Frank O’Brien on what’s wrong with your fundraising copy (and how to fix it)

You’ve probably tested every subject line trick in the book. But when was the last time you tested the message itself?

Frank O’Brien has spent 35 years crafting messaging for organizations like the ACLU, Doctors Without Borders, Greenpeace, and the ASPCA. 

His new book, The 4 Pillars of Persuasion, lays out a framework built on four pillars: Attention, Audience, Emotion, and Craft.

I spoke with Frank about what’s changed in nonprofit messaging, why so many fundraising emails sound the same, and how to approach year-end in a politically turbulent year.

Sara Cederberg: What has fundamentally changed about good messaging over the course of your career? What has stayed the same?

Frank O’Brien: What’s changed most fundamentally is how our audiences get their information and relate to organizations. When I started out, there was a dynamic I call gifts of obligation. 

People would connect with an organization in an almost permanent way. “I’m an ACLU donor, and I’ll always be an ACLU donor.” 

They gave not because of some specific, immediate project they wanted to help fund, but because they appreciated the organization’s overall body of work and felt obligated to support it.

That’s not true at all anymore. People now tend to have a much more opportunistic relationship with individual organizations. 

Whichever organization is doing the most interesting work on the issue they care about right now, that’s the one they give to. They don’t give gifts of obligation. They give gifts of excitement.

What’s stayed the same is that the messaging that works connects to the donor’s individual personal identity. 

One of the biggest pieces of advice I give nonprofits is to stop sending reports on your work and start sending invitations for people to engage in your work. 

Tell them how that connects to who they are in the world and the impact they want to have.

SC: What risks do nonprofits face when they focus exclusively on raising money and mobilizing people to take action?

FO: I always tell people that a message should do two things. First, it should make a compelling case for the project at hand. 

But secondly, it should also reinforce people’s sense of your organization and their commitment to it, so they get a clearer sense of who you are. 

One danger of the anti-Trump era is that many organizations are losing their individual identity in an overall anti-Trump posture. 

Very little anti-Trump messaging is “We’re doing this, and we’re the only people that can do it, and that’s why you should give to us.” The ACLU does that really well. 

Most organizations don’t have that inclination to say, “This is why us, at this moment.” That’s what worries me about the post-Trump era — a lot of people are going to have to reestablish their own organizational identity because they’ve lost it in an anti-Trump blur.

SC: How should nonprofits think about balancing the need to raise as much money as possible with the importance of ensuring the message is on point?

FO: I don’t think they’re in conflict. If I’m asking for money and I’m telling you a really compelling story, I’m going to get both a better story across and more money.

If you’re walking through the campaign with me, enjoying the journey, and feeling like you’re part of it, it doesn’t matter that you’re always asking for money. 

But if you just keep saying essentially the same thing — hey, another fundraising deadline’s coming up, and I need your money — that’s a lot less intriguing. That’s where messaging gets lost to technique.

Here’s a rule I try to advance: technique, used with a strong message, is really, really powerful. Technique used as a substitute for a strong message is a road to disaster over time. 

It’s not that you should abandon the technique. You should make sure it’s married to a story.

SC: You’ve said the first question you ask every copywriter is “Who are you writing to?” Email teams would say they know — they’ve got segments and donor profiles. What’s the difference?

FO: The difference is between a transactional understanding of someone and an emotional understanding of someone. 

Almost every example you just cited is basically transactional. I know what they did most recently, so I know where we are in terms of the relationship. But that doesn’t tell you what they’re feeling, how worried they are.

I always want to know: what are your hopes and dreams? What are your frustrations? How do you see yourself acting in the world? 

That’s what gets lost when people say “I know my audience” and they really mean “I know they’re lapsed donors who haven’t given in six months.” 

It’s not just knowing their giving history; it’s knowing what’s going on in their head and in their heart.

SC: How much of the weak copy you see in the inbox is a writing problem versus an approval culture problem?

FO: When I first started out writing political fundraising direct mail pieces, I used to describe the approval process as designed to take away all of the emotional power of a message and weaken it in every way possible.

When Michael Dukakis was running for president, I was writing both his campaign and the DNC’s direct mail. I had to wait for Dukakis to FedEx his edits back to me from the campaign plane. 

Surely this man who’s running for president had more to do than to look at whether my third paragraph works.

The solution is mutual trust. Copywriters, myself included, can be incredibly precious about what we’ve written. Fight for the stuff that’s really weakening the content, not the stuff that just hurts your ego. 

On the other hand, don’t edit the copy directly. Just tell me what’s not working and let me try to fix it. And someone has to be the single approver. Someone’s got to say, “I got this.”

SC: Emotion is one of your four pillars. How should email fundraisers think about emotional tone when they’re sending multiple appeals a week to the same people?

FO: Building emotion into your copy doesn’t mean doing a house-on-fire message every time, because when everything is extremely urgent, nothing becomes extremely urgent.

Shonda Rhimes has this wonderful expression about the arc of her shows. She says, “I want it to have emotional highs and lows. It’s got to go up and down so that the highs feel like highs because they’re in contrast to the lows.”

At the start of a year-end campaign, maybe I’m laying the groundwork. Here’s what you should be proud of and here’s what we’ve done together this year. I’m not feverishly asking for the year-end gift. 

Then when I get to the 30th and 31st, sure enough, feverishly asking. And now that feels okay because I’ve built the groundwork. 

SC: In a recent blog post, you talk about year-end messaging in a politically turbulent midterm election year. How should email fundraisers approach that balance?

FO: If everything that’s out there is high-pitched and everything sucks and what are we going to do, then go in another direction with your message. 

Say, “At last, something I can just sink my teeth into and feel good about.”

I know what I’m going to give is going to have an immediate impact. A charity can ring so many bells that campaigns have a harder time ringing.

And don’t feel like you have to be part of the post-election chorus. You want your own frame in that conversation. 

Unless you’re a really electorally-driven organization, write a year-end appeal, not a post-election appeal. 

I think a lot of people will make that mistake. They’ll write post-election appeals even though it’s not really how their audience sees them.

The bottom line
Your year-end calendar probably has the deadlines, the matches, and the send schedule locked. 

The question Frank is asking is whether there’s a story underneath all of it.

If a supporter could swap your organization’s name for another one’s in any of those emails and nothing would feel different, that’s the messaging gap he’s talking about.

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‘Til next time!
Sara