There is a need for formal pieces. They introduce you to an audience you don’t really know yet. I learned a lot about formal pieces as the first ever Director of Communications at Chatham Hall. Chatham Hall does things well. It was the perfect place to perfect the formal piece.
Here are the Five Steps to a perfect Formal Communication I learned at Chatham Hall:
Pass the text through multiple editors and proofers. Everything must be grammatically correct and perfectly punctuated. (There’s a danger here that it will become too vanilla. So try to maintain a voice.)
Choose pictures carefully. They should tell the story. They must be crisp and clear.
Tell your story through headlines, photo captions and quotes that are pulled out and highlighted.
Use bold type or color to highlight the main ideas. Lead the reader through your main points with bold type.
Use white space to direct readers’ eyes to the text. Keep your piece clean, crisp, and concise.
Formal pieces serve an important purpose. They introduce your organization to a broad audience. They are beautiful. They are perfect. They win awards. Think about those potential in-laws again. You want them saying, “Good choice.”
But we all know it’s the informal pieces that win hearts.
Here are Six Steps to an effective Informal Communication:
As a Director of Communications be involved in your organization. Observe each function. Watch for stories.
Keep your audiences in mind. At Chatham Hall, I would attend chapel or a track meet, an assembly or a play thinking about what would mom want to know, or grandma, prospective families, alumni, donors, or the community want to know. I watch for ways to present the stories to each group.
I segmented email lists, so I could target each group with stories that would interest them.
I wrote from the heart. I did my best to be grammatically correct, but no proofers for these communications. This needed to sound real rather than perfect.
I kept my vignettes short. One message. One voice
These communications were clearly authentic. They weren’t perfect, but they were heartfelt.
The response was overwhelming. Readers were engaged. We corresponded. We connected. My job was to win hearts for Chatham Hall and I did.
You will, too.
Make the formal pieces perfect and polished, and eye-catching.
But the genuine connection, the real relationships will come from your authentic voice speaking from your heart about topics that matter to that particular audience. You are making friends for your organization – hopefully forever friends.
Board members are absolutely key. Many grants will ask for a list of your board members. A number of grantors will ask about what percentage of the board financially supports your mission. They want the answer to be 100%. I always tell my board members, “If we don’t care enough about what we are doing to support it financially, why should anyone else?” It is important that they like and respect you. It is equally important that they all give at leadership levels – whatever that means for each person. (We have materials to help board members learn about their proper role in governance and giving.) Board members will ideally be people of influence. They should be respected by your community. They should be people that others turn to say, “What do you think?”
Recruit at least three – five additional people to serve on a Development Committee. They will be in training to see if they are a good fit for future board members. They will serve as your right hands in hosting small events that introduce people to your organization and writing thank you notes. (Yes, it takes time to recruit and train them, but it will save you time in the long run.)
Use social media. Assemble a team of On-line Ambassadors – folks who agree to like, comment, and share your social media outreach and who will link back to your website from their social media. It seems so simple but it moves you up in SEO and keeps you in the news feeds longer so you can reach more people. You can ask them to watch for posts from others where they can draw attention to your organization in the comments – like, “I know an organization that helps with this. Check out their website.”
Now, you have a core group that will help you share your stories. You want ways to share the stories of lives changed. You need stories, and you need people to share the stories with. You need contact information, so you are able to share the stories. You will need names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails and if possible the relationship to someone connected to the organization.)
A sampling of ways to engage prospects:
a. Invite businesses that are interested in your mission or benefit from it to come for a tour or observe your organization in action Be sure to collect contact information from the attendees. Send emails or notes thanking them for coming. Add them to your newsletter and appeal lists.
b. Have Board members and Development Committee members host small coffees, where they invite 4-8 people they think may be interested in your mission. In addition to light refreshments, have a brief PowerPoint or video or talk outlining what is special about your program – include brief stories of lives changed. If you have collateral marketing material, hand it out. Be sure to collect contact information. Have committee members follow up with a phone call, asking attendees for feedback and if they would like to get involved in any way – such as volunteering or donating, and do they know anyone else, who might be interested.
