Set Attainable Goals

As part of your beginning strategy, make sure that you set a realistic goal. Goals will give you and your team a greater sense of purpose and direction. Your fundraising goal shouldn’t be too easy, or too hard, it should be just enough to spur each member of your team to bring their best ideas, energy and effort to the project! Your goals should be quantifiable, and measurable. Set benchmarks to help you measure your progress throughout the fundraising campaign, and, to help you uncover flaws and other issues that you can regularly improve to increase your results!

Focus on Passion

It’s very difficult to convince others to care about a cause if you, personally, just aren’t feeling it. Make sure that the staff that you pick to work on your fundraisers are just as excited, engaged and energised about your work and the importance of a specific fundraising campaign as you are! Our attitudes are literally contagious, and the more enthusiastic you and your team is when fundraising, the more your donors and other supporters will be as well!

Illustrate Impact

Donors want to know just how their contribution makes a difference in your community. Always tie your mission to your plea for donations, and frame your impact in human, personal terms that your target audience will relate too.

Use All of Your Channels

There are several channels and devices that you can use to communicate with your supporters, make sure that you are using all of them to reach the greatest number of donors and prospects. Narrow your focus on your messaging and zero in on the needs of your donors. What makes your target audience want to give to any cause and your nonprofit in particular? Adapt your messaging to meet their needs to encourage greater giving.

Always Include a Clear Call to Action

While you shouldn’t ask for a donation with every communication, every single one of your fundraising messages should include a clear, and convincing call to action. Guide your supporters into taking a specific action in your messaging, whether it’s to give a specific amount, or to support your cause in another way, such as taking a poll, signing a petition, or giving an hour of their time during the week or to help at a special event.

Focus on Relationship Building

Don’t give up if you find that you aren’t reaching specific fundraising goals in the beginning. Cultivating donors often requires repeated contacts and spans of time. Key donors in particular that have the wherewithal to give significant gifts typically only give once they have a personal connection to a cause and its people. Invest time in expanding your contacts, communication, and, building genuine relationships with your existing donors and prospects to lay a sound foundation for future fundraising campaigns.

Create a Calendar for Your Year-End Communications

Most nonprofits are communicating via multiple devices and multiple channels, so it’s easy to get mixed up on the timing of your posts and other messaging. Use a calendar and list every single post PR communication that you plan to send over the remaining days of the year. Trello and Asana offer collaborative tools that teams can use to keep one another posted on deadlines and updates, or, you can even go a simpler route and use Word to create a table or make an Excel-compatible spreadsheet to track important deadlines and dates you plan to send out specific types of communications.

Focus on Delivering a Consistent Message

Regardless of the methods that you use to send out your messages, or what types of tools you use to track your posts, narrow your focus and keep your messages on target with a consistent vision and message for your target audience. Decide on the key message and central theme of your year-end fundraising campaign and make surethat all of the stories that you tell, messages and other communications that you send stay true to and reinforce your central message.

Let Your Donors Take Centre Stage

To make this last campaign a success, it’s critical that you clearly communicate to your donors just how important they are in accomplishing your mission. Make sure that all your messaging helps your donors to clearly visualise just how their donation will impact your mission.

Think SIP

Whether it’s your email campaign, your social media messaging, or whatever channels you utilise to message and fundraise make sure that you SIP: Segment, Integrate and Personalise to increase your results. Segment refers to grouping your donors based on demographics and other key traits so that you can tailor your messaging to make it more interesting and relevant to the preferences of each group. Integrate refers to having a strategy to integrate all your fundraising messaging so that you are using the same themes and content regardless of the channel that you are using to communicate the message, or, the platform or device that your supporters will use to access your content. Personalise means that you customise each message to address each supporter by name, and that you use text and other content in your messaging that will appeal to each donor on a personal level.

Test, Measure and Adapt

Just because there are only a few days remaining in the year doesn’t mean that you can neglect traditional follow-up. Continue to test your messaging, collecting data points and measuring your results so that you can learn more about what types of content and messaging are working well, and, what parts of your message you need to change and adapt to maximise your results!

