Direct mail envelopes–five ideas for nonprofit fundraising

(Another stellar guest post from nonprofit fund raising expert Rick Schwartz!)

My family usually shops for groceries with canvas bags that I pick up at conferences. But every third or fourth week we ask the checkout clerk to use paper bags instead, so we can use them to recycle newspapers, my son’s homework assignments, and about 99.5% of the direct mail we get, unopened.

A good half of my direct mail is from nonprofits and, even in my modestly generous home, nine out of 10 new appeals go unopened into the recycling bag.

I hate to say it, but yours may have been one of them. Too bad. With very little cost, effort, and imagination, you could have gotten me to at least open the envelope. Then who knows what might have happened!

Your first competitor is indifference

So says branding expert Harry Beckwith. A boring envelope signals boring contents. Sadly, experience has proven that true. Just one more lackluster appeal for money. Do you open those letters at your house? Me neither.

Remember, direct mail is a science, not an art. As such, marketers test everything about an envelope:

• color and quality of paper
• shape and size of envelope
• postage stamp or bulk mail indicia (Herschell Gordon Lewis, Direct Mail Copy That Sells, recommends a postage meter)
• “teaser” (Robert Bly, The Copywriter’s Handbook, says “no teaser” unless it’s really good)
• typeface (gotten any ‘hand-addressed’ mail yet?)

Truth is, some methods work until consumers catch on to them. Then direct mail marketers have to find something new. Here are five ideas gleaned from real appeals I’ve received that made me at least stop and think. Most of these should fit into reasonable budgets; you just have to print the envelope.

Hey, I get something for free (benefits)

Some effective envelopes appeal to most people’s desire to get some kind of benefit (other than moral) from giving to your organization. You do have stuff to offer: maps of great hiking trails, 10 tips on choosing a doctor, note cards, a down-to-earth explanation of charitable giving. No, you’re not selling your soul to the devil by “selling” your nonprofit.

Words you might find yourself using: “free” and “enclosed”. Robert Bly suggests you include something that can be felt in the envelope. It doesn’t have to be expensive, something like a calendar magnet. (Be aware that some studies show that giveaways like tote bags and stuffed animals lead only to short, superficial relationships.)

What the heck’s in the envelope? (curiosity)

Some envelopes raise questions whose answers you must know, but can only find inside. Two examples from Planned Parenthood include envelope copy that reads: “They’re coming after our organization with everything they’ve got” and “More unintended pregnancies in 6 easy steps.” Another organization touts a curiosity-arousing “ultimate offer” on its envelope.

I’m special (exclusivity)

Making donors feel they are part of an elite group leads directly to the largest gifts (in many cases). Herschell Gordon Lewis says four words work here: “private”, “advance”, “invitation”, and “exclusive”.  Recently, the Smithsonian sent me something announcing on the envelope that I was one of a few select readers in my state to be chosen to complete a survey. (The envelope is pictured above.) Other appeal envelopes I receive come from celebrities or luminaries who sign their names in the return address slot. Another envelope told me” “We’re not for everyone, but then, maybe you’re not everyone.”

Uh, oh! (fear)

It’s sometimes powerful to call attention to a looming threat. Examples include an envelope bearing the message “A gathering storm of anti-Jewish hate” or one warning that “The religious right wants to change the way you live.”

To dream the impossible dream! (a call to arms)

Nonprofits should excel at enthusiastically stating the essential challenge. That’s what makes the boring envelopes above so unforgivable. Tell the prospective supporter what he or she is fighting for. Real-life examples include envelopes with the following printed messages: ” It’s one of the most powerful and dangerous initiation rights imaginable–and every day more than 5,000 girls are at risk” or “94 million American children with no health care; zero has been done to stop global warming; 155,000 US troops stuck in Iraq—49 US senators are behind it all.”

I’m so embarrassed (guilt)
Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving. I know LOTS of nonprofit folks who truly believe that everybody who is not supporting their cause should feel guilty. I almost always find that the nonprofit just hasn’t made its case well. That said, guilt can be used in strange ways. One example is a photo envelope of a mother polar bear and two vulnerable cubs with the headline “Please help.”

A few other ideas
Other effective envelopes I’ve seen:

• blank except for the recipient’s handwritten address
• a personal note (in real ink) on the envelope
• way oversized envelopes

Your turn
There’s very little about envelope ideas above that you can’t tailor and re-create economically for your nonprofit of almost any size. Follow these steps:

• Know the dramatic selling points of your cause
• Package the information your nonprofit can share
• Understand the motivations of your donors
• Save sample envelopes you love (and hate)
• Test ideas on your friends and family. Don’t give them more than four seconds to look at the envelope.
• Devote the time and resources necessary to make the envelope work.

