Winter Wonderland Clairity Click-it: Nonprofit Links, Free Resources
Get ready to raise a glass of nog or hot cocoa to celebrate your year-end fundraising success!
In this issue you’ll find a number of resources to help you get to the finish line, as well as resources to assist you in hitting the ground running in the new year.
Please join with me in thanking my awesome sponsor, Bloomerang, for making it possible for me to continue to offer these hand-curated resources to you for free. My motto is: “If I know it, I want you to know it.” Life’s too short, and our problems are too big, to keep information all to oneself.
Good luck with your end-of-calendar-year fundraising, and let’s get right to this issue’s links!
Thank you for doing the important work you do. You make our world a better, safer, stronger, more beautiful and caring place.
To your success,
P.S. Speaking of Bloomerang, we’ve recently launched a new Ask an Expert (“Dear Charity Clairity”)feature on their website. Check out the current Q & A and … feel free to ask your own questions! You can simply hit reply and email me questions directly too.
Clairity Click-it, Your Nonprofit Ticket to…
Annual Giving
Click-it: The How & Why Of Adding Emotion Into Your Fundraising Appeals. Do this one thing, and you’ll be amazed how much it improves your fundraising. Check out my article on the Bloomerang blog.
Donor Retention
Click-it: 5 Ways to Improve Your Impact Report. Kayla Matthews offers a great review of the purpose of impact, vs. outcome, reporting on Nonprofit Pro. Once you understand the purpose, you’ll be able to better create donor-centered communications.
Click-it: Mission: Possible—Turn One-Time Donors into Recurring Donors. This is a super timely article, as it will help you plan to retain all the donors you pull in during year-end fundraising season. Rely on a ‘cycle of communications.’ Ask. Thank. Impact report. Update. Ask again. This article from Qgiv fleshes out every step.
Major and Legacy Gifts
Click-it: Loyalty vs. Capacity: Distinguishing Between Planned and Major Gift Prospects. When it comes to thinking about the form gifts take, it’s good to consider the donor’s perspective. Seldom does a donor say to themselves “I want to make a major gift” or “I want to make a planned gift.” In this article on the Bloomerang blog, I explore how major and planned gifts, and donors, are the same or different.
Click-it: Get over your discomfort and politely ask for money. Marc Pitman, The Fundraising Coach, offers up some simple language for you to practice your ask. It’s exactly the advice I’d give, and… practice makes perfect!
Click-it: Your Opportunity Knocks: Get Started with Bequest Fundraising. Have you allocated at least 9% of your development budget towards promoting bequests? Because bequests account for 9% of all philanthropy. In this article on the Bloomerang blog I describe both ethical and practical reasons why you must look forward with your fundraising – no matter your size – and give you 4 steps to get started.
Online Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: Using multi-channel marketing to boost your fundraising. You don’t need to be everywhere, but you do need to be everywhere your supporters are most apt to receive your messages. This article from 4aGoodCause outlines how each of the “big four” – direct mail, email, social media and telephone/SMS – work (and work together) to encourage online gifts. It’s filled with practical tips and examples!
Website
Click-it: You Can Do Better Than “Donate Now”. I love this article from Steven Screen of The Better Fundraising Co. It’s simple. Practical. And you can do it now – on your website, emails and social media — to ramp up year-end fundraising.
Year-End
Click-it: May the Force Be With You: Underused Year-End Fundraising Tweak. Do you use a Light Box? It’s not a light saber, but it’s similarly luminous. And they work especially well for targeted campaigns like the end of the calendar year. Your conversion rate from prospect to donor goes up with a light box because more people will see your call-to-action. Learn more in my article for the Bloomerang blog.
Click-it: 6 Strategies to Wake Up Your Year-End Fundraising Campaign. If something doesn’t reach out and disrupt folks’ senses during this super-competitive time when folks’ inboxes are bombarded by messages from everyone under the sun, your coffee (aka “fundraising offer”) will become cold and flavorless before donors ever drink it. Wake up and smell the opportunities with my article this week on NonprofitPro!
FREE AUDIO-VISUAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
The more you learn, the more you grow.
Finding webinars you’d like to attend that overlap? Note that for many of these webinars you can obtain a copy of the recording if you’re unable to join live – as long as you register!
Boards
Click-it: Board Development is Essential for Nonprofits [Listen to free podcast]. Learn best practices to developing an effective board — and what role technology can play in this process. Courtesy of Nhu Te, NonProfitPro, Kate Cochran, Upaya Social Ventures, and Jeb Banner, Boardable.
