I’m a Gen Xer. Nostalgia will always put a smile on my face.

Where’s the beef. Rubik’s Cube. Foofy hair. The Breakfast Club. MAD Magazine.

I had a run of close to ten years where I bought every single MAD Magazine that was published. I also bought a few of their collections and books. (Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions was a favorite.) And yes, somewhere I still have the MAD Magazine board game.

What attracted me to the magazine? I loved the humor, the spoofs, the art, the fold-in at the back. I’d read each issue cover to cover and laugh and enjoy.

To this day I believe that Alfred E. Neuman would make a better POTUS than some of the people who have occupied that office!

But there was one feature in every magazine that I made sure to look for.

Drawn out dramas

Sergio Aragonés Domenech is a master of art and humor. In every issue of MAD you could find his drawings in the margins of the pages. The drawings were horizontal and vertical and sometimes extended around corners. They were sometimes referred to as “drawn out dramas.”

I LOVED those drawings! Small little drawings of a simple scene which told you an entire story while making you smile, chuckle and laugh. What a talent!

A drawn out drama from Sergio Aragones


A year ago my brother in law bought me a collection of MAD movie spoofs. On the cover was Alfred E. Neuman swimming and the shark from Jaws coming up from underneath. But instead of eating him the shark said “blecch.”

Good times.

It had been a long time since I read anything from MAD. I opened and began to enjoy spoofs of Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, The Graduate, Scarface and more.

Probably out of habit my eye kept looking at the margins, searching for a Sergio Aragonés drawing. And I found them all! I may be over fifty but I was back in my room as a teen, enjoying those drawn out dramas.

But as I moved from page to page and enjoyed the mini-stories appearing in the margins, I really understood the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” (Have a look at the Wikipedia page which brings you the origins of this saying.)

A picture’s worth

In direct mail, longer fundraising letters do better than shorter ones. An eight-sided letter will bring in more donations than a two-sided one. (Here’s why.)

But with email and social media, short and to the point wins the race. And that’s why an attention capturing image is sometimes almost all you need to mobilize people to take action.

The picture tells them what the problem is or why there’s a need or who will be impacted and people can almost fill in the rest on their own. The picture says a thousand words.

As year-end approaches, now is a good time to look at the images and pictures you have. Find those that tell a story by themselves (or at least with minimal verbiage) and consider using those in your emails and social media posts.

People are busy. They have a lot being thrown at them. On social, use an image that will get them to stop scrolling and learn more. In emails, place that image at the top so I see it and want to act.

I know that’s not an easy thing. Not every picture tells a story. But by going thru pictures you’ve taken over the last year, you’ll hopefully come across one or two that will do the trick.

Take a look at this image from Feed the Children:

great image to help fundraising efforts


The content below the picture is almost “extra.” The picture and the accompanying message tell you everything you need to know. And yes, I’ll give $25 to make sure the girl in the picture has food to eat.

Plain and simple. You can see more examples from emails I’ve received under the “capture my attention” section.

Tug at emotions

Fundraising is about the emotional, not the rational. You’re looking to pull at someone’s heart strings while imploring them to make their community a better place for everyone.

A well-written email can certainly accomplish that. But I’m a big fan of a hero image (image at the top of the email) that captures attention and makes me want to keep scrolling and reading.

That image plays a big part in whether a subscriber will convert into a donor or not.

Go thru your picture library and find those images that will tell a story. Then get that story in front of your audience. It could be worth thousands of dollars.

Need help with your year-end emails? Contact me and let’s work together to ensure your organization raises max dollars from max subscribers.