It’s November, which means end-of-year fundraising season is upon us.

As with any year, direct mail will be the primary vehicle for giving, alongside online and email requests―especially around key dates such as Giving Tuesday, December 31, and any special days of giving that a nonprofit may organize to galvanize crucial year-end giving.

All of these appeals and requests will—or should—have storylines about the impact an individual can have on a family or person who benefits from the organization’s services or programs. The goal is to invoke a connected and compassionate response based on a human story.

When I read the stories typically included in fundraising appeals, though, I am reminded of the need for differences, often nuanced, between marketing and fundraising narratives. Often, an impact-based narrative suffices for both functions, in the name of consistency and cost-effectiveness. In best practice, however, it’s important to distinguish between marketing and fundraising narratives to ensure that each team, development and marketing, understands how to craft its own storytelling approaches.

The two functions of marketing and fundraising are more often united than in the past―which is a great strategy, but each remains distinctive regardless of where it is on the organization chart. Marketers and fundraisers must still consider their own unique characteristics when creating appeals and calls to action. Fundraisers may advocate that marketing use more of a fundraising narrative (as outlined below), while marketers want fundraisers to use marketing messaging. Both are right when the desired outcome is clearly defined in these two parts:

a) The marketing narrative = Building awareness, educating the public or target audiences, changing biases and attitudes, and inciting new behaviors.

b) The fundraising narrative = Developing resources, supporter knowledge, awareness, and actions for peer engagement to raise dollars.

Let’s take a look at how each is complementary to and different from each other.

Social issue marketing messages

In marketing social issues, we focus on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors as the keys to building awareness. We want more people to know about the issue the organization represents, so it can become part of the audience’s moments and conversations or incentivizes action from those who need the organization’s services. In either scenario, the goal of marketing and communications is to inspire a new behavior that drives participation and support.

The main components of a social issue marketing narrative should be:

1. Relevance: How this issue affects me (the message recipient) and/or those around me.

2. Knowledge: A single, crucial piece of new information to leverage for a call to action.

3. Attitude/bias: A key statement addressing deeply held beliefs, attitudes and biases.

4. Call to action: A participatory action that causes the target audience to internalize the issue and act in the interest of a collective short-term outcome.

Marketing narratives also contain some, if not all, of the following characteristics:

• Illustrates, through effective storytelling, the issue’s impact on an individual.
• Communicates through key trusted messengers to nudge new behaviors.
• Utilizes specific types of media that meet the individual where they are.
• Demonstrates immediate opportunity to showcase how one’s actions are imperative to influencing the issue and/or the organization’s work on the issue.

Social issue fundraising messaging

Fundraising appeals and narratives are similar but put more emphasis on the population who, as a whole, will benefit from gifts and resources―and less on specific individuals within that group. Appeals imply a loop of knowledge-support—impact today that inevitably leads to the organization’s future ability to provide knowledge, garner support, and make an impact.

The main components of a social issue fundraising narrative should be:

1. Relevance: How this issue impacts a population, group of people, or those around me but maybe not the individual personally. There is a point of interest and connection to the people being served that makes the relevance important.

2. Knowledge: Impact the organization’s services and programs have on an individual affected by the social issue, shared in the form of a beneficiary’s story.

3. Donor Impact: Information on how resources from individual donors like the reader or user affect the individual or population [KU1] being served.

4. Donation call to action: Single or peer participatory donation action for tangible outcomes.

Fundraising narratives also contain some, if not all, of the following characteristics:

• Illustrates, through effective storytelling, the donor’s impact on the beneficiary.
• Communicates at various times via the beneficiary, organization, or peer.
• Utilizes in-person requests, direct mail, email, and online social media. 
• Demonstrates immediacy at times with goal-setting and days-of-giving opportunities with a short-term deadline.
• Incentivizes giving with matches and individual donor benefits.

Fundraising and marketing narratives today must complement and support each other. Fundraising relies on awareness and knowledge generated by marketing efforts; marketing itself benefits from supporting fundraising strategies and goals with deeper connections and longer-lasting awareness. Working together, they can shift attitudes, inspire action, and engender more support to help people affected by the issue.

Derrick Feldmann (@derrickfeldmann) is the founder of the Millennial Impact Project, lead researcher at Cause & Social Influence, and the author of The Corporate Social Mind. See Derrick’s related articles in Philanthropy News Digest, “Nurturing a community for the greatest impact” and “Creating symbiosis between marketing and advocacy.” He also is managing director, Ad Council Research Institute and the Ad Council Edge Strategic Consultancy.