How to Identify the Donors Your Nonprofit Should Connect With and Solicit Before 12/31: a Practical Checklist
Us: “DON’T POST THE NEW BLOG YET! Bloomerang just released our part 2!”
Well, THANK YOU, Bloomerang! We were just about to publish a two-part post when Bloomerang dropped their own post with 5 Last-Minute Ways To Connect With Donors Before End Of Year.
This is a great opportunity to intersect a few things here with JSS and Bloomerang.
An excellent Advancement CRM is critical for your nonprofit. Mandatory. Critically mandatory. Trustees and CEO’s, you need to know that your organization is using a donor CRM to its full capacity, that your team members receive regular training on it, and that your leadership team is constantly pushing the CRM company to enhance the data analysis and presentation to serve your needs. A good CRM firm listens to client feedback and often invites for Beta-testing.
Bloomerang’s CRM and services are our favorite. We’ll be happy to tell you why one-on-one.
Their coaching and content is always relevant and fresh for all nonprofit organizations who interact with a donor universe.
On Friday, when we were scheduled to post this article, the brilliant team at Bloomerang posted the following ideas for connecting with donors before the end of the year:
Say Thank You
Ask Questions
Pick up the phone
Report on impact
Invite (more) connection
We want to offer the prequel to that post. Now that you know HOW to connect, we want to help you prioritize WHO it is you’ll be connecting. Excellent, Bloomerang. We would like to now offer our, “yes, and…”
There is a good chance that you are reading this and building donor capacity for the first time. If so, then this first section is for you. For more tenured teams and efforts, we hope this is old news. Here are your three lowest hanging apples:
LYBUNT and SYBUNT: "Last Year But Unfortunately Not This," and “Some Year…” are crucial concepts in fundraising. These acronyms refer to donors who supported your school or nonprofit in the previous year but did not continue in the current year. Recognizing the value of these donors is essential–especially toward the end of the year. Here is what you know - they have already shown interest in your mission, and they were willing to do something about it. Tailoring your outreach efforts over the next three weeks to address concerns and employing personalized communication can help re-engage these donors. Throughout the year, applying LYBUNT patterns will afford you insights for refining your fundraising strategies and enhancing donor retention.
The “Mid-year first gift giver:” Run a report and identify all givers who gave their first ever gift before August 1, 2023. This is an excellent time to connect with a purpose. Your gift *did this*, and setting up a recurring gift in December will *do that.* Can we help you set your gift to have recurring impact? Very low hanging fruit.
High Open and Click Rates (especially for holiday email/newsletters): We hope that you have been very generous with your holiday communication since mid-November. If you have, then it is a good strategy to sit down with your communication director and highlight the 25-50 recipients who have high engagement with your correspondence. Reaching out to these people now comes with a high likelihood that they won’t be surprised that you are calling or emailing to say “hello.”
Ok, so what’s next for those who do those three things habitually?
The Executive Director’s 4 best donor identification strategies for mid-December:
Run a report of all donations that were given as non-cash gifts. Yes, giving method matters quite a bit. If you have a group of donors that give stock gifts to your nonprofit, there is some reason to think that they may be looking to generously give in the same way at the end of 2023. For many, Christmas bonuses come in stock. For many, meetings with wealth advisors generate some increased motivation to give non-cash gifts. And for the donor who has already made stock or other non-cash gifts to your nonprofit, it is as easy as a phone call or email transaction with their broker. **Chances are, your nonprofit is still set up with the brokerage from the LAST GIFT.
New to the RMD club: This next idea is for savvy development officials. Each year, you have a crop of donors who must start making required minimum distributions (RMD). Making RMDs is a crucial aspect of managing retirement accounts, particularly for individuals who have reached the age at which they are mandated to begin withdrawing funds. RMDs are mandatory withdrawals from tax-advantaged retirement accounts, such as traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, and are designed to ensure that individuals use these savings for their intended purpose: funding retirement. Your donors who are 73 years old and older can make gifts to your nonprofit directly from their RMD up to $100,000. Far too often, we see that donors who turn 73 do not know about these advantages or have incomplete guidance about giving directly from their RMD. Typically, a CPA or wealth advisor will communicate that failure to meet RMD requirements can result in substantial penalties. Thus, the conversation is about the essentiality for individuals to plan and manage their withdrawals effectively to maximize their retirement income while remaining compliant with regulatory obligations. But that is only part of the conversation; the other side of that equation is about being generous with RMD funds. That’s where a conversation with your leadership is critical.
Church, synagogue, community partners: This is a great season to reach back out to your religious or community partners. These groups often receive increased giving from their members or parishioners and there is a question about the best stewardship of funds. Our bet is that if these religious and community organizations have seen your nonprofit as a missional partnership in the past, they will still see you this way. Make sure you reach back out to these leaders before they take a long holiday break, and see if there is additional financial support for your mission. **Like always, demonstrate the impact of their support, and ask with purpose. “We need to finish the year strong!” is not a purpose. It may be your challenge, but it is not their purpose.
Next Gen Donor Club: This last strategy has an extremely high return rate relationally. Your goal is to play the long game with this one. Is anyone paying attention to your next generation donors? If you are a school, then these are your last 2-6 graduating classes. If you are not an independent school, then this is your volunteer list, young donor list, and anyone else in your donor universe that is not “ready to be a donor” by traditional standards. ((By the way, we think they are ready. You just need to captivate their interest.)) So,let’s say you could get a short audience with this group. Do you know what you would ask them to do? Captivating young donors and nextgen donors has everything to do with giving them a better narrative. Reaching this crowd has just as much to do with raising awareness as it does raising money. If you want your end of year to buzz with excitement for 2024, ask this group to help you raise awareness. ((And ask them to tell you the best methods for raising awareness.)) No, this one strategy is not likely to move your final giving total by 5-figures. It will, however, keep you and your team focused on the main thing as you finish 2023. The main thing is out in front. The main thing is hopefulness. The main thing happens at the intersection of “things need to change for the people we serve” and “we have found the way to solve these problems.” If you want real mission advancement, give your nextgen partners a chance to speak out in front.
This is the first post of a 3- post series all about finishing 2023 strong. Up Next: Books to Buy the Leader in Your Life for Christmas. Up Next Next: Don’t Sleep on Dec 26-Dec 31. Stay tuned.
