Between charitable appeals, Kickstarter campaigns and, well, a recession, it seems there have been a lot of social giving requests in social media lately. Some are awesome. Some, less so. We’ve done this a few times with pretty sock-rocking levels of success (this is the one we were most proud of) so I thought I’d do a little public service announcement on how to kick ass at begging for money.

1. Tell me what’s going on.

Lead with the story. What’s going down? Did somebody’s kid get sick? A fellow blogger lost their job? House getting foreclosed on? Tell me specifically and in words an 8-year-old could read and understand exactly what is happening. (If you don’t have time to get into details because it’s urgent, link to details somewhere else, like Wikipedia or the Cancer Society or something.)

2. But don’t tell me TOO much.

I am busy and I don’t know who the hell you are. Make it easy for me to scan. BIG! BOLD! HEADLINES! Some people want to know every detail. Some people don’t give a shit about details, they just want to know what the hell you’re asking them to do. Give me details if I want them, but let me skip them without missing the point.

3. Tell me why I care.

This will usually be because a situation is particularly heinous or because it involves somebody I should know or care about. Just giving me the facts isn’t good enough – tragedies happen all the time. It would be lovely if we opened our wallets every time we heard that something bad happened, but if that was the case we’d be broke by half way through the six o’clock news. Tell me why YOUR cause is important to ME.

4. Tell me what went wrong.

In my mind, this is somebody else’s problem. We like to believe that social safety networks are working and strong, so if you’re asking me for money, something has to have broken. If you’re raising money for a village in Africa, tell me why foreign aid workers aren’t doing something about this. If some woman is about to lose her house, explain to me exactly which politician fucked her over. If somebody can’t pay for their kid’s medical procedure, give me the details on why their HMO is being a dick. Why hasn’t this problem been solved already?

5. Invoke emotion.

Do not be unbiased, objective or reasonable. Make me scream in outrage. Make me call my husband in tears. Tell me about their children and their foster puppies and their mother who just happens to bear a striking resemblance to Rosa Parks. Remember, the money that I’m thinking of giving you is coming out of my boob job fund, so you better make me feel damn good about giving it. You do that by making me feel damn bad about our tragic victim.

6. Use social proof wisely.

People like having those little tickers or thermometers or whatever that tell you how near they are to their goal. Good in theory, but it can really backfire. In a world where people can raise $100,000 in an hour on Twitter, being a quarter of the way to your goal of $1,000 after a week just makes me think your cause sucks.

There might have been a time when we saw one of those things that wasn’t going well and we’d rally around the underdog, either out of social responsibility or guilt. If those days ever existed, they’re not here anymore. If your campaign is going badly, take the ticker down.

7. Tell me what you want from me.

Money? Tweets? Children’s clothes? Be very, very clear. You don’t know who I am or under what circumstances I’m reading your plea. Maybe my kids are screaming. Maybe I’m drunk. Maybe I just got back from the hospital myself. If a classroom full of ADHD preschoolers couldn’t understand your appeal, you’re not being clear enough.

8. Tell me why it’s going to help.

Your money goes to X. Your gift certificates are important because they help with Y. Your blankets are needed because of Z. No matter what you’re asking for, somebody out there is going to think it’s stupid or wasteful or selfish or inefficient. If you ask for clothes, they’re going to think you should be asking for money. If you ask for money, they’re going to email wondering why they can’t send clothes.

(The same is true when you DON’T want certain types of donations. Every time a natural disaster occurs, the Red Cross gets flooded with calls from people offering old blankets, and every time, the Red Cross says no, they’d rather have the money. After enough people told them to go fuck themselves, they started explaining that it costs more to ship the blankets from Duluth to Kenya than to just buy the blankets in Nairobi. ”OH” says the people, and they whip out their checkbooks. Why matters.)

9. Tell me exactly what to do next.

For the love of God, have an action plan. Click here to donate. Send checks to this address. Drop off cans of food at your nearest fire hall. Remember, I’m drunk and my kids are screaming at me and my uncle is in palliative care. Just because your cause is the most important thing in the world to you doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing in the world to me. I don’t have time to read your fine print.

Oh, and don’t start appealing until you have an action plan. Don’t tell me today that you’ll have a place for me to drop off my canned goods four days from now. By then, I will have moved on.