Tag: Fiscal Year-End

Why Fundraising at Fiscal Year-End Will Work for You

Steven  |  Ask
Fiscal year-end.

I want to talk to you about fundraising for “Fiscal year-end” – why it works and how to do it for your organization.

I’m focusing on this because fundraising for “fiscal year-end” works great. And we want you to raise more money and do more good. If you’re not using this fundraising opportunity, you should be.

It Doesn’t Make Sense…

The first thing to say is that no one believes that fiscal year-end fundraising will work for their organization. No one.

And that’s reasonable! After all, what donor is thinking about when your fiscal year is, and what happens at the end of it?

On the surface, who would think that an appeal about the end of your budgeting cycle would motivate a donor to give? It’s entirely organizational-centric, and apparently not donor-centric at all. But…

…It Just Works

Fundraising for fiscal year-end (FYE) works great for our clients (and lots of other organizations) year after year.

The FYE appeal letter is usually one of the best-performing letters of the year. The emails usually perform second-best behind only the December year-end emails.

I’m telling you this because, if your organization’s fiscal year ends June 30th, you have a great fundraising opportunity that – most likely – you’re not taking full advantage of.

This the proverbial low-hanging fruit for you. And we’re going to show you how to grab it.

Why It Works

If we dig a little deeper, we see why FYE fundraising works so well:

  1. There’s a simple, powerful problem the donor can help solve. Every one of us has had the problem of being ‘a little short’ at the end of a month. That means your donor understands and can feel the problem on her own. That right there makes her more likely to respond.
  2. There’s a clear deadline. We know from experience (year-end fundraising, anybody?) that having a clear deadline is magic for motivating donors to take action.

A lot of people will read those two things and think, “Really? That’s it? That’s too simple.”

I know. I think the same thing.

But it works like crazy every year! The power of a deadline and a simple, solvable problem work again and again and again.

We recommend this to every client whose fiscal year ends on June 30th or September 30th.

Our Goal

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we’re sharing. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

This post was originally published on April 30, 2018.

Exactly How to Run a Fiscal Year-End Email Campaign

Steven  |  Ask
Send email.

Using email to raise money at fiscal year-end is exactly like using email to raise money the last week in December.

This month we’re teaching and blogging on fiscal year-end fundraising. Here’s why it works, here’s a sample letter, and here’s what to do in the mail.

And today, here’s how to use email to take your campaign to the next level and raise even more money.

Today we’re going to show you exactly what to do in email to raise money at Fiscal Year-End. It’s pretty simple…

Big Picture: Send Three Emails

Your first email should be:

  • Almost a word-for-word copy of your mailed appeal letter. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, repeat what’s in the letter, because repetition helps your fundraising.
  • Sent approximately 3 days after you send your snail-mail appeal letter. Your goal is for it to arrive in your donor’s inbox the same day it arrives in their mailbox.
    • If your donors are spread across the country, or if you’re using nonprofit postage, you may want to wait 5 or 6 days after you send your appeal.

Your second email should be:

  • A copy of the first email you sent, but a little shorter. Say that you’re reminding your donor about the deadline on the 30th, and then use the same words, phrases and paragraphs that you used in your letter.
  • Sent the morning of June 29th.

Your third email should be:

  • A copy of the second email you sent, but a little shorter. Say that you’re reminding your donor about the deadline on the 30th, and then use the same words, phrases and paragraphs that you used in your letter.
    • One tactic we’ve used with great success: don’t write a third email; just “forward” your second email with a note at the top. The note should say something like, “Dear [NAME], I wanted to make sure you saw this. Thank you!”
  • Sent the morning of June 30.

The trick here is to send the same message in every email. It’s the repetition of the same message that helps drive it home!

Where Should the Links Go?

Every link in every email should go directly to your giving page. Don’t have links to your website’s home page, your Facebook page, or your Instagram account. We call those “attention leaks,” and they tend to reduce the amount of money you’ll raise.

Ideally, your giving page has updated copy at the top that mentions your “fiscal year-end campaign” and the important deadline of midnight, June 30th. You want that page to reinforce the message that your donors read in the appeal letter or email!

Who Should Receive Them?

Your emails should go to your entire list – every email address you have – with the following exceptions:

  1. If there are any Board members or staff members who won’t want to receive the emails, feel free to take them off the list.
  2. If you’re able, remove people who have given to the appeal or email from subsequent emails. For instance, if they give to the email on the 29th, they ideally would not receive the email on the 30th.
    • If you’re not able to do that, add a sentence in the email that says something like, “If you’ve already given a gift, thank you so much! If you haven’t, please give by midnight, Saturday night…” That will ‘get you off the hook’ for donors who give early but still receive the later email(s).

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year to raise money in June!

