Annual Campaigns

Have you peeked at your calendar today? We’re just two months away from much of your end-of-year campaign prep work needing to be finished up. One of the main differences I’ve seen between successful campaigns and those that aren’t is that successful campaigns are planned earlier. When it comes to your end-of-year campaign, that means now.

So if you haven’t given your end-of-year campaign any thought, here’s a checklist of what to get done in September …

Did you know organizations could raise 40 percent of their individual donations in the month of December by maximizing their end-of-year fundraising appeals? In fact, data shows more dollars are donated online in the last five days of December than in the other three weeks combined. For most organizations — particularly those who solicit tax-deductible gifts — the year’s online fundraising is a pie with six slices.

Create a great plan. Execute. Fine-tune. Execute. Fine-tune. Even after great success, pull out the plan and execute, fine-tune, execute ...

Like it or not, June 30 is right around the corner. If this marks the end of your fiscal year, this week can be pretty stressful. What’s the best way to alleviate that stress? Activate some simple strategies to finish the year on a strong note. Here’s a simple checklist to make sure you don’t leave money on the table.

First, create a list of donors from the past three years that haven’t given this year. Next, make sure all potential prospects have been solicited. Finally, make calls to individuals with unpaid pledges.

Nonprofits are making a big mistake when reading studies that show that more than 50 percent of charitable giving happens in December. They are putting off their year-end appeals until December! Generous year-end giving isn’t merely the result of a barrage of appeals and e-mails in the last weeks of the year. Successful year-end fundraising takes strategic planning. Here are three tips to help you jump-start your fall fundraising.

Blackbaud announced the availability of the 2012 Index of Higher Education Fundraising Performance, a report that provides a summary of key performance indicators of annual funds at more than 100 public and private institutions. “Fundraising for higher education annual funds in fiscal year 2012 can best be described as stable, or flat,” said Shaun Keister, author of the report and vice chancellor of development at UC Davis.

In this October 2008 column — "Oh, No, Not Again!" — Katya Andresen, chief operating officer and chief strategy officer of Network for Good, says fundraisers should ditch those annual-campaign cliches and try something new.

No time like the present to start your year-end fundraising planning. To get you going, our early Christmas gift to you is 12 new and old ideas to make this year even better than last — maybe your best ever!

The importance of donors cannot be overstated. And two recent events have driven that point home for me.

Since the year-end holiday giving season is so vital to the fundraising sector, it's never too early to start planning your end-of-year campaigns. So with that in mind, take a look at last year's Fundraising Success Gold Awards Multichannel Campaign of the Year winner, the MSPCA's Holiday Tree Campaign. And remember to get your entries in for the 2012 Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence. The deadline for entries to be in our office is Friday, Sept. 7, with the winners announced in our October issue.