Steven Screen, Author at The Better Fundraising Company

Call a Major Who Hasn’t Given Yet (and here’s what to say)

Steven Screen | December 17, 2024April 22, 2025Year-End

Here’s another quick tip for you as the year-end approaches…

Call a major donor who hasn’t given a gift yet.

Here’s what to do (this will be easy for some nonprofits, hard for others):

Make sure you know exactly who your major donors are.
Run a report to see which of them haven’t given in the second half of this year.
Call each Major who hasn’t given recently, or who you think could give another gift
this year.

Here’s What to Say

Our approach is that this call is a reminder – a service to the donor – not a direct Ask.

Take as much of the following script as is helpful to you and the context of each donor.

“I’m calling because I know how much you love helping [beneficiaries/cause], and I noticed that we hadn’t received a gift from you yet, here at the end of the year. You and your generosity have been extraordinary. So I wanted to call to see if there’s anything you need from me, or [your organization name], to help you make a gift or decide to make one.”

Then stop talking. Be comfortable with tension (if there is any). Let the donor speak next and take the conversation from there.

Pro major gift fundraisers will also be prepared with three things:

How much you’d like the donor to give
What her gift will do / the outcomes her gift will create
Reasons her gift is needed before the end of the year

But even if you don’t have those things, make the call. Making the call is the most important element.

If your call goes to voicemail, leave the message on voicemail.

And if you can’t make the call, send an email. But only if you can’t call.

It Won’t Work for Every Major Donor –

Because nothing works for everyone.

But for some majors who have been busy, or traveling, or were on the way to sending you a gift but put down your letter and forgot – you’ll be providing them a great service. You’ll be helping them give a gift that they would love to make!

And you’ll be raising more money!

This post was originally published on December 12, 2019.

Fundraising Portfolio

Steven Screen | December 12, 2024April 22, 2025Repeat

When investing, one of the first principles is to have a diversified portfolio.

You want to have some bonds because they are incredibly stable, which insulates you from risk if something bad happens in the stock market.
You want to have some stocks so that if the economy takes off, you can make serious money.
You want to have some international investments so that, if things go sideways in your country, you’re insulated.

You get the idea.

Now, have you ever thought that your fundraising program is essentially your “fundraising portfolio”? Because the same principle is true in fundraising – you want to be diversified:

You want to have a good in-person relationships with major donors because that’s where most of the money is.
You also want to be good at direct response fundraising (mail, email and phone) because not every major donor will want to meet with you, and because you can inexpensively talk to lots of donors at the same time.
You want to be good at events because there are some donors who will only go to events.

So, now that you’re thinking of your fundraising program as your “fundraising portfolio,” I have three questions for you today:

What’s in your fundraising portfolio?
Is your portfolio diversified? Does it both insulate you from risk and give you a great chance at growth?
Is your portfolio appropriate for your size? (For instance, spending money on “awareness” is appropriate for a $25m organization, but ill-advised for a $1m organization.)

Two Quick Stories

Here are two real-life examples of how a lack of diversification can be harmful…

Example #1 — Five months into the pandemic, a large national organization called us. They were already $20,000,000 behind budget for the year because they primarily raised money at events… but couldn’t do events because of the pandemic. Their organization didn’t know how to raise money through the mail and email, and were hair-on-fire-scrambling to learn how.

Example #2 — Up in Canada right now, because of the Canadian Post strike, it’s tough for nonprofits who rely on the mail because they can’t send letters to their donors! So the organizations who don’t have strong relationships with individual major donors, and/or strong email fundraising, are in real trouble.

Now, if you’re a smaller nonprofit, most of us don’t have large enough budgets to just say “Let’s diversify our revenue streams” and go do it the next year. Diversifications takes both time and money.

But as you plot your growth, diversification of revenue streams should absolutely be a goal.

Nelson Mandela

Steven Screen | December 10, 2024December 6, 2024Repeat

When Nelson Mandela was in prison (for 27 years!) he studied the language of the Afrikaner people who put him in prison.

Mandela shared that “the way to understand people is speak and understand their language.”

Mandela credited his understanding the Afrikaans language with his ability to establish good relationships first with the prison wardens, and later with the Afrikaners who ran South Africa.

Mandela understood the language of the Afrikaners, spoke the language of the Afrikaners, yet advocated for his people.

The same principle is true for highly effective Fundraisers: they understand the language of their donors, speak the language of their donors, yet advocate for the organization’s beneficiaries or cause.