Thanks, Rick!

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Own the Room–Some great presentation advice

flickr/constantly-Jair

Lots of us tend to underestimate the potential ROI from a great presentation. If we absolutely have to do one, we default to PowerPoint and spend as little time as possible in development and preparation. Other communications tactics we’re working on are considered much higher priority.

Yet, most of us know that face-to-face communication is the top rung on the ladder when it comes to effectiveness. Mobile is awesome, but human beings still like to communicate in person. Think about that the next time you (reluctantly?) agree to make a presentation. Spend as much time as you need to ensure the desired effect. And, of course, the first step to that end is knowing what that desired effect is—ah yes, back to strategy. Set a goal for your presentation, just like you do with other tactics, so you’ll have some way to recognize whether you’ve succeeded.

I’m going to share some great advice from a new book called Own the Room, written by three experts on business presentations. It’s packed with good sense about strategy and useful how-to’s, but I’m going to focus on one aspect of the book—openings.

The best way to lose your audience in the crucial first 60 seconds of a presentation is to use a traditional, polite but dull opening aimed at everybody (and nobody). You know the kind: “Good morning. I’m Patricia Smith from the blah-blah organization. I’m delighted to be here this morning, and grateful to have this opportunity to talk to you about…..”

Everyone’s already looking at email on their phones or twittering that another lifeless speech has begun. Your opening has to get the audiences’ attention, and interest them enough in what you’re saying so they’ll stay tuned. As the authors point out, our brains are wired to pay attention to novelty and surprise–so use that knowledge. Be unpredictable—skip the tedious introductions and shake things up a little. Engage your listeners from the minute you open your mouth.

Here are three suggestions from the book about how to just that.

Ask a counterintuitive question

People may believe they know the right answer, but you then show them what the real truth is in a way that starts to frame the rest of your talk. The example given in the book is: “China has a history of disregarding copyrights. Of all the products whose copyrights are infringed where do you think the most violations are found?” Most people say movies or CDs. But you point out: “The number one copyright infringement in China involves Prozac.” From this opening you can move into the theme of your talk (trade, legal issues, depression, etc.) knowing you’ve gotten your audiences’ attention through surprise.

Make an attention getting statement

The example given is “Attractive people are more persuasive than average-looking people. How does this affect your business?” Again, from this opening you can segue into ways to level the playing field, aspects of persuasive speaking, etc. But you’ve gotten everyone to start thinking about how they fit into the attractiveness spectrum, and that engages them in your real topic.

Tell a personal story

Use the first few minutes to tell the audience something surprising or novel about yourself. Demonstrate why you’re passionate about your topic through a personal anecdote. Make it riveting, and full of visual details that help them see what you’re describing. People far prefer to hear a story rather than a lecture. Usually, we also find such stories more believable and memorable.

When using each of these techniques, the authors urge that you tailor your presentation to your audience. Generic openings don’t connect with anyone. To do that, you need to provide personal experiences, stories, concepts, or ideas in enough detail to make them interesting and relevant to listeners’ own experiences. Signal immediately that you know your audiences’ needs and expectations.

They also suggest that you reveal your personal values. Become a human being to your listeners, not just a speaker. (If that means revealing a small weakness they can identify with, go ahead.) Give them a window to your thoughts and feelings. If listeners feel like they know you, they are more likely to believe you.

And finally, the book encourages you to present your point of view on the subject. This helps your audience quickly understand your intention, context, and passion. The authors recommend that you picture your listeners with remote controls in their hands. Your job in the first few minutes is to keep them from flipping channels. Examples of a few great (and instructive) openings are included in the book.

Developing and preparing for a presentation—including one for a videoconference or YouTube—is a great opportunity to put all your communications wisdom to work. This book can help, as can many other books, blogs, and websites. Take the time to learn all you can about how to do good presentations. Your audiences will thank you!

CC photo credit: constantly-Jair

Own the Room is by David Booth, Deborah Shames, and Peter Desberg. I received a complimentary copy.

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Communications audit: Step three—your digital identity

flickr/krazydad/jbum

In the past two weeks I’ve taken you through the major steps in conducting a communications audit, but we’re not quite done. Do keep in mind—this entire audit is set against the backdrop of your current strategic communications plan to help you assess how effectively you’re reaching your goals.

