How to Rock Your Year-End Fundraising, Starting Today

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Excellent. Well, hey, everybody. Wow, what a full house we have today. Thanks so much for being here to how to rock your urine fundraising. Starting today, the complete A to Z blueprint for raising Read More

0:00  

Excellent. Well, hey, everybody. Wow, what a full house we have today. Thanks so much for being here to how to rock your urine fundraising. Starting today, the complete A to Z blueprint for raising more.

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I am going to ask you real quick if you could just turn off distractions. And that’s just because I know what kind of world we live in right now. And I know how I can be I can be checking out Twitter while I’m attending a webinar and writing an appeal letter at the same time. So if you turn off all distractions, I promise you, I will make this next hour worth it for you. We’ve got a lot to cover.

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And if you stay with me till the end, while you’ll get this anyways, you’re going to get some really great handouts from DonorPerfect, and from me, including our urine fundraising checklists, fundraising menu, the call script, and also the fill in the blank fundraising appeal template.

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I wanted to open up with this quote from Tony Robbins because,

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you know, I think it’s more true than any, at any other time in history expect change. But when you’re really really proactive, stop being the chess piece become the player, it’s your move. That’s when you can really handle any kind, any kind of crisis really.

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So in today’s presentation, we are going to create an appeal letter that captures donors hearts,

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you’re going to develop an integrated campaign, one that covers email and social media. Even when you’re deep your data doesn’t talk to each other. You’re going to craft an emotional story and a theme that really resonates with your donors. And this is one of the most important takeaways, I think, from today, you’re going to learn how to segment your donor base to ensure that your best donors and all your donors are getting the attention they deserve. How to incorporate social media on Giving Tuesday, how to increase your online giving, even with an older donor base, and how to keep your donors coming back year after year after year.

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Wow.

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So I want to say first off, thank you everybody for being here today. And thank you DonorPerfect for hosting this webinar. Gosh, I cannot believe how the the room is filling up. I see Alicia Abby, Alexis, Alicia, Alicia. So Alicia. Wow. My name is Pamela grow. I have worked in the sector now since really since the 90s. If you count my days working working in programming for a local grant making organization. But I have worked with a nonprofits and their fundraising since 2000.

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All over the world.

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I’m the author of the book simple development systems successful fundraising for the one person shop. We’ve raised hundreds of millions for students and clients over the years, we’ve taught over 10,000 nonprofits from all over the world. I know the power of fundraising systems, and individual giving to really transform your nonprofit. And I believe strongly in in you and your good work. So thanks again for being here today. Oh also, I am actually in the region of DonorPerfect. I am in the Philadelphia region. I’m a single mother with two daughters. That’s my daughter Abigail who graduated from Temple Law. In the middle of lockdown. I’m a baker. I love classic movies. You can tell probably from this that I’m an introvert I love to read I love museums. That is my grand puppy down there on the left Wally, she’s a multi pool. And the tacos you’re probably wondering about the tacos. My other daughter manages a Mexican food truck in Philly.

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So I want it I really I really love webinars when they can be as engaging as possible. So I’m, I’m gonna ask you some questions. I don’t have any polls loaded for this particular training, but I’m going to ask ask you some questions throughout the presentation. I’m also going to ask you, because this presentation is pretty long to hold your questions, any questions you have until the end of the presentation.

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So my first question to you do have a plan for end of year fundraising. Yes or no? Just go ahead and type into the questions box. Do you have a plan for year end fundraising?

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And I’m gonna check it out here

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No, no

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have not yet. Not yet. Not yet. No.

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Can you guys hear me? Okay? So I’m getting a lot of nose some yeses, yay. Brenda says yes. Courtney says yes. Sheila says no, John, that’s the answer I usually get when I asked this question, John says sort of Betsy says no, sort of Yes. Great.

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You know, even even if you actually have a concrete plan in place, I think you’ll get a lot out of today’s presentation and you’ll you’ll get some new ideas.

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Real quick before I get started, why is end of year fundraising so important? Especially, you know, I teach this model of ass thank report, repeat that raises money throughout the year. And I always I always said, Well, don’t put don’t put all your eggs in the urine fundraising basket. But here’s the thing. This is when donors give

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more than a third of annual gifts were raised during the last three months of the year.

