Fundraising Page Tip: Interview with Lee Overtree

Jon Stewart describes Story Pirates really well. He says, “The Story Pirates teach kids a love of creative writing.  It helps kids to see that their words and ideas are really important.  I believe that what the Story Pirates are doing is helping America, nay, humanity – helping humanity itself. It’s crazy entertaining.”

We recently wrapped up a campaign with Story Pirates and had the chance to talk to Lee Overtree on his digital fundraising experience. Check out what he has to say and his encouragement to other fundraisers.

Tell us a little bit about who you are.
My name is Lee Overtree. I’m the Artistic Director of Story Pirates, a group I founded with the help of some college friends in 2003. I oversee performance and media for Story Pirates in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as for national tours and on the web.

Why did you decide to fundraise for StoryPirates?
Obviously, Story Pirates is really important to me as it is my baby and my livelihood. But more than that, it’s very important to me that Story Pirates retains it’s philanthropic mission even as we expand into other areas. To keep that focus, it’s important to reach out to as many people as possible, and personal contacts work better than anything when expanding your base. CauseVox was a great way for us to mobilize every member of Story Pirates in an organized fashion.

What methods did you use to get people to come to your page?
Mostly, I reached out to my immediate and extended family. Having a CauseVox page gave me the confidence to reach out to family members that I wouldn’t normally have for fundraising. I also tweeted about my page from my twitter account and used the link as my Google Chat status.

I really only sent one email to each family member explicitly asking for donations, but in a succession of additional emails (about one a week), I would update everyone about other Story Pirates-related news, always followed by a link and reminder about my CauseVox page, of course. Since our fundraising campaign was linked to a big benefit gala, there were always more special guests and milestones to announce as updates, as we got closer to the event.

As for Twitter, I tried to be persistent without clogging my feed, making sure there were plenty of entertaining or unrelated tweets in between any promotional/fundraising ones.

What has been the most difficult part of fundraising?
The hardest part is being persistant in reaching out to people. If you make it easy to ignore your pitch, you’ll never raise any money. Personal appeals work best, and sometimes you have to reach out two or three times to be heard.

As someone who gets and forgets about a ton of emails, I know that people need reminders. Just because your cause is YOUR top priority, doesn’t mean that it is anyone else’s, so help them out! Think of yourself as their personal assistant for remembering to donate to your cause – if they forget to do it, it’s your fault for not reminding them enough.

Any tips you’d like to share with other fundraisers?
Mass emails are easy to ignore. Personal appeals are a lot more effective. Make sure you let people know your cause really matters to you, in a sincere and profound way.

A good personal appeal includes specific, but likely unrelated to your cause, information about who you’re writing to and your relationship to them. You always need details in there that show you put thought into writing them – they’re not just another name in your address book. The second, and most important, thing you need is total honesty – in order to speak sincerely you need to be forthcoming and clear about your own motives. People can sense genuineness or phoniness in equal degrees, and will donate accordingly.