This week I’ll cover the final two steps of an audit—your digital identity and a competition analysis.

As part of your review of the communications you produce (part one of the audit), you’ve already analyzed your current social media platforms, including ROI. Now, you’re going to take a little different approach to how your organization is represented online: piecing together your digital identity.

Your Digital Identity

Whether you know it (or like it), your organization is being talked about and judged all the time. Word-of-mouth can be the most powerful form of communication going today, so you need to know what’s being said and thought about your nonprofit and its work.

The good news is, Web 2.0 has made it much easier and cheaper to track that kind of information. Many of you already have organizational listening strategies that continuously monitor online conversations. That’s important. But for this audit exercise, inspired by Nancy White’s in-depth work with digital identities, you’re going to do online searches while pretending to be these three people:

• a potential donor
• a potential employee
• a member of the media

1) Do a Google search for for your organization, including any possible abbreviations or acronyms. Read every search result-–first from the viewpoint of a donor, second from the viewpoint of a potential employee, and third from the viewpoint of a media representative. For each persona, make note of anything good about your organization that’s highlighted (and where) and more importantly, anything negative or that might raise confusing or troubling questions. Also, generally, make note of opportunities. For instance, if you run across a listing that includes your organization that you didn’t know about, don’t waste any chance you have to submit better profile information.

2) Do this same search exercise for your executive director and board chair. Does your executive director and/or board chair have a Google profile? If not, create one.

3) Do a Google image search for your organization, executive director, and board chair. Know what images are out there possibly representing you.

3) Do searches for your organization, executive director, and board chair on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, del.icio.us, flickr, and YouTube. Pay attention to what messages your avatars, photos, and videos send to these three personae, as well as what content, links, comments, and rankings convey. Note anything that could be harmful to your nonprofit’s reputation. You don’t control online conversation, but you need to know what’s being said so you can consider what kind of action might be taken to help correct misperceptions or end dissatisfactions. Be prepared—some problems may go deeper than communications to involve aspects of your programs. If there is nothing or very little being said about you on these platforms, you need to think about that, too. Is that a good thing or a bad thing vis a vis your communications plan?

4) Do searches for your organization on popular charity Web sites and directories: what information is being shared? Are you being rated? If so, what are the results? Are you missing from sites where you should be included? Here are a few sites to get you started: CharityNavigator, Guidestar, CharityGuide, InsideGood, GreatNonprofits,and Idealist.

When you’ve finished these inquires, you’ll have a better sense of what potential donors and employees, as well as reporters can (and will) find out about you online. If  you discover significant problems with your current digital identity—especially inaccuracies—address them right away. Also make note of opportunities to better represent your organization online. Those should be woven into your new strategic plan.

Competition Analysis

There’s one more piece to a communication audit that I highly recommend for nonprofits and foundations–a competition (or peer) analysis. Find out how to do one in my post from a few months ago. Be sure to include social media platforms in your review—not just websites and publications.

In coming weeks, I’ll talk about the nuts and bolts of crafting a new strategic communications plan for your organization. But rest assured, if you’ve done the audit—you’re miles ahead in understanding which of your communications need to be changed or discontinued.

CC photo credit: krazydad/jbum

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First step in strategic communications planning: Communications audits

flickr/joebeone

If I had one piece of advice to give any foundation or nonprofit communicator in this new financial paradigm of thrift, it would be to develop a strategic communications plan. It may be your biggest conservation tool. If you already have a plan, the second half of the year is a good time to revisit it for fine-tuning or mid-course corrections

Some people quake in their boots at the words “strategic plan.” The trick is doing it step by step, and not rushing to tactics. If you spend 75 % of your time getting strategy right, you’ll only need to spend 25% of your time figuring out tactics—because they grow organically out of your strategy.

For this series of posts, I’m assuming you don’t have money hire a firm or an external consultant to help you with a plan, but you still want to do as much as you can internally to improve the effectiveness of your communications. I’ll try to keep my advice realistic and doable.

This week, I’m going to talk about the first step in the process—communications audits.

If you’re planning on redecorating your house, you don’t just go out one day and buy paint and furniture willy-nilly. You first look around and see what you already have. That helps you develop a vision for what you want, and exposes what needs to be changed.

That’s what communications audits do. You need to know where you are to figure out where you want to go next and how best to get there. Audits assess your current communications practices and products, and highlight areas that need improvement. There are lots of ways of doing them, but I’m paring it down to what I think can help you the most and not overwhelm you. (But it will take an investment of your time. No way around that.)