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In 2021, nearly 5% of annual gifts are raised during the last three days of the year.

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The median gift amount in December 2021 was $50.

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November and December are the most popular months for making year end ass. But some nonprofits start as early as September. And I have to tell you that I have been I have been advising our our readers and students to start in August for several years now. And I think it’s more important than ever right now because of what’s going on with the post office and and

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printing and all that all that stuff.

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Now is a great time to start. And 2021 14.6% of donors only gave during the month of December. And in 2021 midsize and larger donors remain stable and help drive strong top line fundraising figures over 2020.

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And this was great news dollars from new retain donors increased 18%. In 2021, showing that the new donors acquired throughout 2020 have remained committed.

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I find this a really interesting, really interesting stat because I think we give a lot of credence to to these watchdog organizations, but two thirds of donors do no research before giving. Instead they give to organizations they already know or that are recommended by friends and family.

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How could you factor in some peer to peer

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and your urine campaign?

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So I tend to think that we give Charity Navigator and these I think there’s a couple other ones, we tend to give them a little more credit than most of your donors aren’t they’re out aren’t out there researching your organization.

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Another favorite statistic that I’ve been sharing for years and years volunteers are twice as likely to donate as non volunteers. Do you have a specific program to ask your your volunteers.

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And direct mail is the most popular medium for your end as followed by email and in person.

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45% of worldwide donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program.

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A lot of times folks think well our monthly donors, our monthly donors already have such a big commitment we shouldn’t ask at year end. And nothing could be further from the truth. You really want to include your your monthly donors in your year end ask, but you’re going to segment it and you’re going to speak to them differently.

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Online given grew by 12.1% over the past year, overall giving grew 4.1% The sixth consecutive year of growth.

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And as you’re thinking about your year end campaign, think very specifically, what do you want your community or your donors to do?

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I’m going to walk you through a short story and this is this is actually a donor composite that I put together for a client. This is one donor story.

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This is Amy

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Amy is a single woman. She is 50 something. She’s a professor at a small liberal arts college.

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She loves her dog Max. She loves watching Great British Bake Off euphoria and her secret guilty pleasure, Hallmark Christmas movies.

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She enjoys traveling weather, nice theater, music, cooking and entertaining, hiking reading.

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And she’s also a donor. She’s a very committed donor because she believes in community and she believes in the power of giving back.

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She’s a regular donor to I’m gonna say about 20 organizations, primarily there in her community. Although she does give to some international organizations. She is a monthly donor

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to a handful of organizations, right in her community. She’s a major donor.

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She’s made, she’s made substantial gifts to the College where she works, she’s, she’s also made a

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big gift to the local library foundation. And they don’t know it yet. But the animal shelter where she adopted her dog will be the recipient of $125,000 legacy gift when Amy passes away.

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So just for the sake of the story, let’s say that that Amy attended your event, or somehow became aware of your organization, maybe through a friend and donate it to a campaign.

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She made a gift, and she got a receipt.

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And then total silence.

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roughly a year past Amy took a vacation and Peru. She helped plan her niece’s wedding, she took a French pastry making class, she made a $10,000 donation to a local arts organization. And you’re probably thinking,

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why do I care about this woman? The the point of it is that your mission and your organization isn’t at top of mind.

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And that’s why your donor communications program is so so important. It’s really the engine behind your fundraising.

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So roughly about a year later, was a mid December day and your appeal letter landed in her mailbox. Now Amy, like a lot of us, she sorts her mail over the recycling bin and she actually didn’t recognize the name. And she she tossed it without opening.

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I’m sorry to say.

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And the point my point here that I’m trying to make it I hope I have made it is that Amy

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is one of hundreds, if not 1000s of wonderful, wonderful donors who would love to support your mission. And all you really need to do is to make it ridiculously easy for her to give. And to let her know the difference she’s making with her gift.

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What we saw over the last three, four years, through through lockdown, or through a global pandemic, through now we’re in the middle of

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really hyperinflation that nonprofits with very strong ass thank report systems already in place. They’re going to weather any kind of storm, financial or otherwise. And your best security is is actually in your individual donors program.

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So why do donors stop giving?

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Well, you can see why why me didn’t give again. But 53% of the reasons donors give for failing to renew their giving is because the organization failed to properly communicate in one way or another.

