Framing Your Message Better May Help Your Fund Raising Campaigns

Framing messages with the right information is important to communicating well. There’s no doubt about it in my mind. Say the wrong thing, you get the wrong response. That’s particularly true in fund raising.

The Center on Philanthropy report, Indiana Gives 2004, cites three significant themes that motivate people to give:

1. Feeling that those who have more should help those with less.
2. Helping individuals meet their material needs.
3. Religious beliefs.

In a new study released in December, The Center reports “about six in 10 U.S. households contribute to charity routinely, according new findings from the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) released today by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.” And the average gift is just over $2000.

That’s a substantial amount of money, but you need to effectively use the themes above to create targeted message points in a communication plan. These points become the genesis of future news releases, public service announcements and other tactics your fund raising campaign lends itself to.

For example, in a communication plan my graduate team drafted for our client, I wrote the following PSA, which weaved and framed the first two themes into a tapestry of advertising copy:

THE GREATEST GENERATION BORE THE HARDSHIP OF THE DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II. THEY HAVE BEEN THE BACKBONE OF POLL WORKERS FOR MANY YEARS – STEPPING TO THE FRONT LINES EVERY ELECTION DAY TO MANAGE OUR DEMOCRACY IN ACTION. NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. BE THE NEW GUARDIANS OF DEMOCRACY. DONATE YOUR TIME TO BEING A POLL WORKER. CALL YOUR LOCAL COUNTY ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR FOR MORE DETAILS, OR THE INDIANA SECRETARY OF STATE’S OFFICE AT 317-232-6513.

Encouraging donors to continue giving is vital to raising a steady stream of money, but giving among families was sporadic at best, reports the Center. “Finding that a sizeable portion of people who give in one year do not make any gifts at all the following year opens the door to greater understanding of the factors that influence people’s giving, and what causes those behaviors to change." said Eugene R. Tempel, executive director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

What’s interesting is that behaviors change slowly, their sway almost glacial. The key to sustained giving is creating messages from the themes above. Weaving them into stories and using metaphors that people are familiar with adds emotion and power to whatever copy you’re writing.

NOTE: My PSA is different from advertising copy you might write for fund raising. It's only meant to show how to effectively weave metaphors into copy.