Year-end fundraisers have been used to bring a perfect closure to the annual fundraising projects of some non-profits. In other instances, charities jump on the year-end fundraising train to raise refunds to meet pressing or rising needs. Whatever the case, year-end fundraisers are worth the hype it gets from the fundraising community.
It is, therefore, fitting to devote time to strategizing on how to go about it to get better results. This is why this article has been written with you in view. It will guide you on how to go about it – a more improved fundraiser.
Plan Early And Define Your Goals
Impressive fundraising results are usually birthed from the place of early planning. You must start “dotting the i and crossing the t” as early as possible. By doing this, you will be able to get ahead and set your mind on running a fruitful year-end fundraising campaign. In light of this, you should get your pen and paper to start outlining all that needs to be done.
You should evaluate different fundraising ideas or events to see which will bring the best outcome. Enlisting the services of a fundraising platform can be helpful in this regard. A credible platform will provide you with expert analysis and make the resources and features required to execute the idea available. However, you will have to define your fundraising goal clearly to make headway.
Create A Timeline
The need to create a timeline cannot be undermined as far as a year-end fundraising campaign is concerned. This is more appreciated because of how long the campaign could last; fundraisers run their year-end campaigns from October to the last day of December. Hence, it is advisable to fix a time for every activity that will contribute to the campaign’s success. This will help keep things in check and allow you to monitor your progress properly.
Evaluate The Previous Year’s Fundraising Campaign
A retrospective glimpse into the previous year’s events can do some wonders. You should check to identify the right steps – and even the wrong ones – you took during the last year-end fundraising campaign. Try to improve on it by integrating the latest trends or fundraising technologies while proactively addressing missteps.
You should consider learning some valuable tips from the fundraising community. And non-profits or fundraisers who might not have had a year-end campaign before, the experiences of others should be helpful. This is the best time to research the subject matter and extract the relevant information you need to have a fantastic maiden year-end fundraising campaign.
Take Stock Of Your Fundraising Progress
It will be necessary to regularly take stock of your progress while running a year-end fundraising campaign. You will be able to quickly identify the area that requires the injection of more effort or resources when you do this. You should understand that the year-end fundraising drive is not a time to leave things unchecked. You must ‘be on your toe’, taking care of things as a reliable manager would.
Invest In Branding
Branding will impose uniqueness on your year-end fundraising campaign. Seasoned fundraisers do not toy with this as they develop their marketing communications – and you shouldn’t either. You need to have a brand identity, a logo, and other graphic elements to make you stand out.
Also, you can create a theme around the year-end campaign. For instance, your Thanksgiving fundraising campaign can have some turkey feel to it while you bring on Santa for one that would come up later in December.
Consider Assessing Your Donors
Veterans in the fundraising sector usually embark on the assessment of donors to advance the effectiveness of communication. Donors give to charitable causes in varying capacities and frequencies. So, rather than sending a generic message across the board, you can do some fine-tuning to make your promotional message more specific to individual donors.
You can subscribe to specific software that uses data analytics to pull this off. That said, the assessment exercise will be more straightforward if you attempt to work with an existing donor list/base.
Utilize Multi-Channel Communication
Long gone are the days humans were limited in how they communicate– thanks to technology. So, you should be flexible enough to spread your fundraising message across various channels during this year-end campaign. You will be better positioned to achieve tremendous results if you target audience through multiple means.
Social media platforms will be especially effective in reaching out to prospective donors. For example, you can create and run a donation page on Facebook, even as you incorporate the peer-to-peer element. Fundraisers have generally used social media for advertising their (fundraising) events. The benefits accruable from social media are pretty multifaceted – for fundraising purposes.
The efficiency of social media should, however, not allow you to forget the traditional means like word-of-mouth, phone calls, letter writing, etc. These measures can be adopted to present your year-end fundraising campaign to donors. Again, consider creating a landing page or a website for your cause.
Work On Your Follow-Up Strategy
The follow-up aspect should be approached from two angles: reminders and appreciation. Since you’ll be running the campaign over a period of time, you should make an effort to routinely send reminders to donors – after making the initial request. Also, make sure you consistently advertise your fundraising campaign on different mediums.
And in the instance where some donors have pledged to donate, you should send out gentle and timely reminders. As per the appreciation angle, it is not enough to say “thank you” to donors immediately after they’ve donated; you should go a step further. As such, after the whole campaign – probably into the new year – you should send them a detailed “Thank You.” Simply let your donors understand that the project wouldn’t have been successful without their contributions.
Conclusion
Having a noteworthy year-end fundraising campaign is the desire of every fundraiser. But the truth is that only a few are ready to put in the necessary work. Having read this article, we hope you will be among these intentional ones to unlock the treasured chest during this season’s year-end campaign.
