Ep. 222: Five Reasons Why Your Year-End Appeal Isn't Raising More
EPISODE 222
Five Reasons Why Your Year-End Appeal Isn't Raising More
About the Episode:
You know your drive to work so well you stop seeing what’s on it. Your year-end appeal works the same way. You’ve written, edited, and sent some version of it so many times that everything looks fine, and somewhere in there is a revenue leak you can’t see anymore.
In this episode, I share the five reasons year-end appeals stop raising more, including the two I catch most often in teardowns. I explain why most teams spend their time on the wrong parts of the appeal, what happens to your letter in the approval chain, and what NextAfter’s research found about donor-centered language and subject lines. I also share how one client grew from $300,000–$400,000 a year to nearly $1 million. Plus: the one test to run before you send or mail your appeal. Whether you do direct mail, email, or both, this one is for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why familiarity makes it hard to see what’s costing your year-end appeal money
Where most teams spend their appeal time, and why it’s backward
What happens to your appeal in the approval chain
The 5 reasons year-end appeals stall, and the two I catch most in teardowns
What NextAfter’s research reveals about donor-centered language and subject lines
How one client grew from $300K–$400K a year to nearly $1 million
The one test to run before you send or mail your appeal
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Your appeal shouldn't read like a journal article or DIY clip art.”
“Smart donors don't need you to sound smart. They need to keep reading, because they want to be part of the story.”
“Gratitude and an appeal are two different jobs.”
“If your potential donors can't find the ask, you didn't make one.”
“If another nonprofit could sign or send the ask, your donor can skip it. ”
“Donors are changing, habits are changing, and what works has changed.”
“You can write the best email of your life, and if the subject line sounds like every other nonprofit in December, nobody reads it.”
“Now is the time to invest in support and to get help.”
“Nobody gave less because a letter was easy to read.”
Episode Resources:
NextAfter: How using donor-centric language in a calendar year-end appeal impacted clicks
NextAfter: Impact of a personal subject line on a calendar year end appeal
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Get your Giving Tuesday Emails or Year-End Appeal Rebuilt Before December 1 - Grab your spot before November 18
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 0:10
Think about the drive you take every day to work, to school drop-off to your favorite coffee shop, you know which light is the long one, you know the stop signs, you know where the traffic congestions, you know exactly where to merge. Somebody asks you maybe about a bakery on that same street, and you're like, "Where? I haven't seen it. What are you talking about? How did you miss it? Because you're not looking anymore. You're not looking for new things. And when your drive is something that becomes rinse and repeat, unless there's a big sign, big streamers, a big reason to notice about a new detail, a new addition, our eye, our brain just blocks it out. Your year-end appeal is that same drive. It's something you have been doing over and over and over again. You're not really looking anymore. You've read it and done it so many times that everything starts to just look good, fine, normal, blend in, and somewhere in there is a big revenue leak that is costing you a lot of money, and this goes the same for your emails. If you only send an email, this conversation is for you too. If you're not doing any direct mail, stay in for today's podcast.
So today, I'm sharing the five reasons why your year-end appeal isn't raising more. At the end, I'll also share the one question I want you to ask before you hit send or before you mail it. Now, as I was prepping for this episode, I was thinking about an actual drive I've taken a million times, and my husband and I were talking about our son's bus stop, and he could get off here, or he could get off the bus at this other spot where the bus might drop him off earlier. And I was explaining the intersection. I was explaining where it was. He was like, "Oh, is that where that dog groomer is?" And I was like, "Dog groomer? What do you, huh? Dog groomer." And he's describing the dog groomer, right? He's describing what it looks like. He's describing the sign. He's describing everything. And I cannot picture it for the life of me. I can picture an intersection. I can picture everything on that intersection. I can't picture this. And so the next time I took the drive, I'm like, sure enough, there's a dog groomer there. So we do this all the time. Now we don't have a dog, so maybe that's why I haven't noticed the dog groomer. But we do this with our year-end appeals, and it's really important to have a fresh set of eyes because if you're tuning it out. Your donors are too. If it's not being presented in a new and fresh way, if it's not being presented front facing, above the fold, first thing they read, then they're doing exactly what I did, which is what dog rumor, what your end appeal, what do you need, right? And they're moving on. So this happens with smart teams all the time. You can be a high-performing nonprofit. You can pour a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of iterations into your appeals, and still have soft appeals, low-converting appeals go out there. I'm working with several teams inside the club right now on their year-end campaigns, and for years, their year-end campaign might have looked like you know a letter and a handful of emails, one to two emails. That's homeostasis. That's the foundation,And the letter they sent out each year wasn't helping donations. In fact, it was hurting. Soft, vague, boring. When I look at it, I winced at everything from the words on the page to the layout, the design, and whether or not I wanted to even keep reading after the first few sentences. Now I'm doing this with intention. Your donors are doing this subconsciously. Here's the thing I want you to know: this is a smart, experienced team. They are not brand new fundraisers. They just couldn't see it anymore. Splendid in. It wasn't overtly bad. It wasn't overtly terrible. It just was, you know, that same old drive, the same old turns, the same old stop line, stoplight that piles up. Right.
