Yes, it's already August.
August is the time I create our end of year fundraising plan. What does it look like? What would success look like? Who is involved? When does it officially begin?
August is the time to create your end of year fundraising plan. Invite your team for a meeting. Ask everyone to bring their calendars, creativity and ideas.
Sitting down with your elite team of fundraisers and development staff (you choose who this is for you) start plugging in dates. I start further out and work back. For example, when do do I actually want our first direct mail piece of the campaign to land? I write that in and then work back all the way to the date where we first discuss the piece.
Who do I want to be involved in the end of year fundraising? Do we do just one mailing or more? Any events?
#GivingTuesday is right in the middle of my typical campaign so I have begun using that to support my efforts. Any board or other donor holiday parties or gatherings can be helpful too.
Then there all of the face to face meetings with donors, my favorite!
Finally, when everyone else is taking off, the last few days of the year here are spent calling every donor who gave the year prior but has not yet given. It could be several hundred calls. Where I currently work, our office is actually closed the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Yet the development team is here making calls, answering the phones and making sure we are here for any last minutes donor needs. Then we take the next week off!
How you work your end of year fundraising is all up to you. It can be the most fun part of your year. The main thing is to start planning it now.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment