At the movies today, when you can see a robot punch an alien in the head in dizzying 3D, it’s interesting to remember more intimate things that race our pulse and stand up our neck hairs.

The idea that your neighbor could be a killer, that he’s in the house, and your leg is broken. Something elemental coming to torment Tippi Hedren. The dizzying view from a San Francisco mission bell tower. A shadow holding a knife outside the shower curtain in stark black and white, then blood running down the drain.

And when Transformers XIV: Revenge of the Return of Starscream has come and gone, Hitchcock will still be there, making us feel.

We know that for most nonprofit direct marketing gifts, making your donors feel is one of the most important success factors – studies show including extra information on program effectiveness can blunt the emotional appeal of your communication.

So how did Hitchcock hit emotional notes with his audience? He understood experience.

Every time Hitchcock create a script, he created two scripts: a blue one and a green one. The blue script covered the lines, the blocking instructions – everything you remember from your 8th grade play.

The green script was what makes Hitchcock indelible. It covered what emotion he wanted his audience to feel at every point in the movie.

Some, but not all, direct marketers excel in putting the emotion on the page or in the email. They pick an identifiable, sympathetic victim who is not so different from you and me. They use vivid imagery that puts the reader in the story. And they make the reader the potential hero: you and you alone can save this person/animal/verdant field. They write, in short, a wonderful scene.

But after that, the donor experience is forgotten. The receipt that should inspire joy reads as clinical and grasping. The next piece feels like the organization doesn’t know the donor and doesn’t care to. The first email they receive is to “Dear Friend,” a mere stone’s throw away from OCCUPANT. And what should be an easy, personal experience is sapped of its emotion or, worst, invested with negative emotions: confusion, irritation, even regret.

For us to create our own green scripts and graduate from good scenes to great stories, there are a few things we must do:

Understand why donors give to you. A commitment study can unearth which experiences are already working for you, which need improvement, and which can end up on the cutting room floor with no ill effects. For example, you can see here how YMCA spent millions on equipment, when people really wanted the staff to know their names.

Understand why each donor gives to you. A person who is suffering from the disease you aim to eradicate (or adopted a mistreated animal or attended your school or what-have-you) doesn’t need to imagine what it would be like to be tied to your mission – they’ve lived it. But others need to be touched that way. It’s at your peril to confuse these very different donor groups.*

Focus on the emotions your communication is trying to impart. Those who are regular readers of this blog (thanks, dad and mom!) will remember the “thank you” letter I received from one nonprofit. For those who haven’t committed it to memory, here’s the letter in all of its glory:

“Dear Nicholas Ellinger,

XXXXXXXXXXX gratefully acknowledges your generous gift(s).

Thank you for your generous donation. To learn more ways you can help our organization, please visit our website at XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.”

In terms of emotional journey, this letter is a hot air hand dryer in an airport bathroom: it meets the technical and legal definitions of a dryer. Yet it feels empty and slimy and you have to wipe your emotional hands on your emotional pants afterward.

OK, I may have tortured that metaphor a bit. But you get what I’m driving at: zero warm fuzzy, only cold prickly.

Focus on the emotion across the communications a person will get from a nonprofit, not just the individual trees in that forest. You may be thinking “my acknowledgment package is much better than that one.” Excellent! But how many times will the person get an ask from you in between when they sent their check and when they got your acknowledgment?

And before you answer, remember that email counts too. I just signed up for a nonprofit email list eight days ago. I’ve already received five asks. And every time someone gets those email, mail pieces, phone calls, etc., they think:
– “Did they get my gift?”
– “If they did, aren’t they happy they got my gift?”
– “Was it not enough?”
– “Was it a scam?”
– Etc.

Suffice it to say, that element of the donor journey does not read “joy” in the green script.

This also manifests in:
– Asking for information you already have, e.g., preprinted “Can you share your email address?” on the reply form, even if someone subscribes to your emails (or has unsubscribed from them.”
– Ignoring information you have, like the earlier example of trying to imagine someone with a malady when the person may have it themselves.
– Inflexibility of business rules – do you call someone lapsed if they decided to make their gift 12 days later this year than they did last year? If you are running a strict 0-12 month select, you are.

Hopefully this has given some food for thought on how to craft an emotional journey. We’d love to do it with you, but if you want more tips on how to focus on your donors, you can sign up for our chock-full-of-tips monthly e-newsletter here:

* While not Hitchcock, another movie parallel comes to mind here. A commentary on Silence of the Lambs said they were trying to hit every type of fear, including being stuck in an elevator with everyone much taller than you. I (at 6’, which is what all men say they are when they are 5’11”) didn’t know that was a thing. My wife (not 6’) assured me it is. The green script functions differently for different people with different experiences…