things basically organized, walk away. Completely away. Resist the urge to look at it again yet. You need some distance before you can see it with objective eyes.
Then congratulate yourself. Because when you come back to it – at least hours, maybe a day from now, you’re going to move on to the fun part:
Editing…
I know you’ve been there too. What are your tips? Share them in the comments, please!
Photo thanks to Jim Linwood
Hi, thanks for this post. Lots of good advice that it’s useful to be reminded of now and then. But I must say, when I read the part about thinking of who the gift will benefit, that’s where my inspiration dries up. I work for an organisation that does very little and essentially achieves nothing. That might make you want to say, well, the first issue then is addressing the cause of the problem… which I’ve been trying to do in different ways for more than 3 years and am now trying to wean myself off that pointless habit. (Pointless in my context, that is, not in all contexts!) This is not to moan, but to say, don’t a lot of us in fundraising actually need to run through a rather different process? One that involves judging what you can say that is close enough to what you really do to not count as lying; working out whether you can rely on the emotive, substanceless approach yet again – because you have to, etc etc. I’m just a bit frustrated that all the fundraising material I come across online really seems to focus on the idea of ‘best practice’ and how you have to reach in to the heart of what’s really good about your organisation’s work and do all the right techniques to make that connect with the audience. But some of us (how many, I wonder?) are writing appeal letters for really bad organisations that can’t make interesting, compelling promises because those would be lies. It would just be great if I saw some of the honesty online that I’ve found in colleagues over the years. Because in my experience, fundraising for a great, transparent cause or an organisation that delivers good services is pretty easy compared to fundraising for an organisation that doesn’t do anything good. Interested to hear others’ thoughts on this area…?
Great tips. I think this advice applies to all nonprofit writing not just fundraising letters. Coming up with new material about the same thing can be difficult. @Jason I have been in your situation and the reality is that in some cases you just have to live with it or leave. If you cannot affect change to make the org different than you need to look at other opportunities for your personal well-being. Plus, if you don’t believe in the work of the organization it will eventually impact your ability to do your job to the fullest and could hurt your career in the long run. Look for an org that you really think sounds great and than asks friends to makes sure it really is what it looks like and then keep an eye out for job openings. You never know.
Jason and T.J., I have to apologize! I wrote responses to both your thoughtful comments, and both responses seem to have evaporated. So embarrassing!
Jason, the short version of what I wrote is that you have two choices: stay and go. But staying seems to require a heavy price from you – in terms of your own integrity. If you can find a way that your organization’s behavior and mission do meet your standards, then do so. But if you can’t, my take would be it’s time to start looking for someplace that does. It’s awfully hard, I know!
And T.J. – thanks for your comments, as well. We were on the same page as far as advice to Jason goes. It really is a rough situation. The best thing about what we do is that we’re doing great things for the world every day. When you can’t feel that way, it’s just soul-sucking.
Hi both, thanks for your comments on this. I do feel my point hasn’t come across though. I wasn’t complaining about my own job circumstances. I was trying to address the problem that in fundraising circles the way we talk about fundraising always relies on the idea that every organisation is, at bottom, doing some worthwhile work. But surely we’ve all noticed that there are quite a lot of organisations out there that are not very good, and indeed ones that are actively bad? Fundraising is about selling, and I’d like to hear more about how to sell a difficult product, as it were, because of course there are plenty of people out there who will ‘buy’. I’m just always surprised not to come across more recognition of this problem in fundraising, that’s all. It’s perfectly possible to sell bad products, but not if one’s strategy for doing so is to rely on some sort of content that isn’t available. I don’t think private sector marketing staff would shrink from the prospect of selling a product they didn’t personally believe in, yet in our sector we seem to require this personal belief in order to do our jobs. I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t believe in the cause I work for but I’m still good at fundraising for it, despite everything that’s wrong with it.
Best wishes to all,
jason
Thanks, Jason. I see what you’re saying. Personally, however, I think that belief in what we’re selling is what sets us apart from the folks selling tires or soft drinks. I’ve had opportunities to work for organizations whose missions just didn’t resonate with me, and I’ve passed. Not that they did bad work, but it wasn’t work *I* could spend my days promoting.
I recognize that’s my personal approach though. And frankly, that’s why I do what I do. I couldn’t be happy selling something I don’t believe in. I also recognize that’s a luxury many people don’t have.
As far as promoting something you don’t believe in, I guess the best way to do that is to look at what your audience – donors, prospective donors, etc. – believes in. Ask them about why they give to your organization. Then echo their language in your language. I’ve found doing this – through conversations and surveys – has led to a nice feedback loop – where I started to see donors using the words I used to talk about the organization’s work. Not parroting what they’d read or heard, but because they’d internalized that language as it was theirs to begin with!
Because honestly, what *we* as individuals think is important about our organizations isn’t really all that interesting to donors. It’s all about what *they* think, right?
Thanks for the conversation – I think this is a really interesting area to explore! I hope we can keep it going and have some others chime in!