Proven strategies and techniques for improving your ROI in both acquisition and cultivation fundraising.
We often hear clients use the words “Summer Slump,” a term they use to describe what can be a difficult time of year to fundraise successfully. With school out, people on vacation, and good weather, donors can be distracted, and supporting your organization’s cause may not always be top of mind. But summer doesn’t have to be a time when you’re barely meeting your budget.
Building a quality development program can take several years to complete. I’ve found that it doesn’t come overnight and there are few shortcuts, if any. Mostly it’s learning the tricks of the trade, using the right tools, and serving in the apprenticeship of time. It also requires having the ability to see the potential of something that perhaps others can’t see.
Your mid-major donors responded very well at calendar year-end, as well as the first few months of 2018. But what should you do to keep them from cutting back during the very critical summer months?
The answer is to give them special treatment now, so they feel really appreciated and that they are a critical part of your ministry. Even though mid-major donors can be classified differently from organization to organization, they should all be treated in the same way. Your extra effort will keep your ministry “top of mind” as you move into the summer months and encourage them to continue giving.
In this issue of Donor Focus we will be considering why this is exactly the right time of year to be finalizing your summer fundraising strategies . . . while you still have time
Not too long ago, I saw a deeply touching Facebook post about a humanitarian crisis. It featured a heartbreaking story and what a certain organization was doing to help those in need. I immediately clicked the “Donate” button and made a gift. Within minutes I had a receipt in my inbox and then . . .
This issue of Donor Focus is filled with inspired strategies to help you maximize your relationships with all of the new donors you’ve just acquired during the last quarter of 2017.
Join us for a FREE webinar that explains tested techniques on reading your data accurately.
Donor acquisition is the lifeblood of every organization, but not all new donors are created equal. It can be a temptation to look at the results of an initial acquisition effort as the only metric for success, but acquiring new donors that give only one time will not build capacity for the future.
If your acquisition campaign went according to plan, you should have a lot of new and potentially profitable donors added to your file. Congratulations, now what do you do?
If you’ve invested the time and money on acquiring a new donor, it’s vitally important that you don’t neglect them because the future of that relationship depends on what you do next.
If you could see your year-end fundraising future, what would it look like? Perhaps a group of very excited, yet slightly exhausted, fundraising staff all slapping high-fives and celebrating the results of a successful year-end campaign.
