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Your Fundraising Annual Appeal Letters Need A Villian
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By Alan Sharpe
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Anger is one of the best emotions that you can arouse in adonor. Anger is a healthy emotion, particularly when yourfundraising letter offers donors a way to assuage their anger."Individuals are more prone to respond to a genuine feeling ofanger than to any other emotion," says Roland Kiniholm in hisbook, Maximum Gifts by Return Mail.
To make your donors angry, you need a villain. Villains aregood. They help you focus your donors' attention on one problemthat needs fixing. That villain can be a person or a problem.
My advice is that you never name a particular person as yourvillain, since doing so is not very charitable, excuse the pun.Plus, you might get sued for defamation of character or slander.Instead, you should attack the catastrophe that the villain hascreated, or simply make the catastrophe the villain.
* Mothers Against Drunk Driving has a villain: drunk driving(not drunken drivers)
* The Coalition Against Gun Violence has a villain: gun violence(not gun owners)
* Oxfam has a villain: poverty (not the wealthy)
* Habitat for Humanity has a villain: unaffordable housing (notlandlords)
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the United States lastweek. The response by the US federal government to the plight oftens of thousands of refugees stranded in New Orleans was soslow that hundreds likely perished. For days, we saw the imageson our television screens of stranded citizens dying in NewOrleans while help tarried.
In your fundraising letter to raise funds for these hurricanevictims, you could name President Bush as your villain. Youcould blame the plight of the displaced people on FederalEmergency Management Agency director Michael Brown, who many aresaying is responsible for the delays that caused so many deaths.Or you could blame the mayor of New Orleans. But these attackswould sound unkind. And painting any of these men as the villainright now would be premature.
Instead, a successful appeal letter would paint the hurricane asthe villain. Or point the finger at the flooding as the villain.
Your fundraising campaign can have a villain and still bepositive. The Red Cross, for example, is running a fundraisingcampaign right now with this theme: Hope is Stronger than aHurricane. There's only one thing wrong with that theme. Ididn't think of it.
If you want to stir up one of the strongest human emotions toyour advantage, chose a villain that your donors can get angryat. Then show how your non-profit organization can alleviatethat anger by eliminating (or, more realistically, weakening)that villain.
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