Any time you’re responsible for bridging a gap – whether it’s between different races or between nonprofits and donors – the bridge is more likely to get built if you understand and use the language of the person you’re trying to build it with.

The Old Adage That’s Proving True Again

Steven Screen | December 5, 2024December 4, 2024Major Donor Fundraising

There’s an old adage about major donor fundraising. And right now is one of the times where we see why this wisdom keeps getting passed down from Fundraiser to Fundraiser.

The adage goes like this:

When times are good, major donors give.
When times are bad, major donors give.
When times are uncertain, major donors hold.

Major giving has been slow this year – despite the strong economy and stock market. This has been true for clients big and small, for organizations with mature major donor development systems and 1-person shops.

We believe the slowness was largely due to the uncertainty surrounding the presidential election.

But here’s the good news; this week I’ve heard multiple reports of major giving rebounding post-election. Their numbers from November are coming in and Fundraisers are pleasantly surprised.

Organizations are shifting from “I don’t think we’re going to hit our projections” to “I’m cautiously optimistic we’re going to hit our projections.” This is good news.

So if major giving for your organization has been slow this year, reach out to your majors this month. Ask them to give a gift to help your beneficiaries or cause. Give them reasons to give a gift now – tell them what work your organization is going to be doing in January and February and ask your majors to help make that work possible.

Be encouraged, and good luck!

5 Tips For Your Most Successful Digital Year-End Campaign

Steven Screen | December 3, 2024November 12, 2024Ask

Are you ready?

According to Network for Good, most nonprofits raise about 1/3 of their revenue in December. And 11% of their annual total during the last three days of the year.

Year-end is the easiest time to raise more money online! Think about it this way:

Your donors are more likely to give during the last weeks of the year than any other time of the entire year.

And because year-end is such an important time for digital fundraising, we want to give you 5 tips that will ensure a successful year-end for your fundraising.

# 1: Use the same message in every channel

Some of your donors are online, some aren’t. Pick your strongest message, then repeat it through direct mail, email, your website, and social media. It’s more powerful for your donors to see the same message in different media channels than it is for them to see two different messages. Repetition is your friend!

# 2: Ask early and often

You’ve been talking to your donors all year about what your organization does, you’ve told them how they can help. So this time of year, don’t Thank them. Or Report to them. It might feel counterintuitive, but our testing showed that Thanking and Reporting this time of year will cause you to raise less money than you could. Follow the advice below and just Ask well!

# 3: Emphasize the deadline

A deadline communicates urgency. December 31 is a natural deadline — for the tax year and for your organization. Tell donors your deadline and repeat it multiple times in your messages.

# 4: Set a goal

How much do you want or need to raise? What would it take for you to meet your budget? Feed everyone you want to feed by year-end? Shelter abandoned pets through the end of the year? Overcome a financial shortfall? Tell your donors the goal.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31.

# 5: Communicate consequences

What will happen if you don’t meet the goal? Connect the donor right to the heart of your work.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will have to cut back on the number of pets in our shelter in the coming year.

We need to raise $XX,XXX by midnight, December 31 or we will not be able to advocate for the arts as effectively next year.

Whatever your organization does, if having less money means you would be able to do less next year, say so!

Most important tip? Start now!

This post was originally published on October 26, 2023.

A Procrastinator’s Guide to Year-End Fundraising

Steven Screen | November 28, 2024November 13, 2024Year-End

Just getting started with your year-end fundraising?

Here’s a quick list – my best tips – for what to do with your remaining weeks before the end of the year.

Make a Plan to Start Earlier Next year

First, the hard news: if you’re just starting now, you’ve left money on the table. You could have raised more.

That is a harsh truth. Many people won’t like to hear it. But it’s true. And for the moment, don’t worry about it. But right now, go set a calendar reminder to start earlier next year.

Seriously, set a reminder.

I’ll wait.

It’s that important.

The organizations that start their year-end fundraising earlier tend to raise more money.

What to Do Now

Do as many of the following things if you can. And here’s the order I’d prioritize them in:

Identify and contact your major donors who have not yet given a gift this year.

Don’t do what most nonprofits do, which is hope that their majors give a gift before the end of the year.

If you haven’t already, identify exactly which of your major donors have not given gifts. Then reach out to each of them to ask for a special year-end gift to help your beneficiaries (not to help your organization). Do it in person if you can; phone is the next best way. Tell them their gift is needed now, and tell them their gift will make a difference!

Write and send your year-end letter.

