Table of contents for

Hot Appeals or Burnt Offerings

by Herschell Gorden Lewis

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
  

• 1. Let’s Get Under Way
  • “We Need Help.” You Certainly Do.
  • “We Need Help”–a Cry of “Wolf!”?
  • Some Old Standbys Seem to Be Tapering Off
  • Do Spartan Messages Work?
  • “In-Group” Benefit and Drawback
  • The Provocative Question: Does It Provoke?
  • “Buying” Response
  • Go Thou and Do Likewise
• 2. What Do You DO with My Money?
  • Two Parallel Appeals. You Choose.
  • Assumptive Nonprofit Marketing: The “Huh?” Factor
  • How Far Do You Want to Go?
• 3. Getting Our Share of the Pie
  • The Challenge Exists
  • Meeting the Challenge
  • Does This Approach Seem Calloused?
• 4. A Little Ego Food Goes a Long Way
  • Two Easy Pieces
  • Let Them Think It’s for Real
  • Certified in Elegant Type
  • All “Boards” Aren’t Created Equal
  • Rhetorical Bullets for the Ballots
  • We Haven’t Come a Long Way
  • “They Don’t Know Who I Am. And They Don’t Care.”
  • Then What?
  • It Starts With the Envelope
  • Can You Personalize?
  • Stems, Not Flowers
  • Straightforward Pays
• 5. Shifting the Focus from US to YOU
  • Five Easy Pieces
  • Cold Can’t Beat Hot
  • A Few Examples of Exclusivity in Action
  • Cynical or Not, Here We Come
  • Reflections on Our Reflectivity
  • Anger as a Fundraising Tool
  • Select, Maximize, and Test
• 6. Match the Word to the Target
  • Aid for AIDS
  • Narrowing the Range to Match the Appeal
  • Easy Self-tests
  • They Care About . . . What? Better Guess Right
  • “What Does That Have to Do With Me?”
  • Riding the Third Rail
  • The Point Being . . .
• 7. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
  • Imagination Can Bring in the Dollars
  • Bricks and Mortar
  • On the Other Hand …
• 8. What’s Wrong with This Picture?
• • Less Can Be More
  • Which Works Better, Successes or Challenges?
  • Wishing for Candice
  • Somewhat Off the Point—Celebrities Galore
• 9. The Not-So-Great Creative Civil War
  • The Obverse Side—Proclaiming Positives
  • The Reverse Side—Proclaiming Negatives
  • Everybody Needs Help
  • We Walk the Tightwire
  • What If It Isn’t An Emotional Issue?
  • Two Little Rules Ignored. Classical Music on the Rocks.
  • Sopranos, Look Out
  • Peculiar Public Relations
  • Speaking of Deadly Public Relations& …
  • A Strange Coda
• 10. Let Your Best Donors Do the Milking
  • A Communication from Whom?
  • Is This a One-shot? Why, Sure!
  • “We Need Help”? For What?
  • How to Kill Off Multi-donors
  • The Rules of Multi-donor Elimination Avoidance
  • How Would You Contact Family?
  • No Surprising Public Announcements, Please
  • And in Poorly Used, Abused E-mail …
  • Awareness Is in Order
• 11. A Heap O’livin’ and Other First Lines of Text
  • The First Line Is the Teller
  • Pennies from Heaven
  • The Rule of Negative Subtlety
  • How Did You Rate Those Letter Openings?
  • Do You Agree?
• 12. Are You Testing Envelope Treatment?
  • Does the Window Get in the Way?
  • Does CARE Care?
  • What Should the Envelope Say … or Not Say?
  • In Election Years, Envelopes Fly
  • Don’t Take My Word for It
  • Don’t Be So Gentle on Your Envelopes
  • Pleasantries Please, but How About Pleasant Results?
  • Does Your “Provocative” Provoke?
  • Relevance versus Personalizing
  • The Old Dependables
• 13. Can You Really Raise Funds through E-mails?
  • The Grab-and-Shake Medium
  • Don’t Bother Googling
  • The Easiest Rules for Online Solicitations You’ll Ever Read
  • Do You Need a High-powered Web Site?
  • If You’re Testing …
• 14. Solidifying the Strands of Your Web
  • Fast, Open, and Clear
  • You’ve Stopped Them. Now Nail Them.
  • Professionalism versus Sincerity
  • Make Sense? Or Not?
• 15. Last Word: Creative Doesn’t Mean Too Creative
  • A Worthy Cause? So What?
  • Squeezing Response While Squeezing the Wallet
  • The Key to Donor Door-opening
  • Statistics Don’t Sell
  
  Addendum: Oh, You Have a Clever Idea—Address Labels?
  Index