Make a list

You’re going to be gathering and analyzing all of the communications you currently produce. So, the first thing to do is make a list of them all—from your Facebook page to your annual report, from grantee announcement letters to the voicemail message on your organization’s main telephone line, from the signatures on your emails to donor thank you cards.

Don’t think just in terms of print or written communications—include all your digital communications and social media platforms as well. Even include your signature special events and small group meetings if they’re important communications tactics with external audiences.

What you’re trying to get from this audit is a complete picture of the panorama of communications tactics you’re currently using, and a sense of the cost/effectiveness for each.

Once you have this list, add some details for each item (create a grid):

• Time frame  (e.g., annual report—March; enewsletters—Jan, April, August, Nov.)
• Audience/Purpose (who you’re trying to reach and what you want them to do after receiving your communication)
• Reach (e.g. how many publications are printed and distributed/how many you have left in your storeroom; how many facebook fans you have; how many people receive your email newsletters; how many twitter followers; web visitors, etc.)
• Cost (real cost, not what you budgeted)
• Staff time (note whether staff time investment in this communication is intensive, moderate, or small)
• Any known return on investment/ROI  (through your strategic planning you’re going to get better at measuring this, but put down anything you know right now—total donations through facebook page, results of reader surveys for major publications, how many website downloads, etc. What you’re trying to discover is which communications best lead to people taking the action you wanted them to take.)

Analyze this information in several different ways.

• Look for duplicate efforts; maybe you can eliminate the tactic with less ROI.
• Notice where you have no idea about ROI; you’re flying completely blind there. You need to build in evaluation.
• Notice any correlations between cost, reach, staff time, and ROI–the ideal communication causes the most people to take the action you want them to take and costs the least amount of money and staff time. Are you spending the most staff time and money on communications with the largest reach to key audiences and biggest ROI?
• Are you inundating any of your audiences? Ignoring any ? Are your communications choreographed to arrive at optimal time intervals with each audience? Are you leading audiences into a deeper relationship with your organization with every communication?
• Are there important audience actions that aren’t covered in the “purpose” of any of your communications?
• What’s the balance you’re striking between print, digital, and face to face communications? Are you too heavy into print? Are you slighting face-to-face? Are you spending too much time on social media?

Gather samples

Now, gather as many actual samples of all your printed pieces as possible—including your letterhead and business cards and print-outs of your digital landing pages. Lay them all out on a big table or tape them to a wall. (For clearer insights, arrange them horizontally according to when they occur during the calendar year and vertically according to audience.) Overall, what you’re looking at is your visual identity. Notice how things cohere and reinforce each other (what you’re striving for) or how different they all look (uh-oh).

Some questions to ask while reviewing these items:

• Is your logo/wordmark/tagline and contact info on every piece? Does your logo/wordmark look identical, except for size, everywhere?
• Are you using a limited, consistent, easily recognizable palette of colors?
• Is there some kind of design consistency throughout, even though every piece doesn’t have to be identical? Would someone easily recognize these pieces as all being produced by the same organization?
• Is there design consistency between our printed and digital communications?
• What three adjectives do you think people would think of when looking at your current visual identity? (Be honest. If you don’t trust yourself, ask some friendly strangers from the next office to come in and offer opinions.) Are these the three adjectives you want people to think of when they think of your organization?
• Does everything look professional—even if cheaply produced?
• Is there a warmth, a “human being” sense to your communications, or are they cold and institutional?

Now study the content of your communications.

• Are they immediately engaging for the reader? Are there high quality compelling photographs that reinforce main messages? Are headlines meaningful, informative, and attention grabbing? Do you use subheads, captions, drawn quotes, and sidebars to layer information for skimmers? Is the content really interesting to your audiences, or is it just something it was easy for you to pull together?
• Are you conveying your one or two main strategic messages throughout our communications mix?
• Look for conflicting messages; if you’re messages contradict each other you’re confusing audiences.
• Are you providing easy cross-referencing  for audiences to all your channels—Are there links to your latest newsletter and social media pages on your website home page? Is your web address front and center in your printed materials? Are your publications featured on your social media pages, and vice versa?
• What’s the quality of writing? Is your web writing just like your publication writing? (It shouldn’t be. See my free ebook about best practices in nonprofit website design.) It is it in plain, easy to understand English, or full of complex sentences and jargon? Is your writing too long?
• Do you include other voices in your writing, or is it always you talking about what you’re doing and why it’s important?

