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When to Make an Analog Choice in a Digital World
In his 1964 book, “Understanding Media,� Marshall McLuhan penned an era-defining aphorism when he wrote that “the medium is the message.� McLuhan’s ability to divine the future still amazes me. He saw our current Information Age coming and he warned us about our own naiveté – particularly our predilection to judge the merits of ideas by how artfully they are packaged.
As someone who thinks about communications strategy almost all the time, I ponder the power and perils of packaging products, services, and ideas incessantly and obsessively, as do many of my colleagues who toil in marketing and communications. We all know how seductive our tools are. Folk wisdom may advise us that it is impossible to turn a silk purse into a sow’s ear, but we know better. We see it done every day. It isn’t that hard to do. But, boy oh boy, is it wrong to do so, especially in the nonprofit sector where we are expected to govern ourselves according to the greater good and to be less self-serving.
Why are people so easy to manipulate? I believe that it is because, at our core, our impulse to trust is so strong. Is it any wonder, then, that so many people are cynical about so many things?
Perhaps we should be more amazed that anyone ever trusts, given how many times that trust is betrayed. I suspect that our need to trust is hard-wired – that we needed to trust in order to survive as a species. Clearly, this impulse may no longer serve us and I wonder if or when cynicism might become the hard-wired response? I wonder what it might be like to do our jobs in this gestalt? To many already-cynical consumers we are irrelevant now, and if we’re not mindful of our own behavior, we could become completely irrelevant.
So how does all this philosophizing become useful? How do we learn from it?
In practical terms – especially when it comes to raising money – how we “package� the case for giving matters. For several years now, I’ve been increasingly concerned about “over-packaging.�
In many contexts, making a deliberately low-tech choice is smarter. Relying on a story that’s well-told in a straightforward style – that’s not all gussied up in a digital gown –better conveys the truth and resonance of a fundraising appeal.
Glitzy, over-produced, under-designed – but mostly under-thought – PowerPoint® presentations are everywhere. The packaging splashes, but the thinking is often stunted and malformed. I understand why. It’s easier to produce a digitally delightful presentation than it is to develop a sound case. Case development is gut-wrenchingly difficult, as any old hand at fundraising knows.
But the bigger problem is, as Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message. The technology can easily overwhelm what’s substantive, meaningful, or interesting. The bells and whistles distract. A great fundraiser engages the prospect’s imagination. It’s the vividness of the slide show in the prospect’s mind that compels check-writing. We can’t compete with that. We shouldn’t try.
In a fundraising environment, what often matters most is the relationship between the solicitor and the prospect. If there’s a good relationship, trust underpins the conversation. As fundraisers know – and most people have a hunch about this – fundraising prospects are wary birds. They’re the chukker partridges of the upper class. They hide well, flush fast, and fly low. (Forgive the bird-hunting reference. I’ve got Dick Cheney on my mind.) Fundraising prospects tend to be somewhat cynical. They’ve heard, seen, and considered more worthy causes than most of us. It is common sense that distracting from substance and from relationship is just plain ineffective.
Still, there’s that pesky problem of organizing the message for the solicitor. When things work best, the staff isn’t making the call, they’re preparing the volunteer or Board Member who will actually do the heavy lifting. As many of us know, Board Members who are comfortable raising money are rarer than Pharoahs in Egypt. We know they exist. We’ve seen the hieroglyphics. We just can’t find any. So, the question persists. How do we help make them comfortable so that they’re effective?
We recommend an old-fashioned, but very effective, tool: the flip book.
One of our clients, Marilyn Santarelli of the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, is a seasoned fundraising veteran. She’s done it all. She’s fundraised in higher education as a professional. She’s been a Board Member and a volunteer. She’s raised money as a prominent socialite in her community. And she’s been on the funding side as well, sitting on the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She’s also an extraordinarily savvy and articulate professional.
Marilyn had never used a flip book before. She wasn’t particularly interested in using the one that was developed for her campaign– at first. Today, she says she’d never do a campaign without one again.
To her amazement, the flip book made her Board feel comfortable fundraising. More amazing was the fact that prospects wanted to keep them because they loved the story they told. Marilyn found her flip books – and campaign gifts – proliferating.
Logistically, flip books are easy. Volunteers can carry the book under their arm. No schlepping projectors, screens, and laptops around, nor scrambling around on the floor hunting for electrical outlets. Instead, a good-old analog solution that tells a story in simple, straightforward, terms.
In presentational terms, the flip book organizes the presentation flow. Key points in the case for support – reinforced by graphic elements and pictures – march forward like one of General George Patton’s infantrymen. Waiting there, on the second to last page, is that customized, personalized ask. Everybody knows that page is coming, so the ask gets made. This is critically important. It’s an embarrassing little secret in the fundraising world that many fundraising meetings occur with no ask ever occurring. People chicken out. Talk about anti-climactic. Even the prospect expects to be aked, and when it doesn’t happen, the time spent feels wasted.
Returning to the pondering that started today’s blog, I believe this approach helps fundraisers navigate the message-medium dilemna. It directs the prospect’s focus where it should be – on the message and on the trusted friend who is laboring to do a good deed by making a case for some greater good.
This approach leverages simplicity. Simplicity is beautiful. It also forces people to spend their time making the message, not the package, compelling.
Posted on February 17, 2006 10:13 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Your post today reminds me of how those of us in the design industry are often guilty of over-doing things when the fundamental purpose of design is to serve the communication of ideas. Too often, we forget to ask our clients and ourselves the fundamental question "Is a PowerPoint the best way to do this (or brochure, or whatever)?"
Designing for simplicity and impact is more difficult, in my opinion, than rushing to show off the latest digital bells and whistles. A flip book is a tool facilitating the connection between the fundraiser and the prospect -- a sort of bridge if you will -- and a bridge that has to be carefully planned around the various human scenarios the user will likely encounter. The audience is small and focused and the work has to be as well.
I am no neo-Luddite myself. I am an early adopter of technology. I carry my PowerBook everywhere, but also my sketchbook, and if I had to live without one of the two, I would keep the sketchbook because no technology is better for quickly capturing ideas.
Your post today reminds me not to let the tools dictate the work process. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and after all there are lots of other ways to fasten together effective communication.
Thanks again for your insight.