Hark! the grant fundraisers sing,
“Please just give us core funding!”
Grants for projects can be fine, but
they don’t help the bottom line.
Flexible and multi-year
These things give us Christmas cheer
So, in 2026,
If you’re wondering what to fix
Hark! the grant fundraisers sing,
“Please just give us core funding!”

Stingy word counts are abhorred,
Prompts and space not in accord
And we’d really like the chance
To see the questions in advance
Online forms that you can save
Shouldn’t be that much to crave
And a portal that withstands
All those deadline day demands
Hark! the grant fundraisers storm
“Please just fix your bloomin’ form!”

Hail all those who give us feedback
Hail those who communicate
And those who, a deadline said
Don’t then close early instead
We can sense your deep frustrations
Born of increased applications
But, as all our targets rise,
Please don’t close to strategise!
Hark! the grant fundraisers cheer,
“Please fund us in the New Year!”

• Looking to up your fundraising game in the New Year?
• Keen to see what the grant process looks like from the funder’s perspective, and how that can help you improve your approach?
• Got a training budget that needs to be spent before year end?

New dates for Through A Funder’s Eyes now on sale!

(Sung to the tune of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ – but you knew that already)

God rest ye weary fundraisers
Let budgets not dismay
You’ve made it through the Big Give and
Bloomin’ Giving Tuesday
So pretend that your targets don’t
Exist this holiday
Oh tidings of funding and joy
Funding and joy
Oh tidings of funding and joy

You’ve battled stupid word counts and some
Awful funding forms
You’ve jumped through hoops to make sure that
Your proposal conforms
And changed your plans a hundred times
As Trusts shut down in swarms
Oh tidings of funding and joy
Funding and joy
Oh tidings of funding and joy

The appeals are all finished and the
‘Thank Yous’ are all sent
You’ve taken extra care to only
Email with consent
And some day you’ll recover from that
Big Gala event
Oh tidings of funding and joy
Funding and joy
Oh tidings of funding and joy

You’ve bit your tongue when trustees say
You should write to Bill Gates
And managed not to swear at them
As your target inflates
(It wouldn’t be so bad except that
None of them donates!)
Oh tidings of funding and joy
Funding and joy
Oh tidings of funding and joy

So let’s hope things are not so bad
In 2025
And that the funds you raise will help
Your charity to thrive
And thanks to you your donors
Satisfaction will derive
Oh tidings of funding and joy
Funding and joy
Oh tidings of funding and joy

• Looking to up your fundraising game in the New Year?
• Keen to see what the grant process looks like from the funder’s perspective, and how that can help you improve your approach?
• Got a training budget that needs to be spent before year end?

New dates for Through A Funder’s Eyes now on sale!

For a lot of cultural organisations, their starting point for visitor or audience donations is a handful of donation boxes or buckets dotted around the place, with signs that say something inspiring, like “donations welcome” or “please donate”.

Don’t all rush for your coins at once…

If this sounds depressingly familiar, or if you’re keen to review individual giving in your organisation, here are nine steps I use to help organisations develop supporter journeys that actually get people to give:

Focus on a specific target audience – the most successful fundraising messaging doesn’t try to appeal to everybody. Having a specific audience in mind means you can target your message and your offer based on their specific relationship with your organisation – their shared likes, dislikes, values, motivations and experiences. For a lot of cultural organisations, your primary target audience will be the people who walk through your doors every day.

Understand their motivations – people give to different organisations for different reasons at different times. You need to understand what is most likely to motivate people to take action to support your organisation or project. In particular, you need to be clear whether your target audience has a transactional motivation (giving because they are going to get something back) or a philanthropic one (giving to solve a problem, or because they love what you do and want to help you do more of it). (A lot of arts fundraising incorrectly assumes that people will only give if they are going to get something in return, which leads to organisations rushing to set up a Friends or membership scheme.)

Craft an attractive proposition – I always encourage organisations to think of their ‘ask’ as an invitation. Look for the overlap between your funding need and your target audience’s motivation, and use this to find the right invitation. For example, are you inviting them to fight for something? To save something? To join something? To fix something? To be part of something? To believe in something? Remember – the offer or invitation doesn’t need to be a package of tangible benefits or rewards. Don’t force people with a philanthropic motivation to have a transactional relationship with you.

