Piece of Cake Strategic Year-End Fundraising Ingredients You May Not Be Thinking About

Want to know something that constantly amazes me?

When I give fundraising advice, people often tell me “Oh, Claire. That’s such common sense!”

Indeed.

Somehow, I’ve learned when we cross the thresholds of our organization we too often leave our common sense at the door. We make everything more complicated than necessary, often burying ourselves under a ‘to-do’ list that becomes so daunting we throw our hands up into the air and neglect to do any of it.

“I’ll do that next year” becomes a common refrain.

Guess what?  What you do next year won’t help folks who rely on you this year.

So, let’s make this easy.

Today I’m offering 6 key ingredients to make your year-end fundraising (all year round, actually) a piece of cake.

Recipe for Year-End Fundraising Success

1. Reach Out and Connect with Your VIPs

How you define a VIP will depend a lot on your size, staffing and numbers of donors.  Essentially, I’m suggesting you do something – as personal as possible – to truly connect with the folks who can make a transformative difference in your impact. Such folks may include:

• Lapsed (so far) annual donors. People who give every year, but who haven’t given yet, may need a reminder. This is the time when folks begin to consider their philanthropy for the year, and you don’t want them to forget about you. In fact, you’d love to persuade them to put you a bit higher on their list.

— Major donors – Give them a call. Set up a zoom chat if you can. Leave a message with your contact info if you don’t reach them. Thank them profusely for last year’s gift. Tell them you’d love to get to know them better and talk with them about what motivates their giving. And, if you’ve never done this before, apologize for not reaching out sooner. Tell them they are important to you – more important than they know. Make them feel you care about them as people, not just wallets. [Honestly, the way the majority of nonprofits treat their major donors, it’s no surprise so many folks stop giving because they think you don’t really need their gift. You’ve got to show them! Especially now.]

— Mid-level donors – If you’ve got the staff bandwidth, call them too. Especially if you have research that shows they’ve capacity to give more (e.g., you see them on donor lists elsewhere at higher giving levels). If you can’t handle this many calls, at least try one of these: (1) send a personal text (perhaps with a thank you video – it can be just you in person and as brief as 15 seconds); (2) personal email using their first name and referencing something they helped accomplish last year; (3) holiday card with hand-written note + include your business card so they have a real person to whom they can connect.

— Above-average first-time donors – Pull a list of everyone new who gave a gift above your average gift size. Or give some extra love to $100+ first-time donors. These folks are like gold. Clearly something made them give more than a token gift. But they won’t likely do so again, unless you fan the flames. At least send them a personal thank you email reminding them of the impact of their gift.

• Monthly donors you’d like to upgrade. I’m amazed how few nonprofits ever ask their loyal recurring givers to consider an increased gift. Per monthly giving guru Erica Waasdorp, the ideal maximum upgrade ask is to add one third of their current monthly gift onto your ask. And be sure to include “other” as an option.

• High-value prospects. Non-donors who may have been referred by board members, or who you’ve identified through wealth screening, or who’ve been particularly active as volunteers or peer-to-peer fundraisers. Again, these folks are worth a personal outreach by whatever means you can accommodate. Call, text, email or even social media (especially if they used LinkedIn).

TOP CONNECTION ACTION TIP: Set up a visit (zoom works) with your top 10 prospects. These are the folks you absolutely don’t want to lose. And from whom you absolutely don’t want to receive downgraded gifts.  Don’t take these folks for granted!

2. Use All Your Channels

At this time of year, all your messaging builds on each other. Email, Text, Social, Phone, Video. Bottom line: You’ve got to be where your donors are. If you’re not, someone else will be there – and they will be the recipient of your donor’s philanthropy.

• Email is probably your most important channel. It works, and it’s inexpensive. Send weekly warm up emails through November. Send at least biweekly in December and every day of the last three days of the calendar year. Also send this year on the 26^th, because research shows Fridays are the biggest year-end giving days.
• Mail should stand out so it doesn’t go directly into the garbage before it’s opened. Try a brightly colored or oversized envelope. Use a real stamp. Add personal hand-written notes – especially on appeals sent to major donors.
• Phone calls should begin with gratitude. Keep them short. Don’t waste the call; always leave voicemail with your contact info.
• Texts can be sent to those who’ve provided their phone numbers. Nothing slick! Make it personal, warm and homey. Give the option to opt out of future texts.
• Social posts can be sent directly to those you follow, and these can be personal. Also use channels your supporters frequent for broadcast posts with links to your donation page.

