How to Make a Good Fundraising Offer
OFFERS always come before tactics and channels. They need to be powerful, urgent, and tangible. These offers are boiled down examples of your value proposition, paired with a tangible, achievable ask.
But, how do you develop a new offer?
The first part of the process is pulling together your marketing, programs, accounting, and legal teams to develop an offer that is compelling and tangible. If each department is not on board you’ll be done before you start. This often takes patience and structured dialogue, as every department approaches the concept from a different perspective. Listen more, talk less. If you are breaking new ground don’t expect this to be solved in one meeting. It’s going to take a few weeks and maybe longer if you are an international organization that needs to communicate and verify with the field.
The goal of these meetings is to bring out the key to any compelling offer, specificity. This is the action or item that the donor is paying for. It should be “photographable,” meaning, if you can’t take a picture of it, you don’t have a strong offer.
Specificity is supported by three pillars: cost, impact, and urgency:
Cost is the dollar handle: “Your gift of $15 provides a vaccination for 1 child.”
Impact is the demonstration of organizational efficiency. “Because these vaccinations are donated, your gift multiplies 22 times in impact.”
Urgency is why you need to give now versus later (because later equals never). This can be a deadline, a goal, or a negative consequence of failure to respond.
Take time to develop and map out each of these pillars. Each one should be simple to explain, but include enough detail to be convincing. Don’t fall into the “information overload” trap. Your donors are drowning in information, what they really want is to have faith in your organization to get the job done.
By following this process, you strip away industry jargon and distraction, leaving a compelling offer that resonates with the donor while also supporting your current fundraising needs. Word of advice, never invent a program to support an offer, develop an offer to support your current program!