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46% of donors leave for reasons tied to a lack of meaningful information or even a feeling that they’re giving is appreciated.

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And we’re all familiar with the work of I think with the work of Penelope Burke and both of her books are highly recommended reading. I actually found the second book.

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I think it was called donor centered leadership. I actually found that one to have more of an impact at least on my own

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work, then even her first book, they’re both both amazing. 60% want impact and success stories and they say their decision to give again, hinges greatly on the organization’s ability to show what it can accomplish.

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So I’m going to ask you another quick question while I take a quick drink of water here and ask you, do you think your nonprofit is communicating enough with your supporters? What do you think? Do you think that your nonprofit, is communicating enough with your supporters? Go ahead and just type into the chat box Qian says definitely not.

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Stephanie says if we can’t be bothered to call email stay in touch over the years. We don’t deserve Amy.

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I like the way you said that. Yeah. No, no, not enough. Linda, Brenda. Courtney says yes. Good going, Courtney.

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Tony says Absolutely. Excellent. Excellent. But a lot of you are saying no and

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not enough.

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Well, we’re going to start this presentation well, by by showing you how to do your year end campaign. And once you’ve really mastered a successful fundraising campaign, individual giving fundraising campaign, you can use this over and over and over again, not just Iran.

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So what exactly is a campaign? It’s pretty simple. It’s just multiple consecutive asks, and why do we say multiple consecutive ass? You know how distracted you are, I know how distracted I am. I know that one emails not going to cut it for me.

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Usually it takes a letter in the mail.

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And then it may maybe takes another nudge, maybe I see them on social media or maybe I get an email to make that gift.

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Direct Mail still pulls a higher response rate than any direct digital marketing medium. Still.

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Think about how ephemeral email is it’s here and gone.

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You really want to include I think direct mail is is actually the best the absolute best thing you can use, particularly if you are a local if you are a regional nonprofit.

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Multi Channel donors have a 56% higher retention rate than offline only.

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And multichannel has 212% more revenue than offline only.

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And, of course, in this particular presentation, I mean, we’ve got we’ve got major huge nonprofits that are using everything. They’re using television advertising. They’re using all kinds of all kinds of social media advertising, as well as direct mail and email.

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But for the purposes of this presentation, I’m talking primarily about email and direct mail. But donors who give offline and online are three times more valuable to your organization than those who only give offline. Crazy ha. And just adding email communication is going to increase your value by 90%.

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I think what’s interesting about this, this particular slide from Steve McLaughlin, is that multichannel doesn’t just work with your best donors, you know, those donors 55 on up so they can see how great the numbers are there. But multichannel works with the younger audience too.

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So what can you do now? What’s the next thing you can do once you get off this presentation?

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You can start warming up your donors. You can start right now by letting them know how much their support means and giving them a warm, warm, fuzzy feeling.

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Why do you want to do this?

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And you can do this. You can do this 2345 times before your your letter lands in

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in December or November. It makes people feel important.

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It makes people feel appreciated. And it makes me

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People feel selfishly fulfilled.

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And it’s really taken from.

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If you’re familiar with the work of Robert seal Dini, he had a more recent book, he wrote the book persuasion, but he had a more recent book, I think it was the last four or five years called pre suasion. And what it is really, it’s a method of priming your audience to receive your message more openly.

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And who the heck doesn’t want to feel important, appreciated on and fulfilled, and you’re going to be more generous.

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These are some of the some of the examples that I’ve seen. And I’d like, if you’ve got any examples, I’d love for you to share them in the chat box. This is a letter that went out from Columbia Jewish education fund. And they sent us a lovely little, it’s really essentially a thank you letter.

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And impact statement, really, and it came with this wonderful little full color one pager. But a one page impact update

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could be your donor newsletter if your donor newsletter regularly goes out in August, September. But you might want to add a personal note

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could be a personal thank you update call.

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Could be an impact email, or even a series of emails, I’d really like this one from Mercy Corps.

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Just letting me know how I’m making a difference as a donor.

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This was a nice one, just because Thank you postcard

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from preemptive love. And I always like to give shout outs to organizations that are doing a really good job with this donor love stuff. Because

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they’re great ones to kind of follow, I usually have a almost like a burner email account. And I’ll subscribe to so many different nonprofits, you definitely want to subscribe to preemptive love their work is beautiful.

