The Secret to Successful Fundraising Appeals: How Language Can Make or Break Your Campaign with Dr. Emilie Socash

Missions to Movements

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Why do some fundraising appeals succeed while others fall flat?
It all comes down to the power of language.
Dr. Emilie Socash, the visionary founder and CEO of the Nonprofit Help Center, is here to share groundbreaking findings from her research, including why donors are MORE generous when messaging emphasizes preventing negative outcomes.
We break down the psychological contrasts between promotion-focused and prevention-focused approaches, drawing from an eye-opening experiment involving 225 high-income adults.
Prevention-focused individuals are 53% more likely to increase their donations when they receive messages tailored to their motivational orientation!
Later, we go through Emilie’s incredibly actionable “Mad Libs” exercise to A/B test, analyze, and refine your appeals.
This episode is FILLED with impactful advice. Get ready to furiously take notes and have your pen and paper ready.
Resources & Links
Connect with Emilie on LinkedIn and learn more about the Nonprofit Help Center on their website, where they host hundreds of micro-learning courses.
Check out the free resource Emilie talked about in today’s episode: How To Say It And Speak Their Language (with promotion and prevention language examples!)
Join The Sustainers, my Slack community for nonprofit professionals growing and scaling a recurring giving program.
Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.

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How can you leverage Giving Tuesday to turn donors into recurring ambassadors? But how do you make that ask? Don’t miss my on-demand webinar replay with DonorBox.
Take advantage of DonorPerfect’s FREE End of Year Playbook to create the best multi-channel engagements.
Bloomerang is the complete donor volunteer and fundraising management solution. Deliver a better giving experience so you can raise more funds.
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Chapter

1. Impact of Language on Fundraising Success (00:00:00)

2. Impact of Language on Donor Giving (00:14:06)

3. Language Impact on Fundraising Appeals (00:20:55)

4. Community Engagement Through Digital Platforms (00:33:29)