Are You Authentic?

One of the things I love about direct mail is that, when it's done right, it can take all those meetings and reports and outreach that you do each and every day and make it all personal. The donors reading your direct mail -- or, really, any marketing or fundraising copy you write -- should be able to feel the conviction, passion and tireless effort behind what you do and get a sense of your organization's personality.

And while there are a host of reasons that fundraising copy can fail, you don't ever want it to be because it wasn't personal.

This week, I'm going to run a series of posts about how to make your copy personal. First up:

Know Your Identity

"Brands are dead. But identities are alive...and so much more interesting." Writer and author platform guru Christina Katz sent this Tweet a few weeks ago, and it caught my eye because I think it resonates for nonprofits.

Your brand is what you're "selling," what you promise to your donor in return for their support.

Your identity is the soul and vision of your organization, what you hope to achieve, now and into the future.

Of course you want your brand to be solid because that's a huge part of what's going to attract donors to you in the first place. But your identity is going to keep them coming back. So you need to make sure you know what that identity is.

Are you a scrappy band of rabble-rousers? Or a firmly established group making changes from the inside? You may be tempted to straddle the line or try to be all things to your donors, but if you want your identity to be authentic -- and you do -- you have to make a choice about who you are as an organization. And then stick to it in all your copy.

Once you figure out who YOU are, it's time to take a closer look at who your DONORS are. So come back tomorrow for a post about Knowing Your Audience.