Can blogs help charities raise money?

I recently came across this blog.

The farmers of Australia have had a hard time of it because of droughts, as this blog shows.

Which is where blogging can fit into the fundraising mix. They provide a great vehicle for sharing real case studies.

I love the mix of strong visuals like the baked earth, and the fly-on-the-wall reality of the descriptions of the sheep suffering. From the tone of voice you really get the sense of worry that the farmers are exeriencing.

As a fundraiser these are all the types of things I encourage in communicatons with donors. Genuine need presented in a “real” way always outperforms fancy marketing.

As these smart sheep farmers have shown, it is then quite a natural step to ask for help.

Go ahead adopt a sheep!

If everyone else is using case studies should you?

Sad fact is that not every charity is using case studies in their fundraising.

But as Christmas approaches it can feel like every charity is keen to tell you about someone who is in need of help.

To be considered ‘different’ and ‘creative’, marketers often rush to find a different way of presenting their organisation from their competitors, but fundraisers take note it is your job to tell stories in order to raise money.

To make your fundraising stick in people’s minds you should ensure that you tell a compelling emotional story about someone that your charity has helped. Better still tell them about someone who needs help.

Professor Paul Slovic released a paper entitled “If I look at the mass I will never act” in which he explored why perfectly good people aren’t moved to help in response to genocide or mass suffering.

In one study he cites that when people were asked to donate to Save the Children to combat hunger in Africa they were presented with three different approaches:

1) help a Seven year old girl called Rokia.
2) help 21 million starving Africans.
3) help Rokia who is one of 21 milltion starving Africans.

The study showed that people gave higher donaton to scenario 1 than 2. And in fact scenario 3 had a signficant impact in reducing donations compared to 1.

People want to help people. So instead of presenting them with statistics like a newspaper, present them with an idnivudal story.

“If I look at the mass I will never act” is something Mother Teresa of all people. She was just being honest. The reason why so many charities use a case study iin their fundraising is because it reflects what your audience think and feel.

Read more of the psychological studies here.