This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Fundraising, Hiring Consultants, Nonprofit Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Nonprofit Communications
Written for do-it-yourself nonprofit marketers and one-person nonprofit communications departments.
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Why I Don’t Write Grant Applications or Direct Appeals
Jeff Brooks at Donor Power Blog is looking for posts on what’s good or bad about fundraising for next week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants. Here’s what’s bad about fundraising from my perspective as a nonprofit marketing and communications consultant.
These are the three reasons that I nearly always turn down requests to write grant applications and direct appeal letters (although I gladly do supporting materials like case statements and donor newsletters).
1) Nonprofits blame you, the grant writer, if they don’t get the funding, even if their project is really weak or they are applying to the wrong funding source. Even a beautifully written grant application can’t turn a lousy project into a winner, nor can it convince a project officer to fund you if the project is outside her area of interest.
2) It’s boring. I find writing grant applications, especially those for government agency grants, really boring. You usually have to follow a specific format and play to certain buzzwords and criteria, which can force you to talk about the project in unnatural ways, while also draining the really interesting points and creative storytelling out of the package.
3) I don’t want to keep up with the latest and greatest in direct mail marketing. With all the various metrics out there for direct mail these days, and the mix of art and science that direct mail marketing has become, it’s now a really specialized segment of the field, and it’s not one I’m interested in keeping up with. Maybe this is just a perception perpetuated by fundraising consultants who don’t want to share clients with those of us who focus more on general communications and marketing, but it’s working on me.
I’m sure there are people who love, love, love writing direct appeal copy and grant applications, but I’m not one of them. If you are, tell me what I’m missing by leaving a comment.
One Response to “Why I Don’t Write Grant Applications or Direct Appeals”
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September 27th, 2007 at 10:53 am
In response to the first direct mail appeal I wrote, I recieved a letter from a donor who said, “Your story made me cry! I’m enclosing a $100 check.” Wow.
For me, direct mail fundraising is the perfect blend of science and art. I love crafting stories that can evoke emotions so strong that a person you’ve never met writes a check for an intangible “product”. Plus, there is an exact way to measure its effectiveness.
I’ve written for a variety of audiences including radio and academia, but nothing comes close to the three-fold satisfaction of enjoying crafting the appeal, engaging the donor in the story to the point where they are moved to send in a check, and the good work that is made possible by that donation.
Now government grants…that’s another story…