Freedom

I am my liberty.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Surrounded 24/7 by unapologetic victims, it's easy for us to forget that freedom is everyone's birthright.

For celebrants, Christmas is the season of charity and compassion—or ought to be.

But both virtues assume victims require our philanthropic gestures, when, in fact, they're free: free to resist injustice; free to work for change; free to run away; free to cheat, rob and steal, if need be; free to rebel; free to displace you, or me, or whoever oppresses them.

Journalists, priests and fundraisers prey upon our compassion at Christmas, just as retailers prey upon our guilt and greed.

They can't help themselves.

But no one preys upon our connate freedom.

It takes an Existentialist to do that; to remind us we're born free and remain free every moment of our lives; to remind us no one is born a victim—or even becomes one unwillingly. 

We choose the mantles we wear.

"Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings," the guru Ram Dass said.

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you," the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said.

Remember compassion this Christmas; but remember freedom, too.  

Smokescreen

The correct use of propaganda is a true art.

— Adolph Hitler

Petitions are a standard lead-capture tool for fledgling nonprofits, which is why David Brog's digital agency recommended one this week.

Brog's petition-of-the-week targets fellow racists who want to ensure people of color know their place.

But propriety won't let him be completely up front.  

He requires a smokescreen.

The smokescreen he uses consists of, believe it or not, an internal report produced by the National Archives.

The report is innocuous. 

But if you believe Brog, it conclusively proves people of color are about to replace all Whites.

Brog is a busy DC lobbyist and lawyer who pays himself handsomely to generate panic among uniformed and stupid people. The kind of panic that leads them to open their wallets.

A Zionist, Brog believes Wokeness threatens Israel. 

He keeps company with other ultranationalist loonies like Steve Bannon, John Hagee, Yoram Hazony, Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley.

Brog's new nonprofit—he runs no less than three—is the Emergency Committee for America. 

To pay his super-size salary as the group's executive director, he needs donors—lots of them.

To line his pockets, he's happy to engage you and tell you that people of color will replace you.

And as they do, they'll bring an end to civilization as we know it, take over our government, and impose Sharia law and Chinese-style one-party rule in its place.

Brog preys on you while he lines his pockets, even resurrecting the Nixonian phrase "Silent Majority" to imply he speaks for a whole bunch of Americans.

The gist of his message this week goes like this: 

The Marxist revolution will begin any hour. It kicks off not with a bread riot, but a performance-art piece. Self-respecting whites must stop the revolution and the  "desecration of the National Archives." Okay, I'll stop it, if you can't—but first I need your money. All major credit cards accepted.

A simple answer to a complicated question. 

And pure hooey.

But that's what clever propagandists are all about.

They cynically transform complex questions of social and economic justice into violent dramas involving mysterious forces out to victimize you; and they do it in ways that disguise their true aims. 

For Adolph Hitler, the smokescreen was the Sudetenland. The mysterious forces were Jews. His aim was power.

For Joe McCarthy, the smokescreen was the Department of State. The mysterious forces were Reds. His aim was fame.

For David Brog, the smokescreen is the National Archives. The mysterious forces are people of color. His aim is wealth.

Beware all propagandists.

Young at Heart

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you're young at heart.

— Carolyn Leigh

A former association executive's dream comes true this week when the American Writers Museum opens in Chicago.

The museum is the brainchild of Malcolm O’Hagan, who ran NEMA—the National Electrical Manufacturers Association—from 1991 to 2005.

The museum treats visiting littérateurs to a smorgasboard of great American writers, from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Harper Lee, Mark Twain to Maya Angelou, Billy Wilder to Bob Dylan.

O’Hagan undertook the project eight years ago, after a trip to the Dublin Writers Museum.

He left the Dublin museum wondering why there was no equivalent among the 17,500 museums in America.

Within a year, he started a nonprofit, whose board would eventually raise $10 million to found one.

Raising that amount was no cakewalk.

During the seven years required, O'Hagan sent over 39,000 emails to donors.

"When I embarked upon this mission I made a ten year commitment," O'Hagan says in an interview with Tin House.

"Nothing worth doing is easy if you want to do it right."

How to Make an Evidence-based Ask

Social science findings should guide fundraising appeals, says Esther James, "The Happy Fundraiser."

James sifted the peer-reviewed papers of social scientists throughout the English-speaking world.

She uncovered 10 tips for forceful fundraising letters:

1. Always tell one beneficiary's story, both in your letters and follow-up materials—especially your thank-you notes.
   
   
2. Include at least one "sad-faced" photo of the beneficiary. Avoid group shots, because they'll trigger "compassion fatigue."
   