By the end of this part of the audit, you should have a pretty good idea of 1) how your products and practices are either hitting or missing the mark and 2) which ones are the most cost/effective in light of your communications goals and your institution’s strategic plan. Make notes about all the weaknesses, opportunities, and improvements you’ve discovered, and record any ideas and insights. This will all help set the context for your strategic planning.

Next week I’ll cover three other parts of a communications audit—media coverage analysis, digital identity, and competition analysis. In subsequent weeks, I’ll get into the actual planning process.

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CC photo credit: joebeone

Free tool of the week: Fenton’s Best Practice Guides

You might want to take a look at these free, downloadable guides to communications best practices put out by Fenton Communications, a firm that works with nonprofits. I’ve just listed some of the guides. For others, go to the Fenton Web site.

Watta? (What are they talking about) guide is designed to give you a well-grounded overview of Web 2.0, social media, and how to succeed in this new communications paradigm.

Proving Your Worth: 10 Ways to Measure the Impact of Your Communications shows you how to evaluate whether your communications efforts are hitting the mark and getting results.

This Just In summarizes 10 lessons from more than 25 years of learning from Fenton Communications’ partnerships with nonprofit clients to make social change.

Take a Position: 10 Tips to Set Your Organization Apart talks about positioning and how you set yourself apart from the other 1.4 million nonprofits in the U.S.

Now Hear This: The Nine Laws of Successful Advocacy Communications helps you learn how to describe what your organization does and what it stands for.

Making a Name for Yourself: Branding for Nonprofits explains the fundamentals involved in creating a successful brand in today’s saturated market.

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Social math: Yes…data can tell stories too

flickr/fragmented

For a long time, nonprofits and foundations have tried to use data to drive social change–with varying degrees of success. But lately, they’ve caught onto stories as a more influential and memorable communication medium. Many nonprofits are proficient storytellers these days, but few extend that expertise to data-sharing.

In part, stories work because they help people connect new information to what they already know. By relating the unfamiliar to the familiar, we can figure out the relevance and meaning of all the new information that bombards us every day.

The same principle applies to data. We need to create meaning by relating the unfamiliar to the familiar. Piling on raw numbers may prove a point to statisticians, but others need more context to understand the meaning of data.

Social math is a simple way to make data easier to grasp by relating it to things that we already understand. It’s a way of presenting numbers in a real-life, familiar context that helps people see the story behind them. Here are a few examples, some taken from “Making Numbers Count” by Sightline Institute.

• One less coal plant is like cutting 40% of Washington’s vehicle emissions. That amounts to all the cars and trucks in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane plus the 25 next largest cities in the state, combined.
• Community residents near a gasoline refinery noted that the plant emits 6 tons of pollutants per day—that’s 25 balloons full of toxic pollution for each school child in town.
• Most people in Africa support their entire families on the equivalent of what Americans spend on pet food.
• In 1991, enough alcohol was consumed by college students to fill 3,500 Olympic-size swimming pools, about one on every campus in the United States. The overall amount spent on alcohol per student exceeded the dollars spent on books and was far greater than the combined amount of fellowships and scholarships provided to students.
• The tobacco industry spends more money promoting smoking in a week than the entire federal government spends on preventing smoking in a year. (Sometimes you can skip the number altogether!)

Finding these kinds of analogies for your statistics takes a little time, but it makes your communications much more effective. Think creatively about how you can capture the scale of things by comparing them to things of a more familiar size. It’s especially effective if those familiar things are chosen to help emphasize your point. In the above example, it’s very effective to tie the amount of pollution directly to the children in a community, a particularly vulnerable population, and to an image of innocence—balloons.

The Internet makes this kind of research much easier. Two interesting sites that just might help are: WolframAlpha for comparisons of units of measure, and the EarthClock and other Poodwaddle clocks for global issues.

Two important points. First, use social math with care. You have to be able to defend the way you’re using any data, so make sure all your numbers and comparisons are accurate. Second, don’t overuse this technique. Less is more. Often, one piece of data conveyed through social math is more memorable and persuasive than six pieces of data.

For those of you interested in learning more about the subtleties of using social math, read Frameworks Institute’s valuable ezine on the topic.

CC photo credit: fragmented

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The power of naming: Clarify and frame your work

flickr/THEfunkyman

A week ago there was a piece in the NYT magazine about Frank Luntz, issue framer for the Republicans. You know him even if you don’t know him. He not only writes fundamental framing memos like his recent “The Language of Health Care,” recommending that Republicans link health care reform to “a Washington takeover” and other ominous forebodings. He’s also the guy who helped name many Republican policies—your know, “energy exploration” instead of “drilling for oil,” the “death tax” instead of “estate tax” or “inheritance tax,” and “electronic intercepts” rather than “eavesdropping,” among others.

