Don’t educate your donors

Don’t try to educate your donors.

The refrain of “we have to educate the donors” typically comes from a perfectly reasonable but utterly flawed notion: That if you, the donor, knew what I knew, you’d care about the things I care about. So instead of caring about furry animals with big eyes, I’m going to get you to care about salamanders or insects, because they are more important.

Good luck with that.

Efforts to ‘educate’ donors that are rooted in the misbelief that they ‘care about the wrong things’ are drastically more likely to bore or irritate your donors, as opposed to changing their attitudes or more importantly moving their hearts. The language of fundraising is the language of emotion, not the language of information.

Inspire your donors. Thank them. Treat them like family. Entertain them. Tell them a story. Do NOT try to educate them. It never works.