Katch their attention – at any given moment, approximately 99.999% of your target audience are thinking about something other than you and your fundraising message. You need to change that before you can compel them to act. Consider what are you going to say or do to hook their attention and draw them in. Part of this means being bold and unashamed about your need for support. Don’t hide your message in the dark, unexplored corners of your venue/website/newsletter.

Tell a story – having caught their attention you now need to compel them to take action. Stories are a brilliant tool for bringing the need for your work to life. Consider – who or what does the potential donor care about, and/or empathise with? What is their goal? What stands in the way of them achieving it? How can the donor help them overcome this barrier? What emotion do you need them to feel at the point you ask for a gift? Remember – while you might use complete case studies to show the difference your work can make, you also don’t want the potential donor to feel there is no room for them. Leave space for them to be a Helping Hero. After all, you are asking the donor to help write the story’s ending.

Remove barriers to giving – having compelled someone to take action you need to make it as easy as possible for them to give. What channels make it easy for them to give in that moment? How can you reduce the mental and physical effort required to make the gift?

Use SUPER thanking – make donors feel valued and respected by ensuring your thank yous are speedy, unique, passionate, engaging and repeated.

Make them see the impact – having given the donor the chance to help write the ending to your story, you now need to show them what’s changed as a result of their gift. Showing that their support made a difference can help pave the way to talking about their next gift.

Prepare to ask again – encouraging existing supporters to give again is far more efficient than having to constantly recruit new donors. When the time is right, present people with a new invitation that aligns your needs with the donor’s motivations and drivers. And one final tip – don’t fall in to the trap of assuming you need to wait a year before asking again. Memberships might work on the basis of annual renewal dates but philanthropic gifts don’t have to.

Now, if only there was a handy acronym to remember all that…

A big chunk of my summer has been spent writing fictional funding proposals for real charities based solely on the information on their website and in their annual accounts.

​Jealous? Don’t worry – I’m sure your summer was lovely, too.

​While you might be judging me for my slightly unorthodox hobby, it’s actually been a really interesting exercise because, in a lot of cases, I couldn’t do it. The basic information I needed to write a compelling proposal wasn’t available – at least not in a way that was easy to find or understand.

​And I think that’s a problem.

​Because while my choice of holiday activity might seem unusual, I’m not alone in doing this.

​Over the last few years we’ve seen a growing trend of funders taking a more proactive approach to their grant-making.

​Rather than inviting applications, they’re doing their own research. They’re seeking out charities and projects that align with their objectives and using that research to make decisions on who to invite to apply.

​In effect, they’re writing their own applications.

​And what happens if they can’t find the information they need on your website?

​They move on to someone else.

​So, here’s a test for you.

​Using just the information on your organisation’s website, see how easy it is to answer the following questions:

1. What does the organisation do? (You’d think this would be obvious, but I was surprised how hard it was to find a clear and concise answer to this question for a lot of organisations)
2. What need or societal problem does the organisation’s work address?
3. What impact does the organisation’s work have? What is their track-record of success?
4. What are the organisation’s current fundraising priorities?
5. What are the organisation’s future ambitions?

​Now compare the answers you’ve got from your website to the information you would normally include in a typical funding application. What’s missing? Which is more compelling?

​If you’ve struggled to answer any of the questions, consider where this information might naturally sit on your website, and who else might be interested in it. For example, perhaps you might want to consider having a number of 1-2 page template proposals for specific projects or initiatives that require grant support on the ‘Support Us’ or ‘Trusts and Foundations’ page of your website.

​In particular, I think it’s worth looking at Questions 4 and 5, as these were the ones I most frequently struggled to find answers to. While the ‘Future Plans’ section of the organisation’s Annual Accounts often included exciting plans for growth or new projects, these were rarely mentioned on the website.

​This is perhaps not surprising. Organisations might be pursuing a “private” or “silent” phase approach, and might not be ready to talk publicly about their plans. Others might feel vulnerable talking about projects that might not happen if the funding is not secured.

​However, if more funders are taking matters into their own hands, perhaps we need to be a bit more open to this vulnerability and to sharing the dreams and aspirations that can only become reality with their support.

​At the very least, we need to make sure it’s as easy as possible for potential funders to find the information they need to pique their interest.

Since the start of the year I’ve spent over 100 hours catching fish, collecting shells and trading turnips.

As a result I’ve become the richest person in my village, paid off my house in full and set aside more money than I’ll ever be able to spend.

Yet every day I head back out with my net and fishing rod – catching, collecting, trading.

