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Top 10 Tips For a Strong Year-End Campaign: Break Down Structural Silos

by | Oct 12, 2011 | Fundraising Strategy

Year-end giving amounts to an estimated 40-70 percent of many nonprofits’ annual budgets. The most charitable season of the year is a prime opportunity to secure new supporters and to lift the giving levels of current donors.  In this blog series, we will review the steps to devising a strong campaign—including how to use data analytics to target your messaging, the importance of a compelling story, how to distribute your story through multiple channels, and when to follow up with donors.

BREAK DOWN STRUCTURAL SILOS

Many nonprofits tend to operate in structural silos. The development department is often divided up into levels of the pyramid—general fund, mid-level gifts, major gifts, and planned giving. When it comes to year-end communication, each “silo” should work in concert together, building upon each other’s messaging and actively driving donor engagement and involvement with the organization. Communication should be coordinated around a central message with a branded look and feel, so at every level your donors see what you’re doing, how their gifts will make an impact, and how they can join the effort.

To have an effectively integrated campaign, we encourage internal teams working together toward the common goal of lifting giving at every level. This typically includes individuals from the executive, marketing, events, web, finance, and fundraising teams. Having this internal buy-in helps not only rally the teams internally towards one goal, but also helps set the tone for the importance of teams working together to achieve an organizational milestone.

Action Items:

  • Call planning meetings with key stakeholders in the organization including representatives from every sector of your development department, including general/annual fund, mid-level, major gifts, planned giving, marketing, events, web, finance, and your organization’s executives.
  • Be sure that everyone understands the goals for your campaign and the steps required to reach those goals.
  • Ensure that campaign messaging and design is coordinated for every level of the pyramid.

Set Measurable Goals As a Team

After your integrated team has formed, it’s time to set measurable and meaningful goals that are important cross-departmentally so that you can track the success of your campaign and have a benchmark for future years. Seek input from the stakeholders and build out a year-end fundraising dashboard. Have one person in charge of compiling the data regularly and then sharing the results to the team often. Be sure to celebrate successes or be flexible to tweak your strategy based on data and what you learn throughout the integrated campaign efforts. Here are few metrics to consider:
  • Number of donors by channel (direct mail, email, social media, text, events, face-to-face visits, etc.) year over year
  • Average gift size by channel year over year
  • Number of gifts given by channel year over year
  • Total dollars raised year over year
  • Growth percentage increase in dollars year over year
  • Number of new donors acquired year over year
  • Number of new email addresses acquired year over year
  • Did we increase average gift size year over year?
  • Did we increase/decrease the number of communications year over year and what was the effect?
It’s not too late to start building your year-end campaign with Pursuant, but you must respond now. Let us help you raise more by sending the right messages to the right audiences at the right time.