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Couldn’t be your annual report, this is a great time of the year to send out

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your annual report or as we like to put it the gratitude report and send again, you’re going to include a personal note to some of your best donors.

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So that’s the first thing. And now we’re going to get started on your campaign. And the first thing you’re going to want to do is to get your board and staff involved.

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How many, how many of you actually have your board and staff involved in your urine campaign? Go ahead and type in.

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One of the best ways over the years that I have found to do this is through the use of a fundraising menu. And the cool thing about this is that you can put this fundraising menu together for anything for your year end campaign for your spring appeal for your next event.

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And what it is, this isn’t a little this is a little tool that I developed from

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something that Andy Robinson put together and it was in his book, train your board and everyone else to raise money.

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So you can see that everyone everyone

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needs to commit to at least one item per category. So for instance for appetizer

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Well, you have board members who have personal connections so they can write personal notes on appeal letters, they could forward a fundraising email to five friends maybe they provide provide funding for Facebook ads.

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Main course maybe they’re gonna buy postage for your end appeal letters. Wally knock it off.

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It may be there going to accompany you on a

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she’s going nuts, making follow follow up calls creating social media posts. At any rate, this is a terrific tool to use for just about anything.

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Next step, this first thing you’re going to want to do

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is clean up your data.

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This is a free service true and co.com or you can upload your mailing list and they will pull the deceased or moved people on your list.

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You also want to go through your database and ask these questions.

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How’d you do last year? Overall? How did you do by segment? Can you break that down? What channels did you use last year?

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What is your renewal rate? What is your donor retention rate? If this is not if this is not your first DonorPerfect webinar, I know you’ve been hurt hearing about your donor retention rate.

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What’s the breakdown at various giving levels? And how can you break down all urine giving, you might want to consider a data audit.

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You always want to take a look at your data before you do any kind of mailing any kind of campaign.

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But if you have never had a data audit done, I would highly recommend it.

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and review your data to with an eye to segmentation, will you be speaking differently to your monthly donors, to your major donors to your mid level donors to your event attendees.

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Next up your story and your theme. And I always go back to this wonderful graphic from Blue fog Blue Frog fundraising. This is from marks Mark Phillips. And

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we know this.

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This is what we want to tell our donor we really need your money. This is what our mission is this is how what we believe this is our new approach. This is how you can support us. We we really essentially want to see how great we are. But what a donor wants to hear is entirely different. I love this, this simple little graphic is actually hanging over my desk.

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What did you achieve with my money?

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Why did I make the right decision to support you that you value me that you think I’m special?

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That you’ve remembered what I’ve done? And what I’ve said? How many loyal donors are in your donor, your database? Maybe donors who who’ve only given $35 $50, but they’ve given every single year?

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Maybe for the last

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1015 years? How are you letting know letting them know how much you appreciate it? How are you looking at their lifetime value?

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You don’t necessarily have to have a theme, but it can be a lot of fun.

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It doesn’t really matter what it says you can, you know, you know, if you’ve worked in nonprofits for any length of time, you know, we can tend to overcomplicate things, right? It doesn’t really matter. It’s not terribly important that you have a theme, but you can.

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And I’m only sharing this theme because it’s one of my favorites. This was this was actually not a theme to raise money, it was a theme to get older dogs adopted. And it was so funny. And it was such a great campaign and so successful that I like to share it probably in almost every training like I just love this one.

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So let’s take a look at this particular letter. Their theme is home.

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And the story is about this young man mark.

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And this particular letter speaks to a segment of their donor base who have developmentally disabled children living at home. Now, when Cindy wrote this letter, and this was her very first letter that she’d ever written, then it just she just knocked it out of the park.

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This wasn’t the only letter because they had other donors, obviously, they had donors with young children who use their services, and she had a completely different letter.

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Oops.

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So I said I would help you avoid the dreaded writer’s block. And we would talk about writing a letter

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for your urine campaign, and because this is only an hour long,

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hour long webinar, and I could actually spend 90 minutes talking about this, I’m gonna go over this really, really quickly.

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If you’ve ever had writer’s block, if you’ve ever struggled, sometimes, I will sit down to write a letter for a client and it just comes to me just like that.