Donor Retention
Click-it: How to Avoid Fundraising’s Quiet Killer: Donor Attrition [Register for free webinar, 12-10-2019]. Jay Wilkinson of Firespring will help you learn how to step off of the donor acquisition treadmill and potentially double the lifetime value of your donors. His webinars are always jam-packed with practical tips – so don’t delay!
Events
Click-it: How to Recruit and Manage Amazing Event Committees [Register for free webinar, 12-11-2019]. A.J. Steinberg will take you through the process of identifying candidates for your chair position, discuss how to recruit committee members, and show you how to effectively manage your team and maximize the resources they bring to your event. Offered by CharityHowTo.
Major and Legacy Giving
Click-it: Understanding the Major Trends That Are Impacting Donors Today…and Tomorrow [Register for free webinar, 12-11-2019]! Today’s planned giving donors’ expectations have been shaped by the generational shift from matures to boomers, an advancement of technology, and an evolution in how society views nonprofits. Nathan Stelter, President, The Stelter Company, will explore how these changes affect how donors approach their giving decisions (blowing up the traditional donor pyramid) and what that means for your marketing.
Year End
Click-it: Live Optimization! Featuring Your Year-End Emails and Donation Pages [Register for free review session, 12-12-2019]. Don’t miss this opportunity from NextAfter to have your donation pages and year-end emails evaluated live! It’s hard to take an unbiased look at your own work, but it’s likely you can find ways to improve and optimize your current strategies. Simply send a screenshot of an email or a link to your donation page, and they’ll get to as many as they can.
FREE DOWNLOADABLE MATERIALS
Annual Giving
Click-it: The Art and Science of Ask Strings [Download free white paper]. This phenomenal 29-page guide from Nick Ellinger at Agitator/DonorSearch is heavily researched and fact-packed. If you want to know the ins and outs of ask strings and the science behind them, this is for you. You’ll learn how to establish goals for the ask string and how different goals apply to particular types of ask strings.
Major Gifts
Click-it: Marketing for IRA Rollovers [Download free strategic guide]. Happy to share MarketSmart‘s awesome brand new guide for marketing IRA rollovers. If you aren’t doing this currently, now’s the time to begin! Everything you need to know is here. If you prefer listening over reading, you can download an on-demand webinar about marketing QCDs (qualified charitable distributions) here.
Click-it: How to Use Data to Engage and Upgrade Donors [Download free e-Guide]. Your data can help you focus on the groups and activities that will retain your current donors and increase giving. Network for Good wants you to learn how to embrace a data-driven mindset and use your donor data to boost success.
Management and Strategy
Click-it: The Nonprofit SWOT Analysis Worksheet [Download interactive PDF]. Use this one-page worksheet from Classy to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, ask your team important questions, and align around achieving your goals in a more effective manner. You can also supplement this with a free Strategic Nonprofit SWOT Analysis Guide on the Bloomerang blog.
Online Fundraising and Marketing
Click-it: The Facebook Audience Playbook [Download free e-Guide]. The newest playbook from Merkle RMG reviews some of the best practices for Facebook advertising, with a special emphasis on audience-centric strategy. You’ll learn about the necessary tools to take advantage of Facebook’s audience targeting capabilities and how your own first-party data is the key to full-funnel success on Facebook.
Check out the new “Ask CharityClairity” feature on the Bloomerang Blog.
Click-it: Ask an Expert. See NEW questions pertaining to (1) how to get co-workers to be donor-centric; (2) best words for your donate button, and (3) good e-appeal subject lines.
PLUS… feel free to ask your own questions!!!!
Did You Miss My Recent Articles?
Here are links to the most recent articles on the Clairification blog:
- Fundraising Don’ts vs. Do’s: Year-End Donor Retention Email
- Use Behavioral Science to Positively Frame Year-End Philanthropy
- Happy Days of Thanks(for)Giving
- FAKE Nonprofit News: 6 Fundraising Untruths
- Hand-Me-Downs! E-Appeal Example
REMINDER for Clairification School students: Don’t forget to log in to your “My Clairification/Subscriber Dashboard/Monthly Tips to grab your exclusive, timely tips for December. If you’re not yet an enrolled student, you can get in on the fun here!
Please support my extraordinary sponsors (see below). The Clairity Click-it content is free, and Clairification School is affordable because of their generosity.