I’ve marveled for years at the “opposite speak” employed in these names (e.g. the 2003  “Clear Skies Initiative“,” which weakened the Clean Air Act and required fewer reductions in air pollution). But we all have something to learn from Luntz about naming. No, not the art of opposite speak—but the power of names to shape perception.

He doesn’t just slap long, academic, left-brained names on issues and initiatives. He doesn’t rely on cute names that will amuse but also confuse. Nor does he rely on acronymns. He thinks carefully about how the language used in a name can tell the story and frame the issue. Names can even help define who’s got a stake in the story. (Only the wealthy may incur significant estate or inheritance taxes, but “death taxes” involve us all, right?) That’s a powerful practice when you’re trying to reach a populace awash in information and searching for quick filters to help them figure out what what’s relevant.

Here’s an example of how names can shape thoughts about a social issue. Take the name “domestic violence”—which is genderless (although the vast majority of such violence is against women) and places the problem—and thus the solution—in the privacy of the home. This name implies it’s a problem between two people, nothing to do with the public. Compare that with the name “wife battering”—which is more accurately gender specific and reframes the violence as brutality. With the latter, average citizens can see a prevention role for themselves. Who wants to allow the battering of any human being?

Likewise, compare the past name “day care,” which implied babysitting while parents are at work, and the current name “school readiness.” As a citizen, I may not be that concerned about helping provide babysitting services to working parents, but I might want coming generations succeed in school so they can become productive working members of society.

As I visit foundation and nonprofit Web sites, I see so many bland, generic names or long, academic names or clever but opaque names for their initiatives, projects, and research reports. And don’t even get me started on the acronyms. None of these names get at the story behind the work, frame the issue addressed in the work, or clarify its relevance for people.

Here are a few examples of names used by nonprofits and foundations to describe their important program work that I quickly pulled off the internet today.

The Home Visiting Initiative Program
Making Connections
Leadership for Community Change
Blueprint for Action
Effective Citizenry
Models for Change
Window of Opportunity
Creating Common Ground
Food and Society

Naming decisions deserve more thought, because names help frame a nonprofit’s core work. (They also can help differentiate your work from other nonprofits.) Names are the first filter that your audience uses to figure out whether something is relevant. They will be repeated far more than the rest of your content. Make it easy for people to understand what your work or information is really about and why they should care.

Even if it takes more time and effort to come up with a clear, concise, meaningful name…do it. The sector should use every opportunity to help people grasp the meaning and value of its contributions. More thoughtful naming would be a good start.

NOTE: A few days after I wrote this post, Andy Goodman’s newsletter called for nonprofits to reconsider their organizational names. I couldn’t agree more, but probably would never have been as optimistic as Andy that nonprofits would seriously consider such a big change. I’d just be happy if nonprofits chose better names for their programs, issues, and products. Anyway Andy, bold move and good for you!

CC photo credit: THEfunkyman

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Guest post: 10 things to consider when designing your annual report

Linda Henneman, ThinkDesign

Over the years, I’ve been in charge of developing a dozen annual reports for large foundations. For some of them, I was lucky enough to work with ThinkDesign Group. Their award winning work is known for its powerful interplay of text and design. For this guest post on annual reports, it was a no-brainer to turn to Linda Henneman, creative principal at ThinkDesign.

My nonprofit clients are producing annual reports this year, despite the economic downturn. Together, we’re creating pieces that are appropriate for the times. Like them, you too may be faced with a complex story to tell, with only a few pages to tell it on—most likely on a trimmed budget.

While addressing the reality of the economy is important, it need not be all doom and gloom. Instead, your audience needs to know that supporting your organization’s work now is more important than ever. So focus on setting the tone through a reassuring voice and compelling design, and be assured you won’t need to break the bank.

Remember, an annual report is your chance to talk to the people who have been passionate enough to support you financially. So create a solid annual, they’ll appreciate it!

1. How to think about the strategy behind the annual report

• Yes, it’s a report addressing the past year, but make it even more useful by placing focus on the future.
• What’s your message? It must be aligned with the needs of your organization, concise, true in good times and in bad, and delivered with confidence. Your message should convey the essence of your organization.
• You’re talking to your supporters, but it’s also a great opportunity to talk to a new audience. Balance the “choir” audience and the potential new audience. Keep in mind that your supporters may also need help understanding the nuances of what you do.