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And I know I’ve worked, you know, once you worked in in an organization for 234 years, you really get the hang of your donors and you really get the hang of the stories that resonate. But sometimes when you’re writing

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For the first time are just kind of stuck, you will have writer’s block. And when that happens to me, I like to just work from an outline.

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So one thing we’ve included with the handouts, and I’m not sure if they’re there now, but

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you’ll be sent this if not, but we’ve got an appeal letter template to follow along.

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And one of the most important things is how do you set the stage? How do you start?

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I like to think of of it as kind of

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leading your donor down upon

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really inviting your reader into the picture.

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For instance, this was for a scholarship organization, she wanted to be the President of the United States, but the odds have always been against her.

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This was right after locked down. You already no life turns on a dime.

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This was a holiday letter

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for an addiction treatment center.

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This is for an anti racism organization.

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Imagine a time 25 years in the future.

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Headlines can work really well in direct mail.

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And then your story. Remember, it’s not about your programs or processes, it is about your donors impact.

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That’s why I’m writing to you now to let you know that your support matters

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and your offer

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and that’s where you’re going to really share your donors impact. I remember that statistics don’t sell.

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What is your donors gift making possible.

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Here in North Georgia, Georgia, your generous support of Easterseals means that over 4000 children right here in your community are given a second chance.

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Emphasis on right here in your community.

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This is something that’s become more important as our world has become more and more distractible.

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You want to ask early and you want to ask often.

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How many letters have you gotten where

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the organization never quite gets around to actually asking or it’s just a very, very mild very soft asked you really need to convey a sense of urgency and to ask often.

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And now nowadays, when I’m doing any appeals, I always get an asking on that first page. Using a little handwriting handwritten font is great.

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And again, how are you conveying a sense of urgency?

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We need you more than ever

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outlined

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you’re gonna reinforce your mission. Reinforce the Ask whine down and be sure you say thank you

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while this letter is in front of you, won’t you use the enclosed envelope to make a tax deductible contribution.

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And then your sign off you want to kind of tie it back into your mission.

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Yours for the children for the hope of a generation

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Don’t forget your PS.

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Oftentimes, the PS is the first thing that’s red. So I like to use it to reinforce the call to action

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if it’s easier for you to make your gift online,

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and some additional quick points to keep in mind.

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One thing that I’ve seen work for a lot of my students is to is to actually sit down with a pad. And think about it as an almost as if you’re writing a letter to a good friend. This is going to sound kind of crazy. But when I first started in fundraising, before I got into individual giving, I worked primarily as a grant writer. And when I was writing a grant proposal for an organization, that very first grant proposal, that kind of all the other grant proposals would come from, I would always send a copy of it to my best friend back in Michigan. And if she could read that proposal and really understand exactly what we did,

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I would know that that I was doing my job.

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Here is a handy handy tool that a Canadian copywriter friend of mine, shared with me, one of the best things you can do is to read your letter out loud. Does it sound like a conversation does it sound personal.

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But what you can do this is a lot of fun, you go to this particular site, plug in your text, and I think I can’t remember how many different

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voices you can have. You can have it read with an English accent, you can have it read.

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They have about 50 different voices, you can pick, it’s a lot of fun.

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Also never want to forget about the Hemingway app. Because we always want to keep that letter at what sixth grade or below I like to keep it at fifth.

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between third and fifth, I have a really amazing copywriter friend, she sent me over a letter because she wanted to get my opinion of it. I put through it and Hemingway and he came in at grade level two, I couldn’t believe it. And you might think well, it’s gonna sound like

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see Dixie Jane run.

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But no, it’s just really packs an emotional punch.

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Create your own swipe files as you’re writing, you know, you know that when you’ve written something particularly amazing.

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You can use it over and over and over again. I wrote this for a scholarship organization.

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Gosh, three or four years ago, if there’s anything our country’s recent chaos has taught us it’s this, the young will lead us forward. It’s up to us to give them my help and Yan and since then I’ve used it several times. But also when you’re getting letters in the mail or you see something in a webinar like this. Make a point of writing it down and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

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Not a wasted word. So for direct mail, I want you to think package not letter. I have I have many times gotten letters in the mail from smaller community organizations and it’s just the letter. What am I supposed to do? You need you want to think this through?