Start Planning Early

Giving Tuesday is often the one day that many nonprofits receive the bulk of their donations, so it really isn’t too soon to begin preparing. Pull out your data and begin using analytics and other tools to analyse this year’s campaign. Are you capturing enough data points to be able to get a clear picture about what does contribute to your campaign’s success? What worked for you, and, what tactics fell flat? Are there things you could have changed or tweaked about your messaging to improve your results?

Do More Than Ask

As you reflect on your most recent campaign, think about what it is that you are giving your donors. When we think of Giving Tuesday, we often focus on the money that it typically brings in, but it should be about more than the money.

Put the focus on your contributors and their needs. When planning your next campaign, think about their needs, and the steps that you can take to meet them. Treat your donors as real people and help them feel good about their donation.

Show them how their contribution, no matter how big or small it may be, is helping to make a difference in the lives of others. Look for ways to put them in the shoes of your beneficiaries in your messaging, and how their donation has made a direct impact in one moment of the life of a specific person. Give them words and images from the perspective of your beneficiaries so that they can see, and feel, the impact of their donation.  Provide your donors with regular updates on your work, and how their contributions make it all happen!

Give Donors More Time to Join In

When designing next year’s campaign, keep in mind that studies show that matching campaigns and challenges can really help build momentum and increase giving. Take advantage of the increasing sense of generosity during the season and use visual trackers on your website and social media to show supporters your progress. Send out alerts to issue fundraising challenges and extend your timeline and allow donations, as well as matching funds, for the entire week that Giving Tuesday falls on to increase participation.

Express Your Thanks

So many nonprofits fail to convert one-time donors because they forget this one simple tip, and no, that automated thank you that someone receives when they donate is not a genuine expression of gratitude. Look for ways to make your acknowledgements personal. Don’t just rely on automation, but pick up the phone, or your pen, and take the time to express your thanks personally. Get your staff, volunteers and board members in on the act and have them contact your donors to say thanks.

Know Your End Goal and What You Need to Succeed

Where do you see yourself in one, five and even ten years from now? What position would ultimately like to achieve? Before you set your goal, research the position that you believe that you would eventually want to have and determine what skills, experiences and achievements you would need to win this role.

Determine Your Strengths

Think about your skills, current duties, and areas of performance where you really excel. Are any of your current strengths a match for the requirements of the position you desire? What skills and abilities do you need to obtain, or strengthen, to get the desired post?

Experience Increases Skill

Think about the steps you should take to strengthen your abilities and make yourself a good candidate for the position. For most people, this typically means that they will need additional training. Are there certifications or licensures that you will need to obtain before you can hold your dream job?

It’s also a good idea to press for opportunities in your current organisation that will allow you to take on new challenges to gain experience. What are some interim positions that you could hold between your current position and the desired one where you could earn that experience and grow into your desired role? Keep in mind that it’s sometimes necessary to transfer to another department, or even another organisation, to have an opportunity to grow both personally and professionally by taking on new roles.

When you are focused on skill building, it’s also helpful to seek out peers or professionals outside of your organisation that can act as a sounding board for your ideas, provide you with unbiased feedback, coaching and guidance that will help you hone your skills and increase your leadership capabilities.

Consider Your Accomplishments

As you increase your knowledge and capabilities, you should periodically reflect on how far you have come in your current career. After all, when you apply for new opportunities and positions, you will undoubtedly be asked about your performance. Being able to clearly show how your contribution was the turning point makes it easier to convince others that you are the right person they can turn to and trust with increased roles and responsibilities.

Don’t just think about formal rewards and acknowledgements you have received in the past. Think about the past obstacles that you’ve faced and overcome. What have you gained as a result of your toughest challenges? How did you change your team’s performance? How have you made a difference on group and individual projects and what steps have you taken to meet and exceed expectations?

Build Up Your Organisation as Your Build Your Career

As you increase your skill and experience, continue to build upon your prior success. Look for opportunities to help others grow in their roles. Don’t forget to express your gratitude for any and all assistance you have received along the way. Building these bonds and strengthening your relationships with others will help each of you to grow and succeed together as you assume greater roles and make it easier to reach a higher level while strengthening your organisation as a whole!