TOP CHANNEL ACTION TIP: Identify your top prospects, pick a channel where you’re not maximizing your outreach, and plan to send just one more personal message to them through that channel. For example, you might add an email or text. Or, I’ve found sending direct messages to donors on LinkedIn works especially well.

3. Publicize Urgency

People love to leverage their giving. So, the most effective strategy is often a matching challenge gift. When you tell folks they can double their money, this acts as a psychological trigger – FOMO. Folks don’t want to miss out on an opportunity! But you don’t want to overuse matches, because they can begin to lose credibility.

TOP URGENCY ACTION TIP: The beauty of a match is the urgency it creates. If you can find a match this year, by all means do so! If you don’t have a match, consider how else you might create urgency this year. Things you might say:

• Double your gift’s impact with a gift by…

• Demand has increased 25% and we expect it to be 25 to 40% next year…

• The cold of winter is approaching…

• The doors won’t stay open, unless…

• Neighbors displaced by this disaster need…

• This is a time for all hands on deck…

4. Edit Your Message to Donor Center it

Use “you,” “your” and sometimes “together.” As Kevin Shulman, the Agitator/DonorVoice recently put it: “Giving is autobiographical. People give to reinforce the values they hold, the identity they claim, the goals they’re pursuing. They give to feel agency, competence and connection.” If your appeal is all about what you and your organization do, the donor feels like a bystander. That’s not inspiring.

TOP DONOR-CENTRIC MESSAGING TIP: Review every single message before you hit send. Cross out all the ego-centric stuff in your copy and rewrite.Take out all the “I,” “we,” and “our organization” and replace with language the puts the donor into the story as a central character.

5. Make Giving Piece of Cake Easy

How people pay for things has changed! People barely use cash or checks, and many prefer not to give out their credit card info. This means you need to offer as many payment options as possible. Put all your giving options at the top of your donation page. Don’t make folks have to scroll down, go to another page, or otherwise hunt for how to make a DAF or stock gift.

TOP PIECE OF CAKE EASY TIP: Add more ways to give to your donation landing page. Look at including DAF widgets, Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, Square Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH transfers and more. And be sure to have easy to find instructions for making stock gifts and qualified charitable distributions from IRAs.

6. Plan Your Thank You Strategy NOW

How and when you say thank you matters more than any other strategy. Full stop. So do not delay writing your thank you copy until after your first gifts start rolling in. And strategize now to figure out how you’ll manage to get mailed thank you’s out within 48 hours and email thank you’s out immediately after a gift is made online.

TOP THANK YOU STRATEGY TIP: Don’t shy away from warm and fuzzy. People are emotional creatures. Grab this easy-to-follow Anatomy of a Nonprofit Thank You Letter plus Sample Template. Once you learn how to do this effectively, I promise you’ll keep and upgrade more donors. May all your thank you’s be awesome!

Bake Your Cake — and Have a Delicious Year!

Here’s your recipe again:

1. Connect with VIPs
2. Use all the channels
3. Publicize urgency
4. Edit your message to donor center it
5. Make giving easy
6. Plan your thank you strategy ahead of time.

There are lots of bells and whistles you can add, and I often write about them just so you’re aware they exist.  But, for right now, focus on these fundamentals.

If it helps, imagine you’re connecting with your family or chosen friends to make sure everyone attends a year-end get-together.

What do you do?

1. You connect with them!
2. You use whatever channels they use!
3. You let them know you need to hear back so you can plan how much food to order.
4. You make sure they feel especially wanted (you’re not just trying to have the biggest party with the most people; you want them to know their presence is essential and meaningful).
5. You send directions and offer suggestions around what to bring, what to wear, etc. — all so it’s easy for them.
6. And, if you’re an especially good host, you plan ahead to send them a thank you afterwards (at least if you want them to attend next year)!

Common sense.

Photo by Richard Bell on Unsplash