Christina Edwards 5:55
Most of the time we spent together started with rewriting the opening story, because if I don't want to keep reading after the first few sentences, your donors aren't going to either. Oftentimes, you know the story matters. You spend a lot of time rewriting the opening story, the heart of the email or appeal, and then that means the ask, the P.S., the reply device, the email subject line. That gets like five minutes at the end if there's time. That's backwards. The parts you spend the least amount of time on are often the parts that decide whether or not someone gives. Now, here's the thing: I want you to think about the approval chain. How many of you are like, "Oh my gosh, it gets redlined. It has to go through here and that person and that person." How many people are actually actually putting eyes on that appeal, and how much time are they spending minimizing, making the appeal softer, sterile, more safe? That's something that I see that is so common in organizations, right? It's going through a couple of rounds of approval or edits, another pass with somebody, and it gets softer and softer and softer. I also see this commonality of this is our year-end campaign. Here's what it is, and I'm leaned in, and I'm excited, and I'm like, "Tell me about it." And it's one letter and a couple of emails, right? That is not a campaign, okay? That is not a campaign. That is just exactly what it is. It's one letter and a couple of emails, okay? And then you come back to me, and you're like, what happened? Our donors are fatigued. I'm like, what? What did you give them to get excited about? You with me? So you're not bad at this. You're just too close to this. Sometimes I tell my clients, like, you're in the pool. Like, we're all in the pool together. We're too close to it. We can't even see because we are all in the pool together.
So let's dig into the five reasons your year-end appeal isn't raising more money, so you can fix it fast. Now, if you want help to fix it before you press send, before you hit print, I am offering a limited number of teardown review sessions where I will personally review your appeal or your email campaign before it goes out. Go to splendidcourses.com forward slash teardown for details on that.
All right, reason number one it reads like a research paper. Now, listen, you might be like, but Christina, my key donors, the donors receiving this direct mail piece, they hold advanced degrees. They're very smart. Cool. That's great. Love that for them. But your appeal shouldn't read like a journal article. Shouldn't read like a five-paragraph essay with a thesis statement and a conclusion. Long paragraphs, formal words, dense pages, no white space, boar ring. Or on the other end of the spectrum, I see this, which is it looks like a craft project. It is so DIY clip art, five fonts. It's a Word doc that you've tried to add stuff to, design elements to, a border, photo collage. So busy, I don't know anywhere to look, and I am completely overwhelmed. Either way, your donor's eye has nowhere to land. And if I don't want to keep reading after a few sentences, if I'm feeling that overwhelm, your donor, your prospect is too. They're like, ah. Again, subconsciously, that's what's going on for them. They might not outwardly go ugh, but in fact, they're like moving on. Delete next puts it in the pile next to the mail. Now, an email.
Christina Edwards 11:46
This looks like a newsletter style appeal: a header image, lots of sections, a sidebar of events somewhere in the middle or the bottom, a donate button, or a giant block of text that looks like homework on the phone, Overwhelming. Your donor is reading, standing in line at the grocery store, right, waiting for their kids' practice to end. If it looks like work, they're going to close it. Go find something funny to consume on TikTok instead. Now, I want to give you an example of what this sterile research paper might sound like. Who's done this before? Who's read this one before? ‘’As we reflect upon the past fiscal year, we're pleased to share this substantial progress our organization has achieved.’’ And maybe your version isn't quite so buttoned up, but you get the point. And it's also all about you, right? So, with reason number one, I want you to see that you don't get to both hold. Oh, donors are fatigued right now, or it's such a bad time to fundraise, or the economy, or whatever reason you feel there's been a decline in donations, and also Keep putting poor content out there, right? The craft project letter, the couple of emails and a direct mail piece calling it a campaign, right? That is not a campaign. That is not a campaign. The sterile, boring formal appeal, and then saying it's the donors, right? Calls coming from inside the house. Smart donors don't need you to sound smart. They need to keep reading. They want to be part of the story. They want to be hooked in. They want something worth reading.