It’s time to admit I’ve got a problem.

This unlikely rags to riches story started when my daughter got ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ for Christmas. If you’re not familiar with the Animal Crossing series of computer games, they’re sort of a cross between The Sims, Pokemon and RollerCoaster Tycoon. Players design a character and head off to start a new life on a desert island. While there they have to catch fish, sea creatures and bugs, collect art and fossils for the local museum (long story…), interact with other villagers and trade turnips on the island’s Stork Market – all the while earning Bells (the island’s currency) to build, furnish and expand their home.

It’s simple. It’s laid back.

And it’s addictive as hell.

I soon realised I’d developed a strong compulsion to play every day, and that each session lasted a lot longer than I’d intended as I was seemingly incapable of turning the game off.

So what was it that made this supposedly sensible adult, with a real-world ‘to do’ list longer than his arm, log so many hours on a frankly pointless endeavour?

What techniques had the game’s designers used to get me to return day after day?

And, if they could get me to invest so much time and effort in something I didn’t really care about, could those same techniques theoretically make the infinitely more meaningful act of donating similarly “addictive”?

Here are four of the ingredients Animal Crossing uses to keep players motivated and coming back, and some thoughts on what they might look like in a fundraising context:

A lot of the game play in Animal Crossing revolves around catching bugs, fish and sea creatures. Players are tasked with collecting all 200 species of animal, which can then be sold to earn Bells.

However, unlike other hunter-gatherer games, you can’t just go and look for specific animals. Fish and sea creatures only appear as shadows in the water, meaning you have no idea what creature is in front of you until you’ve reeled it in. So, as you stroll along the beach, that small fish-shaped shadow could be a common Horse Mackerel worth 150 Bells, or a rare Barreleye worth 15,000 Bells. The only way to know is to catch it.

Is that shadowy fish common plaice or a bank-bulging Blue Marlin? There’s only one way to find out!

The game serves up a steady stream of mysterious shadows meaning every 10-15 seconds players face a dilemma – do I walk away and risk missing out on a rare fish, or do I spend a few extra seconds catching “just one more” in the hope of a big pay day?

Why does this keep players hooked?

​This is an example of “Variable Reward”, a concept first described by psychologist BF Skinner in the 1950s. Skinner’s experiment involved putting rats in a box with a lever that would dispense food. For some of the rats, pressing the lever would provide a regular and predictable supply of food. For the others, the outcome of pressing the level was unpredictable – sometimes they’d get a small piece of food, other times a large piece of food and sometimes nothing at all. For those rats receiving a variable reward, the act of pressing the lever became compulsive. They would press the lever more frequently than the rats receiving a predictable reward, often continuing after they were full.

Research shows that the desire for, and anticipation of, a reward can be far more powerful a motivator than the reward itself. The anticipation and unpredictability of when we’ll get the reward we’re seeking leads to spikes in our levels of dopamine, making us far more likely to keep playing. (This same principle is what makes slot machines so addictive).

So, could Variable Rewards motivate people to give more frequently?

For a Variable Reward system to be effective, three things must be in place:

• there must be the promise of a reward that your target audience finds desirable. These rewards don’t need to be tangible. In his book “Hooked”, Nir Eyal shows that social rewards (where your target audience is made to feel valued and respected by their peers) and internal rewards (self gratification or self-improvement) can be just as powerful as tangible rewards.
• the “pay out rate” must be unpredictable.
• The target audience must believe that the reward is within their reach

One possible implementation for donors who like learning about your work would be if random donations made via your website unlocked bonus content, behind-the-scenes insights, or an exclusive message from someone your target audience admires.

The National Museum of Scotland used a variation of this as part of their contactless donation journey back in 2016 – visitors making a donation were rewarded with one of sixshort videos featuring members of the curatorial team talking about their favourite objects in the collection – https://blog.nms.ac.uk/2017/07/27/making-contact-digital-experiments-with-visitor-donations/

One of the ways Animal Crossing encourages players to log on every day is through FOMO – or, more accurately, through scarcity:

• The range of items on sale in the island’s shop changes on a daily basis.

• Each day a rotating cast of guests make fleeting visits to the island, bringing time-limited challenges and exclusive rewards with them.

• Many of the island’s resources have a daily allowance that will be lost if not claimed.

Continuing the theme of Variable Reward from above, the order in which shop items and guest visitors appear is completely random, meaning that if you miss their appearance there’s no knowing when they’ll next return.