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It’s not a letter, it’s a package. What do you want your donors to do?

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Don’t skimp on design. This was a package I did for

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an organization in Massachusetts.

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If you are on the lookout for design, I have found that if you have a really clear picture of what you want, you can get it done over at Upwork for next to nothing.

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I always like to say you’re especially for a small shop people who are grant writer, event planner, individual given coordinator, you know database manager. Do you really really want to add the title of graphic designer?

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What do you want your donor to do?

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Is this is still true donors age 65 and older comprise the largest slice of the American charity pie. How are you making it easy on their eyes?

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Have you ever tried to fill out one of these teeny tiny forms? Even even for someone who’s not, who’s not older, it can be tough. I love the full, full page. Response device.

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This this one here in the middle. This is from Ontario nature. This is from John lab agents of good. If you really want to get into the design, which I think is hugely important, definitely check out John lips newest book, it’s, it’s called Creative deviations. It is brilliant. One of the most amazing books, I will be referring to it over and over and over again. But But think about, you know, you want to have that or gift securely online, you might you might also feature a QR code that goes directly to your donate page.

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You might think about including a lift No, a lift note could be something as simple as actually having your board members write on little sticky notes.

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Or you could have it done like like we did this one.

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Get creative with your outer envelope. I’m seeing more and more. I’m seeing the QR code on the outer envelope, which is really cool. And And I’m hearing that it’s testing very well.

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John leaped over at agents of good has done a lot of testing on envelopes.

41:42  

And they’ve had the most success with this oversized envelope. Why? Because it really stands out. Think about your envelope because the most important thing is getting well the most important things to give. But the most important thing too, is getting that envelope open.

42:02  

He recommends using a handwritten font. That’s something I’ve been doing for well over a decade getting board members and and then having them hand address the envelopes that are going to your best donors. Or if you have a smaller donor base, maybe anywhere two to 500. Do all of the envelopes handwritten. When have you ever not opened a handwritten envelope?

42:30  

stamps to rather than the the

42:35  

stamp? Or the what did they call that the now I can’t remember,

42:41  

stamps were great and get the nonprofit stamps, I always like to recommend sending first class to rest donors.

42:50  

Number seven, go online and make a donation to your organization. As a matter of fact,

42:58  

have about 10 people go online and make a donation to your organization. How easy is it? And where does your donor land after they make a gift.

43:11  

This is where I actually landed when I made a gift recently. You want to know about these things before you send out your emails before you send out your direct mail.

43:23  

You’re gonna want to redo your thank you redirect page.

43:31  

I like this. So you’ve just donated but what happens next. And they said specifically, you know that you would get a letter in the mail that this and this and this would happen.

43:43  

rewrite your thank you emails before your campaign goes out.

43:49  

Everybody’s thank you email can use a rewrite.

43:54  

Just about everybody.

43:57  

Think about how you making your donor feel.

44:03  

Thank you for taking a stand. You’ve just done something remarkable.

44:10  

Thank you again, Test test test tested not just on desktop tested on mobile. Make sure make sure everything is as seamless as dead simple as possible.

44:24  

Plan out your email series.

44:29  

Is there a magic number of emails? What do you think? Is there a magic number of emails?

44:38  

We’ve always kind of recommended between three and 10 You always know that one is not going to cut it. But I like this checklist from next after.

44:52  

Is the message going to the right audience? Is the offer relevant to the issues that matter to them?

45:00  

Does the offer resonate with this audience? Are you doing everything you can to maximize their perceived value? And minimize the costs? Are you giving a proper incentive to to take action now? Is it dead simple for your donors to give? And as the call to action clear? Do your donors believe you’re trustworthy, and that the giving process is secure? The more and more emphatic the Yes, each email generates from this checklist, the more emails you can send.

45:39  

Typically, we’re going to recommend that you do at least three emails just on that final day on December 31. The other thing you’re going to want to do is to rewrite your thank you.

45:51  

Because, of course, we know that donor retention really continues to be in the toilet. And when you can get your donor retention rates up to 60 65%. And above, your fundraising becomes so much easier, it becomes so much cheaper.

46:11  

You really make a connection with your donors.

46:17  

So think about transforming your thank you letter for this year on campaign.

