Unite for Bleeding Disorders Donor-Centric Content

Unite for Bleeding Disorders, the National Bleeding Disorders Foundation (formerly the National Hemophilia Foundation) signature fundraising events team wanted “word help.” They needed their copy supporting their event series to be more donor centric, as they were moving away from the transactional past of the organization. 

A social psychologist, Otis is a much-sought-after copywriter for nonprofit fundraising messages. He has written campaigns for UNICEF, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, The March of Dimes, Susan G. Komen, the USO, and dozens of other organizations. He is the co-author of the 2017 book, Dollar Dash: The Behavioral Economics of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising, the 2023 book, Social Fundraising: Mining the New Peer-to-Peer Landscape, and is a frequent speaker at national nonprofit conferences. Unite for Bleeding Disorders said, “Let’s get this guy writing for us!” 

 
All in, Otis wrote a complete series of 30 messages for the 2021 Unite for Bleeding Disorders campaign. Messages included: recruitment, fundraising activation, post-event messages, social posts and others. Copy was distributed to the various chapters around the country for their use. To support the messaging strategy Otis also conducted an online training for chapters around the country on the psychology of fundraising. 

Katie Cooper, NHF Senior Director of Stakeholder Relations, said, “We had good copy, but it was transactional. We needed someone to make it more donor centric, then teach us how to extend those ideas into more than just email copy. Otis’ writing and training helped us in the moment with the email series, but over time with a different understanding of how to address our constituents.”