Why Keep Records?

If your nonprofit is an ACNC charity, proper recordkeeping is necessary to show good governance, and a registration requirement. Even if your NFP isn’t registered, other government and regulatory bodies typically require your NFP to keep specific records. These include the need to keep records regarding your business in order to manage and report your obligations to the ATO, and to show that your board is making sound financial decisions, following its bylaws and acting in good faith towards its members.

Keep in mind that record retention practices should apply equally, regardless of whether your records are stored in the cloud, in a physical filing cabinet or just a hard drive on your computer, and that you should take precautions to back up your information and protect it from loss in case of theft, fire or another unexpected event.

Financial Records

Your nonprofit’s financial records include your ledgers and bank statements and transactional records that document your NFP’s payments, such as checks and your income and other financial activities. Details of contracts, deeds, receipts from sales of tangible and intangible property, stock records, payments to staff and other employees as well as independent contractors including your superannuation and withholding payments are additional types of financial records that you should keep.

Asset registers, tax payments and filings, communications involving the nonprofit’s finances, including emails, are also financial records that you should keep. Audit reports, year-end statements, annual budgets and other reports that detail the financial condition of your nonprofit at given points in time should also be retained.

Operational Records

Your nonprofit’s governing documents, such as your constitution, bylaws, articles of incorporation and similar records that detail the founding of your organisation, its purpose, and rules that it will follow, should be kept indefinitely. Minutes of board meetings, amendments and resolutions, memoranda, donor reports and annual reports, strategic plans and your formal policies and procedures are all records that detail how your NFP operates and should be kept.

Records that advertise or promote your nonprofit and its work should also be kept such as press releases, promotional materials related to your NFP, and documentation or multimedia recordings that demonstrate that you are acting to fulfil your purpose.

Programs and Services

Records that detail and document the type of work that your nonprofit does to advance its mission should also be kept. This includes records that show program planning and evaluation, transactions related to the services that you perform for beneficiaries, including costs and expenses to operate specific programs and provide specific services, how many people you have served and what your programs have accomplished.

Contributions and Fundraising

Information about your donors, specific donations and other gifts and contributions that you have received from both individuals and businesses. You should also keep all records regarding the grants you have applied for and received, also with documentation that shows how these monies are spent. Keeping a record of this type of information not only helps you meet legal requirements but can also be used to improve your fundraising campaigns and results!

Learn More About Recordkeeping

Check out the ACNC’s Recordkeeping Checklist to learn more about record-keeping best practices for registered charities that all nonprofits should find useful.

Set Realistic Goals

How closely have you been hitting your fundraising targets through the year? What lessons have you learned from your wins, and, your losses? As you head into the last few days of the year, take a few moments to review what has and hasn’t worked when it comes to your fundraising campaigns, targeting and messages. Set an ambitious, but realistic, fundraising target for these last remaining days, and make surethat your message is consistent, in keeping with your brand’s image. Don;t forget to segment your lists and tailor your approach to ensure that your various groups of supporters are being contacted with the types of mssages and appeals that will be meaningful to them.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Many nonprofits assume that the primary motivator behind most donations at this time of year is for a break on their taxes, but research has shown this isn’t true. Invest the time and energy into finding out why your donors care about your cause, and, use analytic tools to help you discover what types of updates, news and messages best appeals to them.

Look for ways to collect data that will help you to explain and describe the impact made by your organisation and the donations that it receives to help you create content and messages that appeal to donors and will help you to encourage them to be more generous and increase their support for your cause.

Make Your Appeals Personal

When crafting your fundraising appeals, don’t rely on generic wording, such as asking your supporters to give to your organisation. Instead, really focus on what it is that your organisation does to make a difference. If you work with disadvantaged populations, for example, ask your supporters to donate that will help you to make a difference in the life of someone who is homeless or at risk of going hungry this season. If your organisation is focused on improving some specific aspect of the environment, ask your followers to give to save the life of a specific animal, such as a cat or dog, or, to pitch in and grow our forests by giving an amount that will support the planting of a new tree. Make your appeals personal, and specific, and describe the impact that each donor will make in personal terms to improve your results.

