I subscribe to the idea that we don’t need to convince anyone. We don’t need to educate anyone. We need to make it easier for people who are already convinced – who are already educated – to find us. And then we need to give...
When they decide to give to conservation work, does your land trust come to mind? (Mentally available) And can they easily find an envelope, QR code, or website donation page? (Physically available) This is why we talk about including plain response envelopes in newsletters and...
If statements like these represent the WHY of what we’re doing, and we attract people who believe what we believe by leading with the WHY, how are we using our organizational guiding principles to discover new supporters?...
Typed communication is rarely read linearly. Recipients read the first line, then skip to the PS Note, scanning the paragraphs in between for things that catch their eye. Handwritten letters are read from start to finish, allowing you as the writer to lay out your...
We should be aiming our communications, and especially our donor communications, at current donors in their 50s, 60s, and 70s – the donors we actually HAVE instead of the donors we think we WANT....
We ask our communications and engagement events to help educate people about the importance of conservation work. But we don’t ask our communications to help donors talk about conservation and the need for conservation investors....
I think the first step would be to recognize organizational donors as an important audience for your communications. This audience needs messaging and media that helps them understand clearly that their gifts were valued. That they made a difference. ...
Charity A’s letters remind them of what they gave last year and ask them to give a little more this year, even specifying a target amount. How does the land trust’s renewal and appeal letters compare? And how much is each organization receiving from them...
22 October 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation If we could change our collective thinking in just one way, we would all raise more money – and not by just a little bit. That shift in thinking goes like this: Donors give because they want to. It sounds simple...
24 September 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Note: It's Rally Week - [Will I see you in Providence?] - and I am reposting this from March of 2022. If there is one word in land trust language that would benefit the most from tighter definition, it’s...