Engage Conference Spotlight: Looking Ahead to Year-End 2014

On April 10, FundRaising Success is hosting its second annual Engage Conference. Engage is the only case-study-focused fundraising conference focusing on the keys to success from organizations that have successfully made the leap from just-getting-by nonprofits to powerhouse organizations. Leading up to Engage, we will be highlighting content from the participating organizations and speakers that we've published over the years.

It's never too early to plan for the year-end fundraising season. With that in mind, Ellen Cobb Church, CEO of Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co., provided five things fundraisers should already be doing to make sure they retain donors and improve income at year-end 2014 in her column "Looking Ahead to Year-End 2014":

1. Check and double check to ensure that you acknowledged everyone who gave to you during year-end.
2. Meet with your donor-services team or vendor and find out what your donors said when they called to donate or complain during the holiday giving season.
3. Which donors upgraded to the midlevel and major-donor levels? And what have you done with them?
4. Fill your office or conference room walls with every message your donors received from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 in the order in which they received them.
5. What new donors did you acquire, and what lapsed donors did you reinstate? Is your new-donor or newly reinstated donor strategy in place, and how is it working?

Cobb Church will co-present City Harvest's case study at the second annual Engage Conference in Philadelphia next month.

To learn more about the Engage Conference, click here. And to register, click here and enter the discount code: FSNews25