   
3. Describe the consequence of inaction. When St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital told the story of a baby it treated for leukemia, donors were informed 70% of the other babies with the disease would die without their help.
   
   
4. Ask for money. And do it all year.
   
   
5. Partner with a foundation, corporation or major donor to offer a matching gift. It need not be dollar-for-dollar, but it must be at least $10 to work.
   
   
6. Leverage social pressure. Spur donors by saying “people like you gave $_____."
   
   
7. Test different forms of social pressure. Donors respond well when their identities (gender, race, Zip Code, etc.) match.
   
   
8. Spend more on letters for new donors, less on letters for repeat donors.
   
   
9. Send "signals of trustworthiness." There are many. Longevity. Prominent board members' names. Grants received. Affiliations with other trusted organizations. Audited financials. The breakout of your administrative and fundraising costs. Lists of your past achievements. Testimonials. Media mentions. And charity watchdog ratings.
   
   
10. Talk up your awesomeness when writing to big donors; don't when writing to others.

PS: Esther James is my daughter. For more fundraising tips, follow her blog.

The Clarity Commandment

The B2B marketing-scape is littered with statements like this one:

SpineMap 3.0 Navigation Software is designed to optimize the surgical experience through an intuitive solution which includes a personalized surgical workflow to help support OR efficiency.

Much of B2B copy not only bores, but breaks a rule Herschell Gordon Lewis calls "The Clarity Commandment:"

When you choose words and phrases, clarity is paramount. Don’t let any other component of your communication interfere with it. 

Like other commandants handed down, easier said than done.

Clarity comes from more than short words and phrases.

It comes from avoiding jargon and any terms with less than laser-precision.

"In our enthusiasm for creating uniqueness, sometimes we lapse into poetry or in-talk, or we pick up phraseology that may make sense within the office but is gobbledygook to outsiders," Lewis says. 

"Or we go just one step beyond clarity—not a cardinal sin, but not a message that’s quickly and clearly understood."

Clarity's at risk whenever ambiguity rears its head.

Think about the example above:

Really, what's an optimized surgical experience?

A personalized surgical workflow?

What is OR efficiency?

And clarity's at risk whenever we add the unnecessary.

Why an intuitive solution? 

Why to help support?

"Clarity is hog-tied to simplicity," Lewis says.

And simplicity's, well, simple.

Copy that doesn’t demand analysis is more likely to hit its goal—command of the reader’s attention—than complex copy.

PS. An inquiring reader asks, How would you handle the statement above? Here goes:

SpineMap 3.0 Navigation Software gives you a second pair of eyes and hands during back surgery. Less time in the OR means more time on the green.

Now, I think I'll go watch This is Spinal Tap.

Do Donors Love Facts?

Dragnet's Joe Friday nabbed a lot of criminals sticking with "Just the facts."

But do facts help fundraisers capture donors?

Jeff Brooks asks the question in Future Fundraising Now:

"Is there someone on your organization's staff (or board) who wants you to turn down the emotional content of your fundraising because they believe emotion is dishonest or manipulative? 

"Do they tell you to 'stick with the facts' because making the rational case with facts and numbers is the only honorable way to motivate people to donate?"

The answer: it depends.

Large donors love facts, small ones don't, as a recent Yale University study shows:

"Altruistic donors are more driven by the actual impact of their donation, and thus information to reinforce or enhance perceived impacts will drive higher donations. 

"On the other hand, for warm glow donors, information on impacts may actually deter giving by distracting the letter recipient from the emotionally powerful messages that typically trigger warm glow and instead put forward a more deliberative, analytical appeal which simply does not work for such individuals."

All You Need is Love

Simply by adding one word to a fundraising appeal, two behavioral scientists doubled donations during a study conducted in France.

Nicolas Guéguen and Lubomir Lamy placed collection boxes in stores every day for two weeks, and recorded the amounts given at the end of each day. 

The boxes featured a photo of a starving woman and infant and read, "Women students in business trying to organize a humanitarian action in Togo. We are relying on your support."

Each box was identical, except for a call to action printed under the money slot. 

Some boxes read, "Donating = Helping" under the slot. Some read, "Donating = Loving." And the rest had no call to action.

To assure store location didn't bias the study, the scientists relocated the boxes at random each morning.

The results after the two weeks were startling.

Every day, the boxes reading "Donating = Loving" attracted twice as much money as the other boxes.

"We can conclude that evoking love is a powerful technique to enhance people's altruistic behavior," the scientists said.