Don’t Forget to Ask

As the year comes to a close, you might assume that most folks are too busy enjoying the holidays to read their messages and respond to fundraising requests, but, this simply isn’t true. Create an email fundraising campaign for these final days and use tools to send out follow-up messages, automatically, to encourage the people on your lists to make a final year-end gift to your nonprofit. Use your social media profiles and schedule your fundraising appeals in advance to continue to remind your followers of the work that remains and how even a small gift can help your nonprofit advance its work!

Boost Performance and Enhance Wellness

Everyone’s body, mind and spirit needs a break from time to time to be able to continue performing at our best. Not only does our performance suffer when we are overworked, but our resistance to illness breaks down as our stress levels increase. Taking time off for the holidays will not only improve everyone’s mood, but it will also be good for everyone’s physical and mental health as well!

Reduce Turnover

Taking time off doesn’t just provide a boost to your team’s wellbeing, it will also improve their morale, and, likely reduce your rate of turnover. In fact, many studies show that there is a direct correlation between how happy we are with our working situation, and, whether we will give in to temptation and jump ship. We all know just how difficult and expensive it can be to find and retain great people, so why not give your team a few extra days off during the holidays to increase their satisfaction with your organisation?

Many Organisations Will Be Closed

Take a step back and be honest with yourself, how much work will you or your team realistically be able to accomplish during the holiday? Many state and federal organisations will be closed during the week, and private and public third parties will also likely be closed for business as well. This will make it increasingly difficult for you and your staff or volunteers to complete tasks that rely on the assistance and cooperation of others. Why not make the most of this opportunity and allow everyone in your nonprofit time to relax and rejuvenate?

You Owe it to Yourself and Your Team

It’s no secret that most of us working in the nonprofit sector are underpaid, or lack some of the perks that workers in the for-profit space typically earn, such as retirement pensions or matching contributions to a self-funded retirement account. Even when we receive equal pay to our for-profit counterparts, many of us put in long hours each day, or even under-report the hours that we work. Giving yourself and your people a few extra days at the end of the year will not cost your organisation very much, and, will at least be a gesture that acknowledges the worth of all the hard work and effort that you put into your cause throughout the year. Taking a break during the holiday season will allow your staff and volunteers to reconnect with the special people and activities in their life so that everyone comes back recharged and ready to tackle obstacles, thus making 2019 your most productive and successful one yet!

Use Mobile Best Practices for Your Site

This means making sure that your website contains content that looks great on mobile platforms, loads quickly and is easy to navigate. When creating your content, use shorter sentences and paragraphs so that there is plenty of blank space to make reading easier. Using simple fonts that are designed for mobile usage will increase readability as well.

Ensure that you are using a template that’s been optimised for mobile users as well. Alternate the types of content that you post and include visual elements to make your site more interesting, such as high-resolution images, infographics and videos.  While often overlooked, podcasts are another type of content that can increase interest in your work, make it easier to establish your authority in your sector and that appeals to mobile users.

Get Local and Encourage Check-Ins

An easy way to increase your search ranking is to use Google My Business. This tool allows you to publish your information online such as your location and what your organisation is about, and then directs nearby searchers to you.  When supporters visit your location, encourage them to use Foursquare and similar services to check-in. This will improve your nonprofit’s brand recognition.

Encourage Engagement

When posting content on your site, don’t forget to encourage your supporters to interact with it. Include a comments section for each post and urge your followers to share their thoughts and ideas on the content. Include easy to see and use buttons that make it a simple process for supporters to share your content on their own social media profiles.

Increase Ease of Access with Your Own App

Creating an app for your site simplifies the process that your members go through during login, so make sure that your app has also been optimised for mobile use so that your site remains easy to use and navigate when they are logged in and accessing their custom content.

Use Analytics to Improve Your Results

Just because your website has been optimised for mobile use doesn’t mean that you can skip recording, tracking and analysing your data. Use tools that have been specially designed to collect and interpret data of your mobile users. As you gain more data points over time, use this information to learn more about your users’ viewing habits, and, the types of actions they are taking and the type of content that they prefer to consume on your site. Use this information to make improvements so that you are meeting the needs of your supporters.