How to Use the Mail to Raise Money at Fiscal Year-End

Steven  |  Ask

We’re teaching and blogging this month on how to raise money at Fiscal Year-End.

First we wrote about why it works so well. Then we gave you a sample Fiscal Year-End letter and told you how to write the letter.

Today we’re going to show you exactly what to do in the mail to raise money at Fiscal Year-End. It’s pretty simple:

  • Send the letter to your donors around June 1. There’s no magic to that date. You can send it a little earlier or a little later. But that’s about the sweet spot to A) be close enough to the end of June for it to make sense to donors, and to B) give your donors enough time to respond.
  • Send the letter to all donors who have given a gift in the last 24 months. If you mail your donors often, say eight times per year or more, you probably should only send the letter to donors who have given a gift in the last 12 or 18 months. But for most organizations, mailing to all donors who have given in the last 2 years/24 months is worth it. Do not mail this letter to non-donors or to volunteers.
  • Send the letter with first-class postage to Major donors, and non-profit postage to all other donors. Using first-class postage to your major donors costs more, but it also increases the chances that they will open the letter. It’s worth it!

We’ll talk about what to do online later this month. (You’ll have more time to get ready for that!)

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year to raise money in June!

SAMPLE Fiscal Year-End Fundraising Letter

Steven  |  Ask

There is a model that works really, really well for fiscal year-end letters; I’m going to share it with you. You should follow it because you’ll raise more money than you expect.

Remember: no one thinks fiscal year-end fundraising is going to work, but it works like crazy.

So if your fiscal year ends June 30th or September 30th, keep reading. If not, you can click away and go do something to delight your donors. 🙂

Today I’m going to share a letter that successfully raised a ton of money for one of our clients. They raised so much more than they were expecting that they want other organizations to be able to do the same thing.

I recommend you do three things: copy this letter, customize it for your organization, then send it to your donors on or before June 1st.

  1. What you want to do is copy the approach: the directness, the focus on the deadline, the short sentences and paragraphs. You can copy some of the phrases. Even the formatting. Copy all that.
  2. But customize your letter to be about meeting the need your organization exists to serve. Think of it like Mad-Libs: where this letter talks about what the donor’s gift will do, customize it to talk about what a donor’s gift to your organization will accomplish.
  3. Then mail it to your donors on or before June 1st. You want to give them a couple weeks to get back to you. Only send it to donors who have given a gift in the last 24 months. (We’ll talk about how to use email in a post later this month.)

Here’s the letter. You can click on the images to download the PDFs.

Fiscal year-end letter sample.


My Fiscal Year-End gift.

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year!

Fundraising at Fiscal Year-End: Why you should do it, and why it works

Steven  |  Ask
Fiscal year-end.

We’re blogging this month about fundraising for “Fiscal year-end” – why it works and how to do it for your organization.

We’re focusing on this because fundraising for “fiscal year-end” works great. And we want you to raise more money and do more good. If you’re not doing it, you should be.

It Doesn’t Make Sense…

The first thing to say is that no one believes that fiscal year-end fundraising will work for their organization. No one.

And that’s reasonable! After all, what donor is thinking about when your fiscal year is, and what happens at the end of it?

On the surface, who would think that an appeal about the end of your budgeting cycle would motivate a donor to give? It’s entirely organizational-centric, and apparently not donor-centric at all. But…

…It Just Works

Fundraising for fiscal year-end (FYE) works great for our clients (and lots of other organizations) year after year.

The FYE appeal letter is usually one of the best-performing letters of the year. The emails are usually the second-best performing emails of the year (behind only the December year-end emails).

I’m telling you this because, if your organization’s fiscal year ends June 30th, you have a great fundraising opportunity that – most likely – you’re not taking full advantage of.

This the proverbial low-hanging fruit for you. And we’re going to show you how to grab it.

Why It Works

If we dig a little deeper, we see why FYE fundraising works so well:

  1. There’s a simple, powerful problem the donor can help solve. Every one of us has had the problem of being ‘a little short’ at the end of a month. That means your donor understands and can feel the problem on her own. That right there makes her more likely to respond.
  2. There’s a clear deadline. We know from experience (year-end fundraising, anybody?) that having a clear deadline is magic for motivating donors to take action.

A lot of people will read those two things and think, “Really? That’s it? That’s too simple.”

I know. I think the same thing.

But it works like crazy every year! The power of a deadline and a simple, solvable problem work again and again and again.

We recommend this to every client whose fiscal year ends on June 30th or September 30th.

Our Goal This Month

It’s a simple goal. If your fiscal year ends on June 30th, our goal is for you to fundraise for it and use the tips and tactics we share this month. If you follow our time-tested advice, we know you’ll be surprised by how much money you can raise!

So follow along this month. If you haven’t already, sign up to receive our blog in your inbox. We’ll walk you through how to create a great fiscal year-end campaign – one that you can use every year!