Why does this keep players hooked?

These artificial time limits reflect two powerful motivating factors:

Scarcity Bias – we perceive things to be more valuable when they are in limited supply (either through the quantity available or the time during which they’re available)

Loss Aversion – we feel the negative emotional impact of losing something more strongly than the positive emotional impact of finding something of the same value. As a result, we are more likely to take action to prevent loss than we are to achieve positive gains.

If I don’t buy that astronaut’s helmet today there’s no knowing when it will next be available!

What might scarcity bias and loss aversion look like in fundraising?

One of the most common uses of scarcity bias in fundraising is in match-giving campaigns. Here, scarcity is created by either having a limited pot of match-funding that multiple organisations are competing for, or a limited amount of time in which gifts can be matched. The risk that the opportunity to have their gift matched might be lost can be a powerful motivating factor.

But that’s not the only way scarcity could be used.

Perhaps you can have a limit to the number of people who can claim a specific reward as part of a crowd-funding campaign?

Or, if you are incentivising people to give, the nature of the reward could change on a daily basis?

Or, if you are running a Giving Circle, Syndicate or membership scheme, perhaps there could be a limit to the number of people who can join to harness the power of scarcity?

Whenever you log on to Animal Crossing you are given five mini tasks to complete. These are simple activities that can be completed quickly, such as “catch five fish”, “speak to three villagers” and “water the flowers”. Once completed, you are rewarded with Miles (another form of in-game currency).

However, your ‘to do’ list doesn’t stop there. As soon as you complete one task and claim your reward it is immediately replaced with a new task. This means that you always have five incomplete tasks on the go.

I would have cleaned the bathroom but a raccoon told me to chop wood

Why does this keep players hooked?

Most people aren’t short of things on their real-world ‘to do’ list, so a virtual raccoon popping up with a never-ending list of chores should be the last thing we want. Yet these mini-tasks are one of the ways the game keeps you playing after you’ve logged in.

There are two reasons this is an effective way of extending our playing time:

The Zeigarnik Effect – our brains don’t like unfinished tasks. We recall unfinished tasks more easily than finished ones, creating a sense of tension and discomfort.

Completion Bias – by contrast, completing tasks is believed to release dopamine – a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure.

It is no accident that these tasks in Animal Crossing are quick and easy to complete. This never-ending ‘to do’ list presents players with a perpetual cycle of “task tension” and easily accessible dopamine fixes to keep them playing.

So, how might completion bias be used in fundraising?

One way is to ensure your online donation page includes a clear indicator of how much of the process you have completed. This is increasingly common for online checkout pages. (And, as we’ll see below, this should make it clear that you’ve already completed the first stage).

Similarly, showing people what percentage of their CRM profile has been completed could motivate them to fill in the gaps, helping you to capture missing information.

Or perhaps your confirmation page could include a number of small follow-on actions for donors to take, such as sharing the campaign with a friend, completing a short survey about why they chose to donate today, and subscribing to your mailing list. Ensure that the design makes it clear that the donation has been completed but the other tasks remain “to do”. (This is common on most online petition platforms, where supporters are asked to share the petition with their network and make a small donation).

While the inclusion of short, simple tasks extends the amount of time people spend playing on any given occasion, Animal Crossing also uses bigger challenges to ensure people keep coming back days, weeks and even months later.

It does this using a staple of gamification – the use of badges and stamps to mark the completion of challenges and milestones.

In total, there are 96 challenges to complete, each represented with a virtual loyalty card. As players complete certain activities and reach different milestones a stamp is added to the relevant card. While the first stamps are relatively easy to acquire, they get exponentially harder. (For example, on a stamp card relating to fishing the player receives the first stamp after catching 10 fish, the second after 100, then 500, then 2,000, then 5,000.)

Just another 1,834 fish to catch before that precious final stamp is mine!

Why does this keep players hooked?

In a game with no end point – or where the end point is a long way in the future – achievement milestones help to keep players motivated. This is another use of the completion bias discussed above, but there are also two other factors at play:

​Sunk cost fallacy – this is the psychological principle that we are more likely to continue an activity or behaviour if we’ve already invested time, effort or money, even if that behaviour or activity is no longer enjoyable or beneficial. Having already spent time collecting early stamps we are more likely to continue in order to complete the card, so as not to waste that previous effort.

