Clairity Click-it Special Edition: Major Gift Fundraising

Click it BIG time!
Click it BIG time!

This week’s Click-it is all about major gift fundraising. What better way to begin the new year than by thinking BIG?!

I’ve pulled together an awesome group of posts from some of my favorite major gift fundraising experts.

There’s also an opportunity (at the end) for you to delve deeper into major gifts fundraising this year.

I wish you BIG, considerably sizeable fundraising results this year in order to accomplish your BIG, considerably important and serious mission.

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Clairity Click-it: Fundraising Wisdom; Retention; Overhead; Time Management; Software; Social Marketing; Major Gifts

Happy New Year!

Here comes the first 2016 “Clairity Click-it” — an eclectic kick-off to the year.

I find so many great resources across the World Wide Web, some from other disciplines, and I want to share those I find most helpful. There’s so much the nonprofit sector should be learning and borrowing from others – we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel!

I’m also trying something new this year – “Dive the Five.”

I’ve selected five major themes to discuss with you this year in depth. Strategies that are so important to your success in 2016 – and beyond – that I want to be certain (1) you’ve got them on your priority list, (2) will begin to dedicate some serious resources towards them, and (3) will practice them regularly, until they become almost second nature.

If you learn to “Dive the Five” you’ll be able to raise money for anyone, any place, any time.

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Clairity Click-it: Free Holiday Gifts + Useful Fundraising & Nonprofit Management Articles

This week's Clairity Click-it Gifts -- wrapped up in my blog. Open them!
This week’s Clairity Click-it Holiday Gifts — wrapped up in my blog. OPEN THEM!

This week’s Click-it is more of a holiday season “Open-it” collection of gifts. For the second year in a row, I’ve gone shopping and will offer you one or more free gifts every week from now until the end of the year.

These are all good. And the first one today is a real doozy — a gift to me that I’m “re-gifting!”

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Clairity Click-it Year-End Giving Edition 3: Online Frenzy Time

In my previous Year-End Fundraising Planning Editions One  and Two I promised I would have more for you as year-end – and the biggest fundraising time of the year for most nonprofits – inexorably approaches.  Salsa reports that end-of-year giving can result in 40% or more of total yearly donations.

Online giving gets particularly frenetic at this time of year.

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Clairity Click-it: Large Scale Change; Leadership; Year-End; Social Tools; Gratitude; Team Building; Multi-Channel

Clairity Click-it ThanksgivingThis week’s Click-it is an eclectic mix of goodies. Maybe not as good as Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie, but sometimes your mind and soul need feeding too!

To my friends in the U.S. who celebrate Thanksgiving this week, have a good one filled with many blessings. For those of you scattered elsewhere around the globe, make yourself a nice meal anyway and gather together with people you love. Life’s too short not to.

This poem I wrote several years ago seems particularly appropriate this year, so check out “Attitude of Gratitude” if you’ve a mind to.

And if you can, try to find some time this week to dig into some of these resources.

Now… go make our world a more caring place, and hug yourself some hope!

I am thankful for you,

Claire

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Clairity Click-it-Year-End Fundraising: Lapsed; Online; Copy; Peer-to-Peer; Website; Landing Page; Saying Thanks

This week’s Click-it is dedicated to your year-end success!

December is the biggest fundraising opportunity of the year. What you do between now and December 31st will impact what you’re able to accomplish through the rest of the year.

  • Close to a full third of giving happens in just this one month.
  • 12% of all giving happens on December 31st (don’t go on vacation that day)!
  • 30% of all online donations are made in December.
  • 10% of all online giving happens in the last three days of the year
  • Average gift size is larger in December than any other month.

It’s now or never.

Please. Seize your opportunity!

But do it right.

It’s no longer just about direct mail or an email or two.

You’ve got to think about your website, thank you pages, social media and peer-to-peer fundraising – just to name a few. Old school is good, and there are some tips in the articles that follow to help you. But they’re no longer enough.

You must use online techniques to leverage offline techniques.

Think of social media and your website home page as advertising for your appeal. So that when folks finally receive your request for a gift, they do so with eyes and ears wide-open. Because they’ve been primed.

Ready? Let’s get started!

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Clairity Click-It: Nonprofit Productivity and Self Care

Catch this special edition devoted to making you and your organization more productive, effective and serene.

This week’s Click-it is dedicated to productivity. Yours.

Sometimes I like to find useful information that has nothing to do with nonprofit work, per se, but which has to do with being a human being working to be efficient and effective in our fast-paced world — all while balancing work and personal life. So I’ve collected a bunch of resources to help you work smarter, faster and better while also becoming less stressed, more relaxed, more focused and much more happy. Sounds like a good deal, right?

I know you think you have to run yourself into the ground to take care of the folks who rely on you for help. There’s so much to do and it’s all so important!

But to take care of the world you must take care of yourself first.

Why not send this entire post to everyone on your team; then ask them to come back to your next staff meeting with ONE thing they’re going to do differently as an individual and one OTHER thing they’d like to suggest doing differently as a team?

It could be fun – and a nice break from business as usual.

Ready? Let’s get started!

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Clairity Click-it: Powerful Ways to Increase Fundraising Revenue

Don't go batty! Click-it to find the resources you need to stay grounded.
Don’t go batty! “Click-it!” to find the resources you need to stay grounded.

This week’s Click-it is dedicated to helping you increase your fundraising revenue through a number of different strategies: monthly giving, sponsorships, targeted campaigns (e.g., #GivingTuesday), targeted communications, cause marketing, crowdfunding, cultivating mid-level donors, and more. These strategies will both help elevate awareness for your cause and increase your base of supporters.

And towards the end of the “Click-it,” as usual, you’ll find a bunch of completely free resources!

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Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Communication, Tools, Branding, Design, Metrics + Free Resources

Catch this Special Nonprofit Communications (includes year-end fundraising messaging) Edition!
Catch this Special Nonprofit Communications Edition (includes year-end fundraising messaging)!

This week’s Click-it is dedicated to the best ways to communicate your message as well as best ways to measure your success.

All of this is super important as we approach the year-end fundraising season.

  • Make sure your message is clear, catchy and relevant.
  • Use tools that make your life easier and assure that you get the biggest bang from your efforts.
  • And measure what works/what doesn’t; you’ll never improve if you don’t know to what to attribute your success or failure. That’s just sad.

If you’re not the person who might benefit most from some of these articles, please pass them along to those who might find them useful. Be good to your team!

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Clairity Click-it: Major Gifts Edition

Catch this Special Edition!
Catch this Special Edition!

It’s October! We’re entering prime fundraising season, and there’s no better time to sharpen your major gift skills. So this week’s edition is dedicated to exactly that. From prospect identification to cultivation to asking to follow-up. At the bottom you’ll find some new free resources, a chance to participate in a crowd-sourced major gifts blog and a last chance to actively prepare for your major gifts solicitations with some dynamic webinars and a practice clinic. Ready?

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