Let Apps Do Some of the Work for You

Volunteer Match and similar apps allow you to post your nonprofit’s positions, as well as search through their database of profiles for prospects that would be a good match for your organisation. While potential volunteers of all ages do sign up with these sites, it’s a particularly useful tool for reaching Millennials and younger age groups who spend more of their time online.

Put the Word Out via Your NFP’s Social Media Channels

Don’t let your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts go to waste! In addition to compelling stories, shout out to your existing volunteers, thanking them for their work and effort on behalf of your nonprofit. Take the time to publically invite their friends, family and other connections to consider pitching in and helping your NFP. Post a heart-warming story about something one of your volunteers did that made a big difference in the life of someone else, and, use that as a lead to increase interest in your nonprofit and invite others to contact you to learn more about how they too can join you!

Don’t Forget About Your NFP Website and Newsletters

When updating your advocates, donors and existing volunteers about your progress on both your website, and, your regular newsletters, include a call-to-action that lists the current opportunities to volunteer with your group and invites them to apply, and, share the news with their contacts. List a contact person or request that prospects apply via your website, so that the application process is clear.

Ask Your Local News Outlets for Help

Pitch a story about an upcoming event, or, recent accomplishment involving your nonprofit to a local radio or TV station, or even your local newspaper. Ask them to cover your story, and, include a segment that lets the public know that you are seeking volunteers, and, the steps they should take to apply.

Recruit Your Board to Help

Your board members are some of your nonprofit’s most skilled ambassadors. Ask them to get involved in the recruiting process and to reach out to their connections to find good prospects. This is an especially helpful tactic if you are seeking to partner with businesses and other third parties, they can provide temporary to permanent volunteers, and you supply much needed memorable, meaningful activities that supply valuable work, and team-building experience.

Don’t forget to follow-up with your applicants. As you go through your list, keep in mind that while some prospects might not be a good match for a specific position, they might be just the right person for another. Rather than crossing them off the list entirely, get in touch to see if they are interested in other opportunities than the one they applied for so that you can learn more about them as a person, and, fill your volunteer openings more quickly over time!

Welcome Supporters to Your Nonprofit

By automating your emails, new members are welcomed to your NFP as soon as they sign up, giving you a chance to show your gratitude for their support, and, reinforce the difference that you will be able to make in the community with their help! This is also an opportunity to let them in on the benefits of membership and clarify how to access resources and use your website to their best advantage!

Keep Donors in the Loop on Your Latest Projects

Key donors are more likely to continue to give to your cause when they feel as though they are an integral part of your work. Automation allows you to keep everyone updated on your current activities and events. This keeps donors and others interested and excited about the progress that you are making, together, and increases their engagement with your organisation!

Segment Mailing Lists for More Customised Messages and Better Engagement

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of automation is that it allows you to create segmented lists so that you can send personalised emails, such as thank you letters, and Happy Birthday wishes, that are fully customised to help you build your relationships with your supporters. Segmentation allows you to reach out and connect with donors, volunteers and other key stakeholders via the method they best prefer. It also allows you to customise the frequency that you send out communications to specific individuals and groups so that they don’t feel either neglected or overwhelmed. By having better control over the frequency and content of your communications, you strengthen your supporters’ connection to you and improve their satisfaction with your nonprofit.

Use CRM to Increase Fundraising Results

There is a lot of valuable information that you can capture and use to learn more about your supporters and what they want from your organisation. Automation allows you to track each time that a supporter views your website, opens an email, or reads and shares your content on your social media channels.

The more that you can learn about their demographics, and, content consumption, the more that you can tailor your messaging to appeal to their tastes and preferences and meet their needs. This results in better brand reputation, greater engagement by your volunteers, donors and advocates, and gives a boost to event participation and other fundraising campaigns.

What about your organisation? Are you already using software and apps to automate your marketing efforts, or, are you still trying to do everything manually? Please feel free to share your favourite marketing software and apps with other readers in the comments section below.