2. Key leadership needs to be a part of the process

• This is true from the initial discussion to choosing concepts. This is a piece that is the voice and vision of the leaders. Hearing directly from them is critical in setting the right tone.

3. Bring the designer and writer in early, they’ll help spark the process

• The writer and designer can get the process started by being the outside voice and getting the focus off of the “internal speak.” Designers are problem solvers by training, and can offer ideas to overcome challenges. A good writer can inform the design and make the whole piece stronger, so get them on board from day one.
• Provide your design team with the details they need to make your annual report stand out.

4. Start Early

• Give yourself enough time, between three and four months. Forcing it into a shorter amount of time will only increase cost, errors, and stress. Your annual report concepting process can be a great opportunity to evaluate, revise, and reinforce your organization’s communications strategy.

5. The power of less copy & why writing shorter can be better

• Using minimal text with powerful images can make a strong statement; quickly. In today’s world, it needs to be quick. People are taking less time to read.

6. A great cover makes you think

• The cover should make you think. You should feel the urge to open it. And when you do, you get the payoff: your curiosity is satisfied.

7. Don’t neglect the mailing envelope

• The envelope needs to break through the mail pile. An odd size for a little extra “wow,” or try colored envelopes or add a teaser headline to spark interest.

8. What to look for in photos

• Photos don’t need to be literal—like people sitting around a table, working. Find more dynamic ways of telling your story.

9. Today’s green printing option

• Promoting green printing practices sends a powerful message and can motivate others to do the same.
• Choose a designer knowledgeable in eco-friendly paper and printing vendors. One that can help you make decisions on paper recycled content, vegetable-based inks. Look for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, renewable energies, efficiency in printing and press/paper setup.
• Be sure to add a simple line of text explaining how your piece was printed green, include all applicable “certified-green” logos.

10. Differentiate your report from others without breaking the bank

• It’s easy: a good concept, with strong messages, compelling visual, and clear, concise copy—and it doesn’t have to cost a lot to print. For instance, The Headwaters Foundation for Justice’s consistent, award winning annual reports are 2-color, use stock photography, and reprint efficiently on a sheet of paper.
• A good designer can help choose an appropriate printer for your specific project. Paper selection, production and printing techniques can all be ways to cut costs.
• Mailing cost is another area for potential savings. Consider smaller formats for lower postage costs.
• Order realistic quantities. It may be cheaper per piece to print more, but if you just throw them away it doesn’t save money or the planet.

Nonprofit storytelling—beware of impact stories that don’t link to public policy

flickr/armadillo444

You can’t swing a cat these days (I never would) without hitting a storytelling workshop for nonprofits. It’s kind of the new silver bullet for conveying organizational impact.

I’m a big fan of stories, but I’m a little concerned about the approach the nonprofit sector seems to be taking.

What concerns me is the drive to tell episodic stories of individual success without tying them into a larger thematic policy context. Making an emotional connection is essential, but it’s not enough.

Very few of these impact stories reveal underlying causes, or assign responsibility for those causes to policymakers and the citizens who vote for them. This tends to reinforce the dominant American frame of individual rather than societal responsibility for the solution of social problems—a frame that the media has helped create and perpetuate.

By telling stories about their impact on individual lives, nonprofits and foundations may be shooting themselves in the foot with that silver bullet. Such storytelling can garner dollars and support (no small thing, I realize), but it doesn’t necessarily lead to social change. Nonprofits have to get more intentional about using impact stories to achieve both their short-term survival goals and their long-term social change goals.

Often, annual reports, newsletters, web sites, or videos that string together emotionally evocative stories about how a nonprofit has helped a few of its beneficiaries are fashioned for fund-raising. They pluck heartstrings, but don’t connect those people’s situations to the larger context of public decision making. In fact, they can leave readers and viewers with the impression that solutions to social problems are up to individuals and nonprofits, rather than to the public.

For instance, a nonprofit tells a moving impact story about a troubled youth who’s turned her life around. The nonprofit may get a temporary boost from that, but the story does nothing to show the larger context that led to her troubles or to explain how citizens acting together can eliminate the obstacles she faced. It’s all about her success at bettering herself and the organization’s role in those efforts. There’s no societal accountability built in.

Without tying stories of individuals to our collective responsibility for the policies and systems that have shaped their lives—we’re unintentionally reinforcing the notion that their troubles were their own doing. At the same time, we’re preventing audience members from making the connection between themselves and the people in the story. They may feel momentary sympathy and admiration for the story’s protagonist, but they are still just consumers of the story, not participants in it. We need to help citizens understand they play an influential role in any story about social issues.