Endowed progress effect – In most cases, players aren’t told what the challenges are until they receive the first stamp. As a result, the first stamp feels like a gift. In psychology, the endowed progress effect means we are more likely to complete a task if we believe we’ve made progress towards that goal, even if that progress comes as the result of a headstart or artificial boost. This was identified by Joseph Nunes and Xavier Dreze, who experimented with two versions of a car wash loyalty card – one that required 8 stamps to unlock a free car wash where none of the stamps were filled in, and one that required 10 stamps but where two has been pre-stamped. Despite both cards representing the same real-term offer (collect 8 stamps and get a free car wash), those receiving the pre-stamped card were more likely to complete their card.

So, what might endowed progress and the sunk cost fallacy look like in fundraising?

You might want to remind people of the impact their previous gifts have had, positioning future gifts as protecting the progress they have made to date. (This is a core component of a lot of legacy fundraising messaging, such as this campaign from Greenpeace)

Perhaps you could recognise people for achieving certain milestones relating to the number and cumulative total of gifts?

Or perhaps you could offer challenges, such as donating to support different aspects of your organisation’s work, or for updating their contact details?

I’d love to hear any suggestions you’ve got, or any examples of ways you are already using some of these approaches in your fundraising.

(To be sung to the tune of ‘Let It Go’ from Disney’s ‘Frozen’)

The “Nos” pile high in my inbox tonight
Not a grant cheque to be seen
Sent plenty of applications
But we haven’t had a bean

My boss is shouting and there’s nowhere I can hide
I can’t do much more, heaven knows I’ve tried!

I wrote them well, I let them see
All the good things we’d do with their money
The “why”, the need, all that I showed
But they said no!

Let it go, let it go
Can’t go back to them anymore
Let it go, let it go
Why will nobody fund core?!

I just know
What they’re going to say
“Too much else this time”
A ‘no’ never bothered me anyway!

It’s funny how some word counts
Are ridiculously small
But the questions that they’re asking
Want me to tell them all!

It’s time to see what I can cull
The stuff that’s lies or really dull
The shite, the long, the jargony –
Delete!

Let it go, let it go
Turn down rate’s never been this high
Let it go, let it go
Another “no” and I will cry!

Hours I spent
On that stupid form
Let my boss rage on!

Another project where the detail’s really bare
My head is spiralling with budgets plucked from the thin air
Now I’m the one who’s s’posed to make it sound on brand
Oh what I wouldn’t give
For a cheque for fifty grand!

Let it go, let it go
And I’ll write til the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
It’s not perfect but it’s gone!

Here I stand
Slowly turning grey
On to the next form
A ‘no’ never bothered me anyway!

A Poundland monstrosity.

That was how my partner first described the Christmas light display I’d secretly hung up on the front of our house.

And, though I didn’t want to admit it, she was right. The bright neon star, reindeer and icicles that were now illuminating half our street suddenly looked a lot more garish than they had in the shop.

No wonder there were still so many left on the shelf…

When I’d bought them I was just thinking about how much our kids would love seeing them, and had hoped that they might spread some festive cheer to our part of the street. But, as I stood there staring at the blinding mass of white and purple LEDs, I was starting to worry that I’d made a huge mistake.

The next day I bumped into our neighbour. I was about to apologise for bringing down the neighbourhood when he called out:

“Love the lights! I’m not normally a fan of Christmas lights but they look good. In fact, our daughter keeps asking if we can have some, too”.

Half an hour later and I’m up a step ladder hanging up a matching set of icicle lights on next-door’s house.

And that evening, as my youngest shouted out with excitement at the sight of Rudolph and his bright red nose beaming down from our bedroom window, my worries (and heart) melted.

So, why am I telling you this, and how am I going to bring it back to fundraising?

Our Christmas lights aren’t going to win any prizes for style, taste or design. However, they’ve achieved what they were supposed to – putting smiles on peoples’ faces.

When we’re creating fundraising materials (e.g brochures, posters, emails, websites, proposals etc) we often make design choices based on what we think looks good, rather than on what is going to help us achieve our objectives.

But there are times when the pursuit of “beauty” ends up doing more harm than good, holding us back from what the brochure/poster/email/website/proposal is trying to achieve.

