Yes, it doesn’t make much sense to have an “end of year” campaign in May/June. Even if we do explain this is the charity’s fiscal year, that won’t change anything for the supporter. Psychologically, themselves, won’t feel it’s the end of the year.

Also, why should they care when the charity’s fiscal year is and why should that change their behavior? Unless, this client had a specific goal to raise X amount of money in their fiscal year and they want to share how close to the goal they are and create some urgency to push people to help them reach that goal. That would make sense.

But if not, same as this charity focuses on its own reality (its fiscal year), the supporter will focus on her reality. And for the majority of people, May/June is not the end of the year. Ok it’s the end of an academic or school year. I don’t know who your client is but could this be a way to frame it?

Alternatively, they could frame this campaign as the start of summer, or end of spring. Or anything that people can relate to and resonates with the recipient, not just the organisation.

If we want to be donor-centric, we need to stop framing everything based on our processes (thought or organizational) and see the world through the supporter’s eyes.

FU Q: You’ll get no argument from me on any of these points. Do you know if there is ANY available research/testing on “end of fiscal year” campaigns. Despite, “expert wisdom”, the client is still being very insistent.

While there’s a lot of fundraising activity around that time, and lots of campaigns, as you well know, I’m not aware of any campaigns that are actually run as “end of fiscal year”. So unfortunately, I can’t provide any evidence for or against such a campaign.

But your client could. They could test an “end of fiscal year” communication against one that is about the beginning of summer for example. Split the audience and compare the two. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find that our gut feeling is wrong. It won’t be the first time. If they insist to go for it, then that’s the best advice you could give them. This way, they’ll know for sure what works for their audience and they can then roll it out next year.