Send out a direct letter that powerfully asks donors to give a special gift before the end of the year. Tell them their gift is needed now, and tell them their gift will make a difference!

If you use a mail house and it’s going to take too long to get a letter produced, here’s what to do:

Write and prep your year-end emails.

Be sure to have at least three emails prepped for the last three days of the year. Remember that you do not have to reinvent the wheel: the emails should be VERY similar to your letter, and the emails should be very similar to each other. Repetition is the most effective tool you didn’t know you have!

Tell them their gift is needed now, and tell them their gift will make a difference!

Update your website to ask for a year-end gift.

Make an update so that the first thing users see on your home page is a clear call-to-action and a large “donate” button.

And… wait for it… tell them their gift is needed now, and tell them their gift will make a difference. You will raise more money than you expect.

That’s it! Do as many of those as you can, starting from the top of the list.

Do a great job on each one before doing anything else.

And if you can only do three things, do the top three. If you can only do two, do the top two. You get it.

Remember: year-end is the easiest time of the year to raise more money than you expect!

This post was originally published on December 4, 2018.

The Lesson

Steven Screen | November 26, 2024November 19, 2024Ask

Years ago I served an organization that was raising about $350,000 per year from their individual donors.

They had a belief that they needed to share all of their programs, and show how those programs worked together to “solve the whole problem,” in order for donors to give gifts. Their belief resulted in fundraising that spent significant time describing their programs and how their programs worked together.

I advised them that they needed to keep things simpler. I suggested that they focus an e-appeal on one specific program.

They pushed back:

“We’re not a simple organization like one of those big national organizations you work with. What we do is complex.”

I explained to them the lesson I had learned over the years: that the big national organizations have sophisticated approaches and programs, but that they purposefully keep their fundraising simple and emotional in order to make their organization more accessible to more people.

Those big organizations want everybody to be able to donate, not just the people who are interested enough to learn about their programs.

The organization I was working with had assumed that because the fundraising to individual donors was simple, the organization and its programs must be simple.

But the lesson is that those big organizations appear simple because of a conscious messaging choice. In their fundraising to individual donors, they choose to focus on single programs or simple outcomes because doing so is proven to help them attract more new donors and raise more money from current donors.

Sophisticated fundraising looks simple on purpose.

Thanks for Being a Fundraiser

Steven Screen | November 21, 2024November 8, 2024Thank

Today we’d like to thank you for being a Fundraiser.

You help your beneficiaries or cause with the funds you raise.

You help your organization fund needed programs and incredible impact.

You help donors see what’s happening in the world, and you give them a way to get involved.

That’s a lot for one job!

If you’re celebrating Thanksgiving here in the U.S. like we are, I hope you get a moment to breathe deep, relax your shoulders, and appreciate all the good you’ve done this year.

The work you do matters, and it makes a difference.

Thanks for being a Fundraiser!.

This post was originally published on November 23, 2023.

Sing from the Same Song Sheet

Steven Screen | November 19, 2024November 8, 2024Year-End

Here’s a quick, easy-to-do tip to help you raise a little more this year-end…

The copy at the top of your giving form should promise the same thing – maybe even be the same copy – as the call-to-action in your year-end fundraising.

Here’s the thing. Most people who end up on your giving form over the next couple of weeks will be driven there by your letters or emails.

So make sure the copy at the top of your form – the copy that says why the donor’s gift is needed and what it will accomplish – echoes what you said in your year-end letters and emails.

This will help your donor know that they’ve landed on the right page. It will reinforce what they expect their gift is going to do.

And it will increase the number of people who fill out the form and give you a gift.

If the copy is different, say a statement about your mission and how a gift supports the organization… that will cause some donors to be a little less sure of what their gift is going to do. And that tiny lack of certainty will cause some of them to click away without giving you a gift.

Example Time

Say your year-end letter asks people to “send a special gift to keep a missionary in the field next year.”

Your giving page copy should say that same thing. It should not be boilerplate language about your organization! It should not say, “We believe that blah, blah, blah, and your gift supports our holistic approach to missions…”

If your year-end email says, “Your gift today will provide the food, medication, and loving care an orphaned Bonobo needs to survive,” then the copy on your giving page should not say, “Founded in 1972, our organization is relentless in our striving to care for endangered creatures, and your gift supports our synergistic efforts to…”

Are you with me?

Then make sure the copy on your donate page matches what your year-end fundraising promises to donors that their gift will do. To your donors, you’ll look like you have your act together. More people will complete your form, and you’ll raise more money!

This post was originally published on December 17, 2019.