Your Best Chance to Dazzle Funders

On family car trips when I was a kid, Uncle Ted would “moo” at the cows we passed. It was his way of distracting restless cousins before portable screens did the job. When cows were sparse, we urged him to moo when we passed empty pastures with silos. He drew endless chuckles.

In my adult life, silos exist in workplaces. They are no laughing matter.

Consider how you handle donor communications. You might not even recognize the damage sown by fractured messaging.

Major grants rely on narratives far beyond the proposal text that we obsess over. Funders scrutinize your external communications. That’s true whether you submit an application or when a funder proactively scouts grantees. In the latter case, your online presence might be your only chance to communicate with a potential investor.

When message-making gets divided among departments, it can be disjointed. Worse, it can fail to showcase the themes prospects most need to see.

Break down those silos so that your external messaging mirrors the funder-oriented language you have honed.

If that’s a challenging proposition in your office, here are three actions worth championing.

Shout Your Impact

Your average-sized supporters want to know how you’re spending contributions. Major grant makers want more.

They’re investing in your future. They want to dabble in something meaningful. They want to know the impact of their investments over time. Don’t be afraid to tease those transformative plans in your public materials.

Feature a button, tab, or graphic dedicated to impact. Go beyond highlighting results and get visitors excited about engaging in your vision.

Your funders want to help meet a societal need. They will choose to do so with an organization that conveys past success and future prowess.

Create a Virtual Proposal

What if you delivered exactly what those no-unsolicited-proposals funders claim not to want?

Take the eight or so questions your team answers most frequently in its funding applications and make sure that information is readily found online. It’s an easy win.

When you pair your organization’s impact with your short-term goals, you give people confidence in your track record and enthusiasm for the next stage.

Make that information easy to find. A Microsoft Research study showed that the first ten seconds of a web page visit determine whether users decide to stay or leave. If you don’t capture attention in those first ten seconds, visitors might become lifetime contributors elsewhere.

Assume that your audience is savvy. Expect people to find your organization online and empower those who want to learn. This is the job of every person in development.

Exude Something Special

In the station wagon with Uncle Ted, my parents, and all the cousins (yes, we stuffed people in the car in those days), the culture was understood. We moo-ed together.

What can you do to help people who discover your nonprofit online feel a kinship to your nonprofit family?

Tell the story of the communal journey your supporters have taken and will continue to take. What does it feel like to be part of your inner circle? Show that your nonprofit is a good investment and a good partner.

Let recently acquired funders see the full breadth of your nonprofit’s successes.

Inject your supporters’ place in those successes, and you’ll start to make your website visitors feel like they’re looking through an old family scrapbook.

Tone matters. You want to sound inclusive, human, and genuine.

Most of my clients are nationally oriented. Generally, staff doesn’t see the people its work affects, so it’s easy to ignore those individuals’ stories for broader narratives.

This is another place where silos can be broken down. Invite people impacted by your work to share their stories. They will deepen your narrative.

Shatter the Silos

Your external messaging gives philanthropies confidence, whether they are proactively scoping grantees or vetting yours after you have made contact.

If this work falls to colleagues outside of your purview, you simply must work together to excite the growing ranks of big philanthropy.

What seems like a list of no-brainers from a development perspective must be melded with communications expertise: When to message with a donor-focused eye? Is there consistency in the messaging across all platforms? Which platforms are best for each initiative? How best to move online visitors to take action?

No more silos. Cue the cows.

Moo.