Tag: Asking

What Small-Shop Fundraisers Should Do at Year-End

Steven Screen  |  Year-End
What Small-Shop Fundraisers Should Do at Year-End

You Don’t Have Time to Do Everything

Those silly consultants. They give you a list of fifty-four things to do, but you only have time to do four of them.

I get it. (And I am guilty of it at times.)

But if you only have time to do four things … do you know which four are the most important?

My List for Small-Shop Fundraisers

If I were doing the fundraising for a small organization with limited resources (and time!) here’s what I’d do, and the order I’d do them in:

  1. Manage your major donors. Don’t just hope that they give a gift before the end of the year, manage them toward doing it! Know who your top donors are. Be in touch with them. Know exactly who hasn’t given a gift yet this year. Ask them to give a gift to help your beneficiaries or your cause (not to give a gift to your organization). Tell them their gift is needed now, and tell them their gift will make a difference.
  2. Write and send your year-end letter. Make sure you send out a great year-end letter that powerfully asks donors to give a special gift before the end of the year.
  3. 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 they can be very similar; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time.
  4. Update your website to ask for a year-end gift. It’s been true of every organization I’ve ever worked with: a LOT of people will go to your website in December with the express purpose of making a gift. If the first thing they see on your home page is a clear call-to-action and a large button, you will raise more money than you expect.

That’s it! If you can only do four things, do those four.

Make sure you do a great job on each of those before doing anything else.

If you can only do three things, do the top three.

And so on.

Just remember that year-end is the easiest time of the year to raise more money than you expect. And your donors are wonderful but busy people! So communicate to them as much as you can. You’ll love how much money you raise!

Resources for You

We’re having a sale on our year-end fundraising products. Check out our store to see how you can raise more money while working less this year-end!

The “Dreaded Thask” – Thoughts on Asking while Thanking

Steven Screen  |  Thank
The “Dreaded Thask” – Thoughts on Asking while Thanking.

I was in an email conversation recently about “the dreaded Thask – when an organization asks for a donation in their receipt.” In other words, including another Ask in your receipt when you are Thanking your donor for a gift.

The conversation was with a bunch of professional fundraisers.

Everyone was against it – except me.

But I Should Be Specific…

I do not advocate for asking for a donation in a gift receipt.

But I do advocate for including a reply card and reply envelope in mailed receipt letters.

That may seem like splitting hairs. Let me tell you why it’s not…

I know from testing that including a reply card and reply envelope with most receipt letters – when done in a certain way – is good for your organization in the short term and in the long term.

Below is the email that I sent to the group. You’ll see how to do it in a way that raises more money (and keeps more donors) for your organization.

Hi There,

Here’s we learned through testing over the years…

In a nutshell, “thasking” is a bad idea, but “thanking and providing an opportunity” is a really good idea. (Apologies for the ungainly name, I just made it up.)

In our experience, when “thanking and providing an opportunity” is done well, two good things happen:

  1. More gifts come in. In other words, response rates to Thank You / Receipt packages increase.
  2. Donor retention goes up. When we tracked the donors over time, their giving and loyalty went up compared to donors who received the standard treatment. These were direct, A/B split tests done with tens of thousands of donors.

In my experience, there are a couple details to get right:

  1. The receipt letter itself needs to be only about Thanking. Zero mention of any future giving. (And be donor-centric, be full of gratitude, tell her what her gift is doing, not what the organization is doing with her gift, etc.)
  2. The letter needs to be specific as to what the donor’s gift was about. In other words, if the donor gave to ‘provide a night of safety for a homeless mom and her kid’ the letter needs to tell the donor that her gift is providing a night of safety for a homeless mom and her kid. It doesn’t work as well when the letter is a general thank you letter: “Thank you for partnering with us as we help families experiencing homelessness…”
  3. The reply card does not ask the donor for a gift. It just says something like “my next gift” or “I’d like to do even more.” That positioning is really important. Because as humans we KNOW it’s impolite to ask for another gift at that moment. However, we also know that many donors are thrilled to be well-thanked (or even thanked at all). And that some of them would love to give another gift right then and there. The “I’d like to do even more” positioning avoids the impoliteness.

When an organization really has its act together on this stuff (again, in my experience), they usually see about 1% response rates to Thank You’s / Receipt Letters. Those gifts can generate up to 5% of an org’s total direct mail revenue. And again: no long-term negatives to file health.

Are there exceptions? Sure. I don’t do it to major donors. I wouldn’t do it in Thank You cards. Wouldn’t do it after a donor took a survey. But the majority of the time an organization receives a gift and sends a printed receipt, it’s the smart thing to do.

To summarize, I agree that “thasking” is a bad idea. But I think that making it really easy for a donor to make another gift if they would like to, in a polite way, is the right thing to do most of the time. And when it’s done right, I’ve seen no measurable long-term negatives.

I hope that helps takes any fear out of including a reply device in your standard receipt letter package.

And that it helps you increase your revenue and your donor retention!

How to ask major donors for a sizable gift

Jim Shapiro  |  Major Donor Fundraising

What if I told you it could be just as easy to ask a donor for $10,000 as it is to ask her for $1,000? Would you believe me?

Well, I’m here to tell you that it can be just as easy – BUT only if you are willing to keep things simple, follow the ‘success ingredients’ I’ve outlined below, and then ask with confidence.

Here are the ‘success ingredients’ that need to be in place in order for you to have confidence when asking major donors for a sizable gift.

  • Know your donor. What does she like about your organization, or about the outcomes your organization creates? What has she funded in the past? What are her personal interests or hobbies? The more you know about your donor, the more likely it is you can create an Ask that appeals to her.
  • Before you ask your donor for a sizeable gift, tell your donor that you plan to ask them for a sizeable gift. Don’t surprise your donor! Tell her your intentions. If you prepare her to be Asked, she’ll respond better when you ask.
  • Develop a great fundraising offer that you know she will love. Ask her to fund projects, programs and outcomes she already likes! If you know your donor likes directly funding meals for homeless moms and kids, then don’t ask her to fund the new job-training program for men. Stay on target.
  • Make your ‘Ask’ part of a larger vision or campaign goal. Most donors don’t want to feel like the only donor giving a sizeable gift. They want to know that other donors are giving or being asked to give at sizeable levels.
  • Ask for more than you think your donor can give. I can tell you story after story of Major Gift Officers that have applied this thinking and come away with $100,000 gifts when they were first thinking of asking for $10,000. The big idea here: don’t accidently downgrade donor giving amounts by always asking for what you think donors can/will give. Sometimes you need to ask for what is needed, because oftentimes donors will surprise you!
  • Ask with confidence, and then give your donor time to mentally process your request and respond. It is all too common for Major Gift Officers to do most of the talking. It is critical that after you have delivered your appeal for support, that you stop talking and listen. Remember, this is a two-way conversation, and the donor deserves time to ask questions or respond with a financial commitment.

Try it!

The best way to improve your confidence and ability to ask donors for sizeable gifts is to go out and try it. I challenge you right now to identify 2-3 major donors (or potential major donors) and ‘cook up’ an Ask with each ingredient.

It might feel awkward at first. But it’s what I see successful major gift fundraisers do again and again and again. For you, this process will become easier and easier to do as you practice the steps above. And pretty soon, you won’t believe you used to do major donor fundraising ‘the old way’!

If you don’t have any major donors to try this out on, or you don’t feel as confident as you’d like, then practice by role-playing. Do it with a co-worker, a board member, or even a friend.

Whatever you do, it is time for you to get out there and put this thinking to work. You’ll be amazed at how much easier major donor fundraising can be – and how much more money you can raise for your cause.