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...
9 April 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Last year in December, I wrote a blog post about how land trusts might be able to get younger. The post seemed to resonate and was even picked up in the most recent issue of the Alliance’s Saving...
6 February 2024 By David Allen, Development for Conservation Some ten years ago or so, the keynote speaker for Rally was Andy Goodman and his topic was story-telling. His basic message was that we all need to be in the group of people who communicate all the...
22 August 2023 By David Allen, Development for Conservation I was amused recently by another Vu Le blog post. It was written in response to an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (Why I Stopped Donating to Your Organization), written from the perspective of a donor, in...