Now, reason number two, super common. So if you didn't see yourself in reason number one, you're probably sitting in reason number two, which is your appeal letter actually reads like a thank you letter. I've been brought in where the appeal looks like an incredible, lovely, warm thank you letter, grateful, beautiful, kind, and I'm like, what? What are we doing with this letter? What is the purpose of this letter? Because you said it was your appeal letter. You said this was a fundraising ask. I don't see it. Paragraphs of thank you and impact. Paragraph of what you accomplished. What you accomplished. What is in the year ahead? And then just this buried ask on page two, or at the bottom of the page, hey, if you're able, please consider a gift. Right? If your donor even reads to the end and they aren't sure if they were even asked for a gift, then they weren't. They were not. Okay. So the goal of an appeal letter is to ask. The goal is. Yes or a no, an email. We see this rampant. Same thing. Maybe it's the year in review. Look at all the stuff we did. Thank you for being a part of it. And then a little soft donate link somewhere. That is not an appeal. That is not a sprint campaign. That's a report with a donate button. That's a little update with a donate button. Now I want you to thank your donors. You should be thanking your donors. You should be reporting back. You can send a year in review email. Those are great. I love gratitude, but gratitude and an appeal are two different jobs. When one letter tries to do both out of guilt, out of fear, out of we've always done it this way. This is the same drive I take every year in November and December. It loses the ask loses, and the thank you loses. Let's imagine that you baked a beautiful casserole for a neighbor who was sick this past week, and so you're like, "Oh my gosh, I got made you this casserole," and then she writes you a note, and she's like, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much! I it was such a help. You know, we were able to feed the whole family with it, and it was such a help." And in that same thank you, she's like, "Can you do it again? Can you bake me another dish for a Monday? You'd be like, "What is this? Is this a thank you note, or is this another request, or is this a combo of both?" In which case, it completely minimizes the intention of the thank you to begin with with me. So those are separate.
Christina Edwards 16:39
Now, if you're worried about the fear of being too pushy, not wanting to bother donors, then I want you to go back and listen to episode 220 because you know how I feel about polite fundraising. So remember, if they can't find the ask, you didn't make one.
Reason number three: it could be from any organization. The most common one I see all across year end, especially Giving Tuesday in that last week of the year, is y'all all sound the same? If I cover up the logo, could any nonprofit sign this letter this holiday season? ‘’Families in our community need your help. Your gift makes a difference,’’ huh? Which families help with what? What difference? Where? Literally, a food food bank could send that. A school could send that. An animal rescue could send that. You with me? Anyone? When it sounds like it could be from anyone, it doesn't feel like it's from you. And then it definitely doesn't feel like it's for me. In an email, y'all know it looks like ‘’year end make a difference this season. It's Giving Tuesday. Your giving matters, y'all.’’ Your donors have tons of these in their inbox in December. You want to make sure you can answer why would they open ours? And there's research on this. Next after actually tested a year-end letter that named the organization 12 times, said we another 10 times, said you two times. Now when they change the language to focus on the donor and resent it to people who hadn't opened the first email, it drove 85% more traffic to the donation page. Same organization, same mission, same donors, different words. Makes me think about narcissus, right? We're all in our own business, right? And so, when a donor or a prospect opens an email and is talking about you, the organization, you, the organization, they're like, "All right," but when instead they open an email and it is talking about them, their opportunity to connect to your cause, their opportunity to make a difference, answering what's in it for them. Suddenly, they're highly engaged. so if another nonprofit could sign it or send it, your donor can skip it. Now, I want to take a quick pause before reasons four and five because they are the most I catch in my year-end appeal teardown. Now, inside the teardown, this is a paid. Review where I will go through your year-end appeal, and I'm only taking five of these. So we only do work like this in my high-touch coaching program, The Club. This is where we will, from zero to landing in inboxes and converting into donations and retention. This is where we handle your entire year-end plan, but I've opened up five spots for a year-end appeal review. So you can send me up to three emails in one campaign, or the entire direct mail package: the letter, the outer envelope, the reply device, and I will record a video exactly walking you through what I would change, why, marked-up copy, and next steps, you can claim one of these five spots by going to the link in the show notes or splendidcourses.com forward slash teardown.