46:25  

And next up extra love for your best donors.

46:30  

We’ve all heard this before. 80% of your income comes from 20% of your donors.

46:40  

So what could you do for your best donors?

46:46  

Could you send out some sort of special pack, like Humane Society of Northeast Georgia did they had these adorable little Christmas ornaments and cards made and sent them out for their best donors and I do believe they used

47:03  

they always used an agency for their direct mail. So they suppressed kept it kept it out and did it in house.

47:13  

And the result was that they raised 84% more.

47:21  

You bet stoners also get phone calls.

47:27  

And so we have included an end of your call script. This is actually from one of my programs from a couple years ago.

47:35  

It’s very handy. I don’t know about you, but I like to have a script.

47:41  

So what else?

47:44  

You also need to make your plan. And that’s where this checklist comes in handy. It’s going to go over everything we’ve talked about here today,

47:54  

along with some new things.

47:58  

How are you going to integrate social media?

48:03  

And what about giving Tuesday to participate in Giving Tuesday?

48:08  

This is definitely where I want to ask you guys do you participate and giving Tuesday go ahead and type in to the questions box.

48:19  

Do you participate and giving Tuesday?

48:33  

Yes, definitely always no. Yes, yes. Yes. Not every year says Terry.

48:42  

Always says David. And do you do well with giving Tuesday.

48:51  

Super yay. Excellent.

48:58  

Well,

49:00  

this is just a screenshot from from giving Tuesday because from last year of my inbox, it can be really hard to stand out as my point when it comes to giving Tuesday.

49:13  

So what I like to recommend is that you focus on Giving Tuesday on gratitude like one of our students, Mr. Rollins oppa stead, got a great write up on the blog about that.

49:27  

It’s a great time to focus on gratitude.

49:31  

Buddy, it is also a great time. So you’ve got you’ve got your year end campaign coming right afterwards. I’m focusing on a smaller project specific campaign.

49:44  

You could also focus on Giving Tuesday on monthly giving.

49:51  

Molly Ola Penny is CEO and founder of global autism. They actually brought in over 300 new monthly

50:00  

donors, during a Giving Tuesday campaign this was a few years back, that was focused specifically on bringing in new monthly donors. They got everybody on board in their organization. She did a lot of email, she did a lot of direct mail, surprisingly, I mean, I made a gift, I became a monthly donor and got a wonderful, wonderful, handwritten thank you.

50:24  

But I just want to just want to put out this reminder that Giving Tuesday, and all giving days are really tools, and they’re not your strategy.

50:38  

And these are some quick bonuses. I’m thrilled to see I’m actually running on time.

50:49  

How many of you do a homepage takeover or a light box on your website for the last six to eight weeks of the year?

50:58  

This is a great thing to do. Because you can kind of be assured that most people going to your website during the last month are going to make a gift. So it’s just a question of having the focus of your homepage on your year end campaign.

51:18  

Get creative with your donate buttons in your emails, rather than Donate now. Let’s do this fight back. I love this one. One thing stands between them and complete despair. You make magic happen.

51:38  

This is such an easy one. Have everybody changed their signature line specifically for your year end campaign.

51:48  

I like this one. Please click here to make a donation that makes a difference. Want to double your donation, click here. See if your employer will match your gift. Everybody has the same thing on their signature line every staff member every board member.

52:07  

So let’s do a quick recap. Recap. We’re going to want to keep our donors closer than ever right now. Really get them warmed up right now know your data, multichannel rules.

52:20  

Learn what makes a successful campaign. Once you get this nailed down

52:26  

with the Ask thank report repeat systems. You can run it over and over and over again. Some of our students have an eight campaigns a year.

52:37  

And when in doubt, always think gratitude.

52:43  

Thanks again for being here. Today. I am gonna go ahead and I know that was a lot.

52:51  

Oh, and I forgot to tell you how to get get in touch with me.

52:57  

Well,

53:00  

I am going to go ahead and go in the questions now and see what questions we’ve got. Do you have questions?

53:11  

There are some questions. Pam. I did flag them. So if you want to sort by the flag, and then scroll up

53:20  

all the way do you have a lot of responses in there?