For example:

• Block justified text looks nice on the page, but the uneven spacing between words makes it harder to read, while the straight edges on both sides of the text increase the chances of people skipping lines. This is particularly true when people are skim-reading. Whether we like it or not, our audience are most likely to be skimmers and scanners so by using the “uglier” left-justified text we can make it easier for them to read.
• Having buttons, links and headings all in our organisation’s decreed colour looks visually pleasing (and will keep you in the good books of your organisation’s ‘Brand Enforcer’). However, a number of tests have shown that using a highly-contrasting colour for your Call to Action will result in it getting noticed more, and receiving more clicks.
• It might look nicer to finish each page with a finished sentence (or, even more “beautiful”, a finished paragraph). However, as fundraising copywriter extraordinaire Lisa Sargent says, “A completed sentence is a stop sign for your brain”. Having sentences that run over the page forces the reader to turn over, increasing the chances they’ll keep reading.
• In a similar vein, getting everything on to one page might make it look tidier, but if that means you have to shrink the font, minimise the margins and eradicate any white space on the page you’re going to destroy the accessibility and readability. And it doesn’t matter how compelling your message is if people can’t read it.

Remember – “aesthetic beauty” is not a meaningful KPI in fundraising.

Your design choices need to be driven by what you’re trying to achieve.

What makes your target audience more likely to take notice?

What makes them more likely to engage with the key parts of your message?

And what makes them more likely to take action?

So, next time someone tries to get you to change something because their way will “look nicer”, consider whether the change could end up doing more harm than good. And, if you don’t know, look for a way to test it.

That way, you can make ‘effective’, rather ‘aesthetic’ your (bright neon) guiding star.

I don’t think I’ve ever looked more smug than I did last Friday.

After a day going back and forth trying to find the right name for one of our new consultancy services I’d finally hit the jackpot.

It had the lot. A smart analogy. Some clever word play. A witty twist on two well-known acronyms.

Staring at it on the page stirred feelings of pride I haven’t felt since the birth of my kids.

There was just one problem.

When I showed it to a group of fundraisers, not one of them had the foggiest idea what the name alluded to or what the service was we were actually offering.

That smug look vanished as I realised what had happened.

I’d been so distracted by “clever” I’d taken my eye off the single most important thing I needed to achieve – to clearly show my target audience why this service was right for them.

I’d fallen victim to the Curse of Clever.

The Curse of Clever is where we become so wedded to an idea because of its novelty or cleverness that we will move heaven and earth to make the idea work, even if it means sacrificing clarity and functionality.

(If you’ve ever have been at a conference where someone has started talking about “The 32 Ps of Corporate Partnerships”, where each P has got more and more tenuous as the speaker desperately tried to find a synonym for what they were actually trying to say, you’ll know what I mean.)

“Clever” ideas can come from a range of places. Linguistic tricks (such as puns, wordplay, alliteration and acronyms that spell a word), quirky design choices, linking to current events or notable people and events from our organisation’s past – all can turn into cursed ideas that distract us from our primary aim if we hold them too tightly.

And this curse doesn’t just affect our copywriting.

“Clever” ideas can influence how we structure appeals, the names we give to different membership schemes and even the amounts we ask for (looking at you, anniversary campaigns that use multiples of the year as the suggested donation amounts, despite them having no connection to the amount you need or your donor’s giving habits).

Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for these techniques and devices. Done well, they can be effective ways of helping you engage and inspire your target audience. But, to do so, they need to remain the humble servant to your message. As soon as your “clever idea” starts calling the shots you’re in trouble.

Because here’s the thing – clever is only clever if it works.

Your goal is to get your message across to your target audience in a way that catches their attention, inspires them and motivates them to act.

So, if you feel yourself becoming the hostage of a “clever idea”, stop and test it against the following questions:

• Does this idea help or hinder us to catch the attention of our target audience?
• Does it help or hinder us to build trust, rapport and connection with our target audience?
• Does it help or hinder us to achieve the desired emotional response in our target audience?
• Does it help or hinder our target audience’s understanding of why our work is needed?
• Does it help or hinder our target audience’s understanding of what we’re asking them to do and why this is right for them?
• Does it help or hinder our target audience to give?
• Does it help or hinder our target audience to remember our message? (NB Acronyms don’t automatically make things easier to remember. They only become more memorable after repeat use. To begin with they’re usually harder to understand as your audience struggles to remember what each letter stands for).

If the idea is helping more than hindering, proceed (but on the understanding you will jettison the idea if it stops being helpful, or if a better one comes along).

But if the idea is holding you back, perhaps it’s not such a clever idea after all.