Now, those first three reasons are about what's on the page. These two are about what gets people. Some of you pour your heart and soul into the letter, and it's not converting because the envelope or reply device. Some of you pour your heart and soul into the email, and it is juicy. It is. I love it. I'm so excited, and it's not converting because the subject line, the preview text, and the way it's formatted and sent. These are huge leaks in the bucket. Now the bucket could be filled with amazing clean water, right? Which is your actual letter, and yet it is leaking out everywhere because of all of these other issues, and that really is the thing that fires me up the most is when I read a really great letter and it raised very very little because of these things. the reason number four, the envelope and reply device are working against the letter. Yes, your outer envelope matters. It decides whether the letter even gets opened at all. Now, I have a complete strategy that I teach inside the club for outer envelope.
Christina Edwards 22:13
I have been quietly parts of direct mail programs for years that are raising hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year through mail, so I know what works. I know what doesn't work. I know what used to work doesn't work anymore. And donors are changing, habits are changing, and what works has changed. And your reply device is where the gift actually happens, right? So if it's confusing, crowded, doesn't match the letter, people will put it down. It will miss it. I'll see it. I'll do it later. Then later doesn't come, and that's why an envelope or reply device can sync a good letter, and it's such a bummer. And it gets skipped because again, you spent all your time on the letter, and it makes sense. And so, what do you have? You have an hour. You have 15 minutes. You have a little bit of time on deadline day to just throw something together or do nothing at all, not out of our envelope. You with me? And this is like getting all dressed up for a party. You got the dress, you got the hair, you got the makeup, you got a hot date, and you got no way to get there. You don't have a car. You're not close to transit. You don't have Uber. What's the plan? We're gonna walk there in the heels. Socks, right? This is that. You polish the letter. You got the great outfit, but the envelope is losing the gift. The reply device is losing the gift.
Reason number five is for my digital fundraisers. The subject line, the preview text, and the formatting are working against the email. This is a killer. Your subject line decides whether the email gets opened, and the preview text is half of that decision. So people are like, "I'll leave it blank," where it says "View this email in your browser," or "I'll spend all my time on the email and not on the subject line. Then again, you're hurting your own open rate and conversions. And formatting is huge. It's why we focus on a ton of email in the club. We hit all of these elements, not just for your end, for any fundraising, for any retention. Formatting is key. How it looks on a phone, where the button is, how many links are competing with the one you want them to click. You can write the best email or emails of your life, and if the subject line sounds like every other nonprofit in December, nobody reads it. If they don't even realize how to donate, where to donate, they're not going to. Next after also had some great research on this. They shared that a short personal subject line, "Are you busy? Something like that. Beat an alarming one by 58.8% in opens. So don't feel like you have to 911 your subject line or do something that's just off-brand for you, off voice for you. But you do want to have subject lines with an intention. So, what changes when somebody outside your organization looks in? What happens when you fix this stuff? This club team, several club teams that inspired this episode, they have a plan now. They know who they're reaching out to, when, by mail and by email, they're going to do $50,000 easy from it. And the part no one tells you is when you have a real campaign, one built with a strong letter or letters. Suddenly, you have a reason to call your major donors, your lapse donors. The letter actually gives you an excuse, a reason, a strong story to pick up the phone. A lot of times, I'll hear people say, "I just don't know what to say when I call donors." You know, like I have donors I should call who have capacity. I don't know what to say, and it is a little like when you have no news, it does feel hard to have those conversations. When you have a strong campaign, when you build your year-end campaign like a sprint, where it has this heart, this soul. Suddenly, there's a reason to call the donor, and the conversation is so much easier. I have a client where I took on just about everything: their direct mail, their digital, their email. When I met them, they were doing around three to $400,000 a year total.
