Making The Most Of The Hottest Season
With only 98 days to go before Christmas — the height of the year-end giving season — here’s some advice for making the most of the year-end giving season … AND carrying it into the future.
Perhaps you’ve ignored our Christmas in August advice, or even better you’ve adopted some of it.
If you want to grow your organization’s net income for the long term, here are two more pieces of Agitator advice.
AGITATOR ADVICE ALERT #1: GET YOUR ONLINE HOUSE IN ORDER.
I don’t give a hoot whether your individual performance is measured by online, direct mail or telephone donations, the fact is that ‘online’ plays an increasingly important role in overall year-end giving for your organization. So get over the ‘silo’ and ‘attribution” game.
First, check out Jeff Brooks’ post on from yesterday on Future Fundraising Now: How To Fix Your Donation Pages.
Then, read and heed, Frank Barry’s Ten Most Effective Donation Page Optimizations You Can Make.
BUT…
For heaven’s sake, don’t stop there. Go all the way!
AGITATOR ADVICE ALERT #2: Prepare to KEEP THOSE DONORS.
As a first step, sign up for the Foundation Center’s webinar on “Get Your Year-end Fundraising In Shape”, hosted by veteran fundraiser Jay Frost.
I’m recommending this because so often we don’t look beyond the tsunami of year end giving and build into our plans the efforts required to keep them.
So often, as Jay notes, we concentrate on acquiring the gift but really have no strategy or plan for retaining the donor.
Don’t blow this opportunity for some case histories from a fundraising vet and a list of specific strategies and tasks that will put you in great shape for 2015 and beyond.
Register here. Do it today. Webinar is scheduled for Monday. A great way to start your week.
What are your plans for thanking and retaining year-end donors?
Roger
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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