You’ve collected contact information for prospective donors, now what?
a. Consider sending a newsletter two times per year. Share stories of lives changed with a focus on the role of donor support. Tell about a program expanded and the difference that made for a life. Include a donor profile in each newsletter. Telling the story of the donor and their words for why they give. Keep it personal. Lives saved. Understanding gained. Community improved.
b. Mail out an appeal with a response card and envelope to everyone in your data base in the spring and in the fall. Focus the appeal on the difference donors make in lives. You can do electronic appeals at the same time. Keep in mind that in-person asks get 64 times more gifts than either written or electronic asks. So make personal asks of potential larger donors.c.Enlist a well-respected board member to help you solicit the rest of the board.
c. Have your board members and development committee members divide up the names of donors and see that each donor is thanked in writing as quickly as possible – within 48 hours if possible. Call each donor who gives more than $250 the day the gift is received.
d. Once a year, have the Development Committee host a thank you gathering for all donors. Display pictures related to your mission. Have light refreshments. Consider having 3 very brief testimonials from people who understand the power of your work.
e. Have a Thank-a-thon where Board and Development Committee members use a script to call donors and thank them. Usually, they will leave a message.
f. Thank yous from people who benefitted or closely observed the benefit are particularly powerful.
Not so many years ago, Stephen Covey was telling us to, “Seek First to Understand.” Today, many nonprofit experts are echoing that with Listen First.
There are good reasons for this excellent advice.
First, as you listen to your current donors whether it’s on the phone, video chatting or in person at a safe social distance, you learn what attracted them to your organization, what part of your mission touches their heart. Knowing what matters to them, you know what stories to share; you tell those things that reflect their interests. Let them know their investment is paying off in ways that are meaningful to them, and they will be more likely to keep investing.
Part of listening, too, is hearing what does NOT matter to them. It is knowing how they prefer to communicate and how often. Do they want texts, emails, phone calls, or visits? Are they following your social media? Do they want weekly updates or a letter twice a year? It’s knowing if they are moved by stories or by data. It’s knowing who they want to hear from. Do they want to hear from someone who directly benefitted, a favorite staff member, a board member or a senior administrator? Would they enjoy being on a committee, sharing their own expertise, becoming a volunteer or in healthier times, hosting a small gathering to thank fellow donors or introduce your mission to their friends. Store this information in your data base. So you honor their wishes and their interests later.
For prospective donors, listen for things you have in common. If you connect personally, they are more likely to take time to listen to your organization’s story. Pay attention for their interests. Your organization’s mission may not interest them. In that case, your time will have greater benefit for the organization spent with someone who is interested.
Of course, you may hear strong interest. Then how do you engage them? Listen to the language they use. Mirror it. If they talk about fairness, then describe ways your mission builds fairness. If they talk about kindness, share acts of kindness your mission engenders. Listen for their values, their beliefs and their trusted sources for information. Let those help frame your story as you share with them. Ask if you may get back in touch again later. When you return to the office note what you’ve learned in your data base, so you can continue to frame your communications in ways that recognize your shared values.
When it’s your turn to share, continue to focus on them. Make their interests central as you share the good your organization is working to accomplish. If you’re are visiting in person or video chatting, Watch their reactions. Watch body language and facial cues. If their eyes light up, continue in that vein. Ask for feedback. But, if their eyes are wandering, or they are glancing at their watch, or if you’re on the phone and there are long pauses or sighs or sounds that indicate they are ready to move on, wrap it up, and thank them for their time.
As a Director of Development, I quickly learned that I wasn’t asking people for money. I was giving good folks a chance to be part of something that mattered to them. It changed the conversation.
When I met with new prospects, we would have a friendly chat. I shared a little bit about myself and the mission of the organization I represented, but mostly I listened. What did this person care about? What mattered to them? If our mission mattered to them, then I knew that they might enjoy knowing more about what we did and about how they might help. If our mission didn’t share any touch points with what mattered to them, I might still know of ways to “do good’ that might interest them. I could share those.
Just as important, as learning where the person before me might connect with the organization, was learning who they were as a person. Did the love to travel, hate mushrooms, adore their cat, worry about their oldest child, hold deep religious convictions – or not. All these things would help me show that I cared about them as a person – not just as a pocketbook.
One thing we all have in common, whether we live paycheck to paycheck, have a huge trust fund, or hope a nonprofit can help us find a place to sleep tonight, is that we want to feel valued and understood. We all want to be recognized for who we are – not just because we are pretty or rich or in a wheel chair or struggling to feed our kids. Valued. Understood. Noticed. Heard.
Listening. It’s an art.
Erich Fromm, noted social psychologist, share six steps to mastering this skill in his book, “The Art of Listening.”
The basic rule for practicing this art is the complete concentration of the listener.
Nothing of importance must be on his mind, he must be optimally free from anxiety as well as from greed.
He must possess a freely-working imagination which is sufficiently concrete to be expressed in words.
He must be endowed with a capacity for empathy with another person and strong enough to feel the experience of the other as if it were his own.
The condition for such empathy is a crucial facet of the capacity for love.
To understand another means to love him — not in the erotic sense but in the sense of reaching out to him and of overcoming the fear of losing oneself.
Listening is an art that will pay off in strong relationships and deep support,
