Solicitation Season II:
The Readers Contribute Some More Do's and Don'ts (Thanks Readers!)
1. In the first post on the topic of effective solicitation, the do's and the don'ts, I mentioned how important it is not to insult the intelligence of your potential donor. Well, add do not insult the charitable causes of your donors either by telling them that your cause is more important than their pet cause. Just make a case for your organization.
--> It seems that an anonymous poster and I received the same massive mailing that included statements from prominent Rabbis telling the recipient to send his tzedakah money elsewhere. While I don't mind an honest discussion about priorities in giving I want to be inspired by your cause and make it my priority.
2. Do use proper spelling and grammar, especially if you claim to be an educational institution.
-->True story: I once let an organization know that they had made 6 grammatical mistakes in their mailing and that I would be more than happy to offer my services and proof their mailings before they went out, as I considered one of their programs to be quite worthy. The lady told me that nobody in the office noted any mistakes, so there must not be a problem.
3. Do let the donor know a basic breakdown of expenses as donors want to know that their money is headed to those who need it, not getting caught up in an administrative bureaucracy. No prospectus is needed. A brief statement, or a reference to the appropriate website should suffice.
--> I just received a very nice newsletter from an educational institution that included a breakdown of income and expenses, complete with visual graphs, a nice touch. I was particularly impressed how few funds were spent on development and administration. This institution really hit the nail on the head with their mailing and it was impressive.
4. Do deposit checks timely.
5. Do not insult your audience's religious level. (!)
13 comments:
Great and comprehensive posts. I wish we could get these messages out to a greater audience. Any suggestions?
You would have to read those requests more carefully than most people do, I think, to notice these things. We give large and regular amounts to a few causes close to our heart, and a symbolic donation to any other cause we feel is worthy. Most organizations here solicit by phone.
I agree with you 100%. Good series!
Great and comprehensive posts. I wish we could get these messages out to a greater audience. Any suggestions?
JH--Keep blogging and speak up when you can. I don't know what else to say.
You would have to read those requests more carefully than most people do, I think, to notice these things.
Mom in Israel-I definitely do read things more carefully. Lately I have taken a big interest in the other side of business: the human end. As is evident in my blog, I'm a numbers person. The business classes I was required to take in college that involved the human side were difficult for me. But, now I've taken an interest in the whole pictures, and since Jewish causes are my interest, I like to spend time analyzing things I care about.
Incidently, we also tend to give to a handful of (local) causes, even when they fail on the marketing end.
Simple Jew-Welcome. Hope you will visit and contribute.
I agree with you about depositing checks in a timely manner. I've had checks wait over 6 months before they were deposited!
Also, here in Baltimore, we have an organization called Ahavas Yisrael that proudly (and right so!) boasts that 98 cents of every dollar goes right to the poor. They have little overhead, and frankly, they're local, so they get a good chunk of our maaser money.
"The lady told me that nobody in the office noted any mistakes, so their must not be a problem."
shouldn't that be 'so THERE must not be a problem'?
Ironic, no?
;-)
Not only as the previous commentor noted, but also:
"No prospectus is needs."
Should be "No prospectus is needed," right?
And you have a lot of company with this one:
"I was particularly impressed how little funds were spent on development and administration."
I think it should be "how few funds were" or "how little money was".
This mistake is usually made with less/fewer, and it is very easy to make a mistake given our English language's wonderful exceptions!
Fewer is used with "counting nouns" and less is used with "noncounting nouns".
Even though we talk about counting money, we really mean counting dollars, or other monetary units. So it's "less money" and "fewer dollars".
"Funds" is funny, in that you'd never think to count funds in this context, and it really is almost interchangable with "money" in your quote, except for the tense of your linking verb, were/was.
If you can pluralize the word, its generally a "counting noun", so I think it should be "fewer funds".
Even money! It would be less money, but fewer monies.
Less batter, less cake, fewer pieces, less clean up. :)
"If you can pluralize the word, its generally a "counting noun", so I think it should be "fewer funds"."
Frmrexecdir:
In your comment, "its" should have an apostrophe because it's short for "it is." People often incorrectly add an apostrophe when "its" is used to mean "belonging to it."
I'm going back to my cooking. Shana tova.
Thanks for the grammatical comments everyone. I actually do have skills in this area, but failed to proof my post before heading to bed. I have now proofed it, but I am half asleep. Maybe I will post someday about this week, because it has been wildly exhausting.
Anyways, I've made the corrections and want to wish everyone a L'Shanah Tovah.
And Mom in Israel--At least you have started cooking. ;) I am sitting in a lump on my chair and have no idea if we will actually have food for tomorrow night. I ended up buying a bunch of fresh fruits just in case.
Can't be too lazy with teenagers in the house. Well, you have seven hours on us.
I hoped someone would catch that! :)
Shanah Tova
Just something interesting Fmrm Exec Dir. Some do not like the use of the word monies, although I personally have no issues with it. At my old comany, we were told not to use monies in our workpapers or audit reports.
I personally like using the term monies and I believe we used it in college. So, this is an area I fail to understand.
SephardLady's typos actually serve to illustrate her point further. She writes a blog quickly on her way to bed, for which the purpose is to share some ideaas with whoever is interested. Sending out material that appears to have been thrown together quickly before bedtime is not going to achieve the purpose of getting people to donate money to your cause.
My comment on the original post also included writing in English. I didn't only mean the technical grammar (thought this is important), but even just using normal words and sentence structure. People can tell the difference between an inadvertant typo and a letter that is poorly written.
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