Don’t Let It Creep Up on You: How to Rock Your Year-End Fundraising

Have you started planning how to rock your year-end fundraising?

Say what?

I can hear you now, “Pam, it’s summer, and I’m going on vacation next week! Stop already.”

But hey, the stats don’t lie. Almost a third of all annual giving occurs of December. Twelve percent of all giving happens in the very last three days of the year! And it might surprise you to learn that only 7.7 percent of organizations start as early as September. Listen, I know what it’s like to have two weeks to pull a campaign together, because I was hired in November, and the organization didn’t plan ahead.

Smart fundraisers know: The time to start creating your year-end fundraising plan is now. So what should you be thinking about?

Review

As the old truism goes, “Look back to where you have been for a clue to where you are going.” Now is the time to review last year’s results and where you are now. If your current fundraising plan is forecasting $500,000 in foundation funding, and you’ve already had a few applications get declined, how do you plan to make up the shortfall? What did you raise last year at year’s end? Did you meet your goals? Why or why not? Now is the time to set goals for this campaign. Goals that go beyond mere dollars.