Quick Tips! How to Improve your Foundations Messaging

Videos September 29, 2020

Since almost all donor journeys start with an emotional connection, it’s important to find ways to continue to build that connection between donors and students to continue generating resources for the college. But how exactly do you do that during a pandemic when people are distant and feeling less connected? In this Quick Tips! video, Michael Mahin, senior copywriter at Interact, explains how to continue to connect socially in a world where people must remain socially distant.

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Hi, my name is Michael Mahin. I am Senior Copywriter here at Interact Communications. And my quick tip for the day is about improving foundation messaging. The fact is this, all donor journey will start with emotional connection, connection to an institution connection to a perceived need that resonates with personal values. Connection to an ideal or a connection to current or future students. So the question for post COVID alumni messaging, and foundation messaging is how do we continue to connect socially in a world where people must remain socially distant? And the answer is by finding clever ways to tell our stories. 

So, first off, no matter your audience any story you tell now needs to be COVID aware, college specific and hopeful. Why hopeful? Because on a basic level, there’s no reason to give or to be involved with hopeless causes. So when I say COVID aware what I mean is that we have to recognize our new reality without reverting back into emergency services type announcements. So I’m writing a lot of messaging today that says, we know the world has changed but one thing remains the same, et cetera, et cetera. And I realized I’m not going to win a Pulitzer for any of this, but it’s effective because what it does is it avoids being tone deaf by nodding to the reality of COVID. But also quickly reframing that conversation, and that story, and discussion to be one about the future. 

So it also talks about COVID without saying COVID, which is important COVID because COVID, we are all COVID, sick of COVID. We are suffering COVID fatigue. We know this, so what else can we focus our messaging on? And if you’re raising money for school, one answer is resilience. Resilience of your institution and faculty who took everything on online in two weeks. Resilience of your region, because of the role your institution plays, and resilience of your students. Resilience says, yeah we’re suffering, but we’re rising to meet the challenge. And those are stories that people are desperate for because these are stories that give us hope. More importantly there are stories that make alumni, and donors, and community stakeholders proud to be associated with you and your institution because they make your college a symbol of hope and recovery. 

So we’re writing a good number of these kinds of stories for the various new centers that we produce, and manage for college, and districts across the country. And a lot of our, some of our titles are things like chaos into calm, new NOCE parenting class offers COVID survival tools or stronger together more than ever. How Texas Community College students are securing the future. Now these aren’t necessarily alumni news stories but I think you get the idea. Similarly, if you look at images that the California Community Colleges chancellor’s office sends out with its weekly COVID updates, they’re always images of colleges, and what they’re doing to help fight COVID. So again, they’re telling a story of active resilience which is the story that you should be telling about your alumni and your current students, especially if you’re looking to chart, trying to raise money. 

Another example of effective messaging comes from Santa Ana College Foundation. We just wrote a campaign case statement for them. And the title of the campaign is Raising the Game. Campaign for Santa Ana College. And we just want a gold Paragon from NCMPR for this. And one thing they’re doing right now is asking that any student who receives COVID related or emergency funds, take a picture of what they used the money for. And to send a short thank you note so that they can send them to the donors. So one student chose to take a picture of the food she bought. Not surprisingly these images, and notes resonate deeply with the emotional core of the Santa Ana College Foundation donors. Not only does this messaging keep the givers connected to those that they’re giving to, but they also provide social proof that their gifts are having an immediate impact on real people. And at the same time, these images will have a cumulative effect as they slowly build an ongoing case for the need for bigger gifts. So you can kind of see how Santa Ana College Foundation is leveraging this crowdsourcing model to create content. 

Another of our clients did something similar. That wasn’t for the purpose of fundraising but it could have been. They created a hashtag, hashtag you got this AHC, this is Allan Hancock College. And they asked faculty and staff to post selfie videos of themselves saying words of encouragement to students. And this is great because it creates community around our shared suffering, but also our shared resilience. The real message you realize isn’t just, you got this, but it’s also more importantly we got you in case you don’t got this. And that’s a big message that we want to be communicating. 

So for raising money, I think there’s another way to use this tactic, which is to ask current donors to take selfie videos of themselves talking about why they give, and if they’ve given now, and why now? Something like this, not only tells donors you care about them, but also helps you tell your story as they continue to tell their story. The trickier project right now is pulling in alumni prospects who may very well be part of the large percentage of the country who have lost their jobs. But one way to start bringing these prospects in would be to invite them, to tell their own COVID stories about what they’re doing to rise above the challenges before you, and also to start feeling those from those alumni who have not lost their jobs. Who have jobs because of the education that they received, and the opportunities that that education has provided for them to create security during this time of great stress and job loss. 

So again, not only are you using this tactic to create a community of shared experiences but you’re also delivering messages of hope and resilience and you’re delivering those messages from authentic college specific sources. So these might not be people who give right away but they are now new prospects who can be nurtured. And again, we’re moving from stemming the bleeding to kind of actively pursuing them with the right kinds of messages. 

And that’s the last thing I think to consider, which is that building donor resources, and you’re improving your foundation messaging is not a sprint, right? It takes nurturing. It takes strategic messaging over time but most importantly it takes connecting by telling your college’s story. Find that helpful, have a fantastic day.