How To Have Year-End Fundraising Success

Here’s How To Have Year-End Fundraising Success:

For the average nonprofit, a third of all donations come in December. And 10% of that thirty-three percent usually arrives in the last 48 hours! Here are some tips for final year-end fundraising:

• Determine what you’re trying to achieve.
• Determine how you’re going to reach your goals
• Tell a great story in a compelling manner.
• Organize a major gift campaign parallel to your direct mail & email annual appeals.
• Have all major gift asks ideally be peer-to-peer face-to-face asks made by board members & major donors who know prospects personally & have themselves already given.
• Have a compelling landing page on your website with impactful images that emotionally connect with donors and visually show how donations have been effectively used in the past.
• Get specific by laying out different donation amounts and listing exactly what each donation will make possible.
• Include concrete, specific examples of what your charity is actually achieving.
• Offer multiple ways for them to be able to give. Include in all your plans meaningful recurring gift, major gift and planned giving programs.
• Suggest that potential donors make a donation in the name of anyone on their holiday list that ‘has it all’ instead of buying that person a traditional present. 
• Say thanks to all donors for prior giving first.
• Tell your donors how much you appreciate them, and tell them how their gifts are used.
• Generate some excitement!
• Tell stories about the people you’re helping.
• Share the goal.
• Share what all this work will accomplish.
• Get the donors & prospects emotionally involved.
• Use gratitude & appreciation for prior giving to provide the foundation for a successful campaign with existing donors.
• Send multiple, repeated appeals and communications.
• Create a multi-channel approach that has a series of communications to your donors.
• Engage your donors over and over again.
• Create a unique theme with a specific visual feel, a heartfelt message and a dollar goal.
• Use color or an image that is unusual or different in order to get attention.
• Send holiday cards containing giving envelopes.
• Include a specific ask.
• Tell donors: what, exactly, you want to achieve this coming year; how much money it will take to accomplish that; & what you plan to do with their money.
• For specific projects provide specific goals & ask amounts.
• Know your donors (and prospective donors) very well.
• Fully engage your board, volunteers and staff.
• Identify meaningful outcomes and results data you can share with year-end giving prospects---and share them.
• Tell a great compelling story.
• Make it easy to give.
• Call and solicit all your current donors.
• Create a sense of urgency in your appeal.
• Allow all donors to designate their gifts.
• Experiment with new ways of approaching year-end fundraising each year - until you find the fundraising strategies and tactics that always work best for you.
• Know your donors and prospective donors well.
• Fully engage & deploy your board and staff.
• Tell a great story!
• Make it truly tangible.
• Make giving very easy.
• Update your website to facilitate quick online fundraising and make sure you have a mobile site where giving is also only a click away.
• Keep donation forms as short and simple as possible.
• Provide instructions on how employers can match employee donations and/or how employees can give automatically with payroll deductions.
• Always provide heartfelt thanks and acknowledgements promptly.
• Call & thank your LYBUNTS & SYBUNTS for their previous support & say you hope you can count on them again this year. Be sure to solicit all of them!
• Use the days before & immediately after the holidays to call current donors & say “thank you" for giving.
• Be sure you have planned your vital year-end fundraising strategies as a team with your staff and board.
• Be sure you have gathered all the important resources for your year-end appeals that you’ll need.
• Be sure you have done the vital research---facts, statistics, anecdotes, quotes, stories and visuals---you’ll be using.
• Be sure you have developed comprehensive plans for their deployment.
• Be sure you have a compelling landing page on your website with impactful images that emotionally connect with donors and visually show how donations have been effectively used in the past.
• Lay out different donation amounts and list exactly what each donation will make possible.
• Include concrete, specific examples of what your charity is actually achieving.
• Let them also view what donations in past years enabled you to do.
• Offer multiple ways for donors to be able to give.
• Include meaningful recurring gift, major gift and planned giving programs.
• Use all available varied media channels — including email, social, mobile, and web.
• Use short, simple and personalized emails with calls to immediate action.
• A referral program offering incentives to donors who refer your nonprofit to their friends can also result in more donations.
• Use social media to let your donors see your personality and meet the people working behind the scenes of your nonprofit.
• Urge your donors to help spread the word for you.
• Make it incredibly simple for all donors to take action and complete their donations to your charity.
• Be certain to emphasize tax-deductible donations with a final ask for the period leading up to—and including one on---December 31st!
• Suggest that potential donors make a donation in the name of anyone on their holiday list that ‘has it all’ instead of buying that person a traditional present. They’ll receive a meaningful gift, and for the donor it’s tax deductible as well.
• Track your results.
• Campaign until the year has concluded!
• P.S. Hire A Nonprofit Fundraising Consultant To Advise Guide & Inspire You!
• P.P.S. Anything Else YOU Would Suggest?
• The author, Dr. John B. Charnay, CEO of Charnay and Associates in Greater Los Angeles, is a top nonprofit leadership coach and fundraising consultant who has raised over a quarter of a billion dollars during his distinguished career. He has been in charge of numerous major fundraising special events. He often strategically advises board chairs and facilitates board fundraising retreats and has trained numerous boards and development directors and their staffs in fundraising. Additionally, he is a top strategic marketing and social media advisor...an award-winning p.r. consultant and publicist...a leading spiritual life coach, leadership coach, career coach, business coach, success coach, creativity coach, happiness coach, manifestation coach and a business and life coach specializing in helping companies and people to become more visible & achieve all of their dreams or goals. He has been a strategic PR advisor to many famous celebrities and Fortune 1000 CEOs.  Additionally, he serves as a trusted strategic philanthropic advisor to numerous high net worth individuals & families & family offices. He is also an acclaimed career coach and a job search/employment coach and a business development consultant/business coach who assists people to live the lives and have the jobs of their dreams, manifest all of their desires, have profitable organizations & businesses, and become truly successful. He is also a writer and editor...and a movie and television producer. He often provides one-on-one introductions and connections to prospective employers or employees, business partners, customers, clients, investors, donors...and other specialized talents. To meet him and ask for his assistance, invite him to be LinkedIn (email in profile) and contact him today!