The news media are notorious for gobbling up episodic stories about individuals. Media relations experts may tell you that’s the way to get headlines, but it’s not the way to change society. Most news stories strip away context to a point where the goal is provoking a superficial emotional response, certainly not empowering citizens to take action against injustice.

Here are a few broad-stroke examples of how news (and advertising) use individual responsibility frames in their storytelling.

1. Though study after study shows that public policies and systems are a huge influence in the American obesity problem, public discussion about this issue still focuses on dieting and self-restraint as the solution. If someone’s overweight—it’s their own fault and their responsibility to change.
2. In the environmental realm, much more attention is paid to how we should each change our individual behavior than to how we can collectively make big  policy changes that would have much deeper impact.
3. In health care, the emphasis is on individuals making sure they get tested for disease rather than targeting the causes of those diseases through public policy change.

The last thing the nonprofit sector should be doing is feeding the media episodic stories—that’s counterproductive to its long-term goals for social change. It’s easy to jump on the impact storytelling bandwagon—especially when you’re hard pressed for funding. But think carefully about the real story you’re trying to tell. Don’t let it just be about one person’s struggle or one family’s success or one neighborhood’s make-over. Ensure citizens understand their role in righting wrongs and exactly what actions they need to take.

One way is to tell the individual’s story first—grabbing the reader’s attention—then concisely explain who’s responsible for creating these conditions, what the potential solutions are, and how the public can drive toward those solutions. Weave in a compelling statistic or two—appeal to both sides of the brain.

Please read this recent interview with Shanto Iyengar, director of the Political Communication Lab at Stanford University and the author of Is Anyone Responsible, on the difference between episodic and thematic stories and how they influence citizen understanding of public issues. Remember his remarks when you’re writing web copy, news releases, video scripts, and anything else where you feature stories.

I’m going to be covering other aspects of issue framing for nonprofits and foundations in future posts.

CC photo credit: armadillo444

Free tool of the week: Yodio melds narration and images

In the next few weeks, I’m hoping to give you the low-down on some free online media that combine slides, photos, voice-overs, graphics, and/or music. I think they have interesting potential applications for nonprofits. But first, I want to try them!

This week I tackled Yodio, which allows you to synchronize voice-over (that you phone in) with a series of photos into a narrated slide show. It’s like a podcast with images. They say it’s simple and quick—and once you learn it it is. But it took me about 3 hours to create the Yodio below—from gathering and uploading pictures to writing and recording a script. If I had to do it again, it would probably take half that time.

I wanted to give you an example of what media like this might be able to do for nonprofits. (The Yodio gallery doesn’t have any nonprofit examples.) So, I put together a fake 2-minute lobbying spot for a clean water and land referendum that was passed last fall in Minnesota. Other uses for media like this might include: key takeaways from a research report, announcing a new project, impact interviews with beneficiaries of your organization, brief testimonials from donors, a virtual tour of a new facility, a teaser for an issue campaign, even introducing your staff.

I like Yodio, but I think it’s going to get even better as they introduce new features (which I hope are still free). As with most media like this, there’s a good free level of membership and a better paid level of membership. I used the free membership.

Here are a few things to keep in mind.

1) Right now, you have to record the audio track for each photo separately—kind of laborious, but they have an option once you’re on the phone that lets you can record many of these tracks in one call. Just stay on the line after you’re through with your first track, and they’ll give you an option to record another one right away.

2) There are various options for transitioning from one slide to another—I just chose dissolve, but I think if this were for real, I would have tinkered with that. Some of these dissolves are great—others are clunky and draw attention to themselves.

3) Name each track that you record—this text will scroll as the slide is displayed. It’s another way to reinforce your message.

4) You’ll notice there’s a time lag between when my voice stops and the end of the track—it doesn’t make it easy to transition to another slide in mid-sentence. Yodio tells me that I could have used the phone key prompt (#1) to end  the recording right when I stopped speaking rather than waiting for the audio prompt. I think that would have solved this problem. Live and learn.

5) When you’re recording over the phone, use the very best phone you’ve got. And try to keep it at the same distance throughout the whole recording, while using the same volume whenever you speak. You’ll notice there are a few distracting modulation changes in my piece—that’s because I recorded a couple of the tracks at a different time than I did the rest. Record all at once to avoid this.

All you experienced Yodio users, any other tips for folks?

(By the way, I mailed Ana from New Mexico the free Cass Wheeler book.)