53:26  

How do I sort by the flag? I don’t see that. Well, it looks like there’s a few already coming in. So if you sorted by the received, you should see some

53:37  

What is the name of the website that searches the nonprofits database for

53:42  

obits and address changes.

53:47  

To and COA

53:52  

There you go.

54:00  

What if you’re starting in an organization this comes from Tiffany that hasn’t had a good fundraising strategy in recent years? How do you recommend getting started?

54:13  

You really have to get started with a with a solid fundraising plan and start where you’re at.

54:21  

Look at the donors you already have and how they’ve been communicated with.

54:34  

Any end of your suggestions for a nonprofit with a tiny staff and a semi disengaged board of directors.

54:42  

That’s from Angie.

54:46  

Even with a tiny staff, you can do this.

54:51  

I’m remembering my my very very first. One of my very first appeals for for a very small organization.

55:00  

In our database was under 200. And even with that smaller database, I managed to create three different segments and sent out three different letters. And we increased individual giving that year by roughly about 25 30%.

55:19  

So just start with where you’re at

55:25  

is providing a stamp return response envelope important.

55:30  

This has been tested a lot.

55:36  

Laurie, and

55:41  

everybody kind of wants yes, no blanket answers, but and we always pay so much attention to the latest report and the latest statistics. But I recommend really

55:54  

getting to know your data.

55:57  

And how your donors respond does it are most making donations on your online are your donors starting to make more donations online?

56:10  

Just as an as an example, copywriter, a friend of mine, who also gives quite a bit in

56:19  

and gifts throughout the year to different organization, she and her husband, they sit down every month, and they write checks to their favorite organizations. Now I’m an older donor. And I have not written a check to an organization.

56:36  

Since gosh, the 90s make it as easy as humanly possible for donors to give in the way that they’re most comfortable. But stamp return response envelope.

56:52  

You know, I’ll have to

56:54  

I’ll have to look it up. But I don’t. I know that now Warwick tested this for years. And I don’t think came to a conclusion either. You could try testing it yourself and do a stamped envelope to half your donors and unstamped to the other half and see what happens.

57:26  

Super

57:37  

cool. Christine says, finding that these emails go to a junk email box. And few get read. What are your thoughts about test messaging ass?

57:49  

Um

57:52  

again, that’s something you you could test.

57:57  

I am not a fan of if you did it with me, you’d probably promptly get your texts deleted because for me, my text messages are referred to my are pretty much limited to my friends and family.

58:15  

And I find texting very intrusive, but

58:18  

everybody’s different.

58:32  

I’m going to go ahead and put this up.

58:39  

Someone also said that they sign up for the calendar and they got an error message. Yeah, my webmaster is working on that. But you will get the calendar.

58:50  

I don’t know it’s it’s a problem with my my CRM, I think.

58:57  

Okay, so PAM, we’re a little past two. I know we have a lot of questions. And I apologize that we’re not going to get to all of them.

59:07  

We’ll see what we can do after see if anything else can be responded to through an email or a blog post or something of that nature. But for the moment we we have to stop the questions and finish out the webinar and

59:24  

Okay, so that’s the link for the fundraising calendar. You had the slide up with your contact information. But what if it’s okay, we’ll provide that in in the email that goes out in the next few days. Yeah. And

59:40  

you know what, Laurie?

59:43  

If if they want to continue typing questions in here, I can follow up with a blog post that would answer everyone’s questions, but I really appreciate you guys being here today.

59:56  

This this stuff is I know I throw a lot

1:00:00  

Aren’t you.

1:00:01  

But once you get it down, it’s so much fun. And you’ll be amazed at how you see your individual giving grow. When you really start start treating your donors as individuals and really get into a regular regular communication cycle.

1:00:24  

So thanks for hosting today.

1:00:28  

Sure, we’re so happy to have you.

1:00:32  

And it sounds like those that attended our two.

1:00:37  

Oh, all thanks. Kimberly said, good speaking voice. Do you know how much I appreciate that? I’m from the Midwest, and I always think, oh my god, I sound like my aunt today.

1:00:50  

You know what I mean? But thanks, everybody. Thanks for coming. And my email, I put it up there. It’s Pamela, Pamela grow.com. If you’ve got any questions, just email me or type them into the box here and we’ll follow up with a blog post. But thanks for being here today. Thanks for for giving us your valuable time.

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