Christina Edwards 27:06
Last year, they did just close to a million. This year, they'll do over that. This is what happens when you stop treating your appeal strategy as a letter here in the end, a spring appeal, a summer appeal, and then going, where is everyone? Right, and you think of it as a foundational fundraising engine. Another client in the club went from raising about $10,000 in December to $18,000 Giving Tuesday to $32,000 the following year. Growing online giving another client by 582 percent from one December to the next after working together. This isn't small stuff, right? These are huge results, and yet the tweaks we make together may seem a little small. Moving a line up, adding a PS here, changing the subject line, but that can be the difference between a 20 to 30% lift. So don't tell yourself you don't have time. Don't tell yourself it doesn't matter. Don't tell yourself maybe next year. Now, now is the time. Now is the time to invest in support. Now is the time to get help. Now is the time to stop swimming in the same pool, go hang out in another pool because on an appeal that brings in $40,000, that lift is 1000s of dollars. Plug in your own number. What do you want to raise? What do you typically raise? What would a 10% lift create for you? And if you're thinking, I know, but my board already approved this. Okay, but approval isn't the same as conversion to donations. Your board approved it because they're busy, and it sounded like you, and they're also like, sure, whatever. This is what we always do. Shrug. That is not a reason to push it forward. Your donor needs to make to feel like it is for them. Or if you're thinking, you know, our donors are an audience that prefers something formal, that prefers it the way we've always Done it, okay. That actually is a belief, not a fact. They prefer what they've always gotten. If I always serve you chicken, you're gonna prefer chicken because you never really get salmon, right? You might actually love salmon. You might. Love chicken cooked a different way, but if I always make it the same way, that is not the same as saying Christina only likes chicken in this one cooked way. Your donors like being able to read it. Clear isn't casual, so it's not that you have to sound like a 20-year-old. It's like you want to sound like a human. One friend talking to another friend. One donor talking to one program director. Nobody gave less because a letter was easy to read. Really, sit with that. Like people are giving less because they found the The letter approachable, like never. I've never had that happen. Oh, this this letter was so approachable. I felt so connected to it. I felt like you were in my head, or I felt like I was actually attending one of your programs. It was so honest. Yeah, I'm not going to give. Like people aren't like I'm going to give less because I felt so connected to you. Like the opposite, right? The opposite. Or if you're thinking, okay, well, we only do email. We don't even do direct. Okay, well, reasons 1,2,3, and five are all yours. Your year-end emails are your appeal. That is it. Or it's too late. It's already at the printer. Okay, then look at your emails. Look at your follow-up. Maybe you're doing a second mailing. We have clients who do three mailings a year, or for year end. Not a problem. Year end doesn't have to be one piece. You still got plenty of changes to right cite it, especially with email. Or I am a skilled fundraiser, Christina. I've been doing this for years. I'd see it if this was an issue. That's exactly why you won't. That's the drive to work. The more years you have, the more you drive past, the more you've normalized it to yourself. Okay. Now your story matters. I'm not telling you to cut the heart out of your letter, your story, your gratitude matters. Your donors matter. Thanking them, design matters. I'm not saying make it terrible design. Saying accessible. I'm saying accessible in design, accessible in story, accessible in wording, leading your donors to the next step. And this episode really is about so much more than appeal letters.
Christina Edwards 32:32
It's about how familiarity can fool you. The longer you've done something, the less you can see it. The patterns, the habits, the things you think are fine, and maybe they are fine, but fine isn't paying the bills. Fine isn't growing the program. Fine isn't funding the next layer of growth for your organization, and that's an expensive lesson. You don't want to find out that you've been doing fine in January, which typically I hear for y'all. q1 is tough. It's the slowest month for fundraising. Now is the time to write cite it. So here's what I want you to do before you send or mail it. Read the first two sentences. Read the subject line. Ask yourself: Would my donor know what I'm asking for and why? Would they want to keep reading? Then cover up your logo or your signature and ask: Could another organization sign this. Could this be from another organization in our cause area? If either makes you squirm, you know your next edit. If you want permission to get support, send me a message. I'm here. now if you want to claim one of those five tear down spots, go to splendidcourses.com/teardown. If you're thinking though, I don't want one review. I want somebody with me building the whole fundraising campaign, not just year end, but in Q1 when it's tough, or in Q2 when we do our signature event or campaign. That's the work we do inside the club. That team I told you about in the beginning, that's where they are. I can't wait for their Q1 because we have some amazing sprint campaigns and retention campaigns planned. You can always go to splendidcourses.com forward slash apply for details about that. All right, you guys, go put your heart, your energy into your year end campaign. Do. Do not just set it on autopilot and do the same thing you've been doing year after year after year. I'll see you next time.