Fundraising Techniques That Work – Page 24

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DO YOU WANT TO SOLVE THE SAME PROBLEMS?

Just saw this wonderful graphic on http://www.queerideas.co.uk/my_weblog/2015/10/the-fundraising-paradox.html and had to share!

It is so important to ‘walk a mile in your donor’s shoes’ and to listen, really listen to what they tell you! That way you’ll know what problems they want to solve!

So many Development Directors/fundraisers have an idea and a ready presentationfor the donor’s donation that they don’t take the time to consider if it that problem makes a true difference to the donor! Often even after the donor tells them what is important or close to their heart about the organization it’s not noted or goes unnoticed. Donors need to be heard;they are the lifeblood of the non-profit.

Very recently, a donor, someone close to me, went to a non-profit she loves and gave a meaningful year-end gift. The donor went in for a specific reason/cause close to her heart and left that day thinking she was helping that cause. In fact, she was assured her donation would be used for the cause close to her heart, but when she got the thank you letter a few days later, the letter indicated that her donation went for another cause, a project that the organization chose.

The donor is goodhearted and doesn’t want to cause a stir but I think that that will be the last large gift this organization gets instead of the first of many. The nonprofit will probably never know this donor is disappointed, but the sad thing is they should know. The donor told them but no one was listening! They solved different problems didn’t they?

#GivingTuesday

Are You ready for #GivingTuesday? Seems like #GivingTuesday is now the starting line for the final month of fundraising, a month that you depend on to be fabulous! Seems to me as a former Development Director that you absolutely have to get your team ready to participate because as a Development Department, you can not do it alone! You need your staff, your volunteers, your board and all your peeps to want to carry the message out and about! Without their help, your returns will be minimal.

In the past two weeks, I have attended so many webinars and read so many articles about how to make #GivingTuesday successful and am thinking about rounding it out to five best practices and wondering if I can do it with all the information overload doing jumping jacks in my brain. Let’s get started.

YOU NEED A STORY that will make em cry! When I work with development peeps, I remind them often to always always be looking for their top 4 or 5 stories of the year, real life situations that made everyone on the staff feel deep emotion and involvement with the organization, creating the moment that you know you love what you do! Then, craft that story and get photos and work it until it’s close to perfection and get ready to get it out there.
YOU NEED A VILLAGE! You can’t do this alone, no matter how good the story, how great the graphics, how much you care, it all depends on having a team, a village of peeps that love your mission and are willing to share with their peeps and network. Put together a team that feels comfortable with social media and not too shy to ask for a favor. a lot of peer-to-peer fundraising is a personal networking method of helping one another and supporting each others cause.
GET A MATCHING GIFT! SEE NOTE AND NEW INFORMATION BELOW A Matching Gift at year-end is always just a terrific motivator and can make a impressive difference in your return. I’ve seen it work very well with #GivingTuesday campaigns and would suggest your give it a try. Usually the #GivingTuesday goal is not so high as to preclude you from finding a donor who would be happy to have their year-end gift matched this way for such a good cause. Give it a try!
GET YOUR BOARD ON BOARD. Your board has probably been looking for a way to assist you in your year end goals without having to come up with the huge checks themselves, so they are most likely going to be glad to help share your #GivingTuesday story with their peers and social media peeps. ASK Them!
MAKE SURE YOUR DONATION PAGE S TIED TO THE CAMPAIGN AND WORKS! Remember how many of your donations will be mobile. How does your landing page or donation page look? Test it out and not on just one laptop! It needs to be responsive and have impact on every level. Remember that over $45,000,000 was raised last year so it’s not a waste of your time to tweek your plan! Good luck!!

*****This year for #GivingTuesday we’re actually giving away our service for free for the weeks leading up to and after #GivingTuesday. link out to our #GivingTuesday matching gift page. We’re trying to build awareness so nonprofit utilize our service this #GivingTuesday to grow their matching gift revenue.

The URL is https://doublethedonation.com/giving-tuesday/ and has all sorts of info on our Giving Tuesday offer.

BlockBuster Fundraising

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Whether you’re new to fundraising or a seasoned development professional, you will find Blockbuster Fundraising a great resource for your non-profit work. Best Practices are current, tested, and with proven results that can be put to work immediately for blockbuster results. CEO Joy Olson has 20 years of an extremely successful Development background.