People love deadlines
This week is a huge week for giving! Christmas is over but there are still a few days before the end of the tax year. People are motivated by deadlines. And the end of the calendar year is a powerful deadline.
Use it to your advantage.
Make the most of this week
Earlier today, I sent subscribers to my Fundraising Kick email 5 activities to do this week. Since they pay for those emails, I’ll share the first three here. (The last two were about social media and using your email list. You can get those if you sign up at: http://letter.ly/FundraisingKick/.)
- Remember to change your voice mail like I mentioned in last week’s email. Be sure to:
- give donors a way to contact you
- tell them when you’ll be in the office and
- to point them to both the donation form and the stock transfer information form on you site. (You do have stock transfer information on your site right?)
- Write a few notes to people on your “chicken list”—the list of people you’d love to contact but are just too chicken. Send them something like
“in this season of thankfulness, I just wanted to say thanks for your [support of our community, work in our cause area, show of support to the (name of another nonprofit)]. Your efforts are noticed and appreciated. Thank you!”
- Spend a couple days in the office. They don’t have to be full days, but be sure to be in a couple of days. Chances are no one will just “show up.” But if you DON’T spend time in the office, you KNOW someone will try. 🙂
As I told the Kickers, lots of people will give over the next few days. Like you would with a leaky roof, put as many buckets out to catch it all!
