‘By November, your year-end cake is already baked’

At last year’s Storytelling Conference, Chris Davenport shared storytelling advice from successful movie directors.  Here’s one of my favorite things he highlighted:

“What an audience feels at the end of the movie is entirely dependent on what they felt earlier in the movie.”

Here’s the parallel to that in fundraising:

How much you raise at the end of the year is dependent on the fundraising you sent your donors earlier in the year.

Here are some examples:

• If a nonprofit has shown up often in donors’ lives throughout the year, with relevant content, its year-end campaign will raise more.  The organization has earned its place to be one of the organizations a donor thinks of at year-end.
• If a nonprofit has not done any fundraising for several months, its year-end campaign will raise less.  Because it disappeared for months, the organization is less top-of-mind for donors and won’t receive as many gifts.
• If a nonprofit has made it clear through the year that its work is needed, its year-end campaign will raise more.  The organization has made it clear that it’s working on something important, and donors tend to support causes and organizations that they feel are important.
• If a nonprofit has spent the year only talking about how well things are going, it will raise less at year-end.  The organization has shared only success stories, so it sounds like things are going great and help isn’t really needed, thank you very much.

A friend of mine put this memorably.  He used to run the annual fund for a national nonprofit you’ve heard of.  Over beers one night he said,

“Look, by November, your year-end cake is already baked.  All that’s left to do is see how it turns out.”

What he meant was the fundraising you do throughout the year has a large effect on how well your year-end campaign performs.  (You can, of course, have a strong year-end campaign without communicating much during the year.  But a strong year-end campaign after a strong annual campaign will raise even more.)

I share this here in January so that, as you’re creating your fundraising this year, you set yourself up during the year for the best year-end campaign you’ve ever had.