Name: The Ultimate Year-End Fundraising Campaign Workshop
Uploaded: 2025-08-27T18:31:18.236Z
Duration: 59 min 52 s
Description: The Ultimate Year-End Fundraising Campaign Workshop

Transcript for "The Ultimate Year-End Fundraising Campaign Workshop": Hi, everyone. Welcome to your ultimate year end fundraising campaign workshop. We are going to accomplish a lot in the next hour, with my wonderful colleagues, Lisa and Stacy. Wherever you are in the world, whether it's, you know, your lunch break or you're joining us, in your morning, let us know in the chat where you are and also, what you might be snacking on. I'm very boring. I have water, but, yeah, you might have something more exciting. And, just so you know, we also have our friend Daniel, joining us. He is in the chat for any of your questions related to, Blackbaud Solutions, or anything else that comes up. So say hi to Daniel, and thank you so much, Daniel. My name is Kate Averett Anderson. I am with the Blackbaud Institute, which is Blackbaud's original research lab. We do all kinds of, data data driven research into the sector, and we'll show a little bit of data later on. We also like to create resources like the one that we'll be going through today. And just for a little bit of of additional background, I also was an outreach and development manager for many years and currently set on a board. So I've kind of been on both side of things and hopefully can bring some of that expertise too. Hi. I'll go next. I'm Stacy Rooney. I am a strategic consultant here at Blackbaud. I'm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and my snack is the little pretzel goldfish that I'm munching on. And I have been with, Blackbaud for about eleven years and in fundraising for twenty plus years. And just really glad to be with you all today and especially excited to hear from Lisa today. Lisa, do you wanna introduce yourself? Yeah. Thanks, Stacy and Kate. I'm Lisa Franco. I am from Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge in Medford, New Jersey. I'm the director of development there. We are customers of Blackbaud, and we currently use Raiser's Edge. And I'm here to talk to you guys about how we did our end of your appeal and, just having a really successful year. I'm excited to, you know, get to be here with the Blackbaud team. We're a pretty small organization compared to some larger organizations that might use Blackbaud. So hearing it from a smaller organization, hopefully, will be really, exciting for you guys. So I look forward to talking with everyone. And to amp up Lisa even more that her story of what they've been able to accomplish is, like, the spark for this whole webinar. So we're really excited to showcase all of y'all's work at Cedar Run. So before we get into, the full agenda, we have a quick little poll for you all that might pop up shortly. Just know if you're seeing our poll. So let us know, as of today, how your team is feeling about your year end campaign. I know we're kind of we're we're in the midst of things now. So are you feeling like you need more coffee, less excel sheets? Are you in a committed relationship with your donor database right now? So you have a lot of time doing data cleanup, feeling consciously optimistic. I would be jealous if I was in your shoes, but you've got a whole lot queued up. Do you feel like you are running a marathon and the finish line keeps moving? I know that feeling very well. And ask me again about our urine campaign once the results are in. I'm currently holding my breath. I know that feeling as well. So wherever you are on this journey, we are hoping that today's session, can give you what you need to kinda take that next step. Hopefully, a lot of these applications are things that not only help you along your journey wherever you are with your your in cam your year end campaigns, but also your campaigns moving throughout the year as well. So continue bringing in, those answers in the poll. Looks like cautiously optimistic was winning at the moment. That's exciting. Is I like that. On top of things. I think we need y'all to lead things. Okay. So So today we'll be talking through kind of step by step, everything that you will need to really feel less cautiously optimistic and more so fully optimistic about your end of year campaign. So we're gonna start off with how to set a goal, which, you know, I think is the starting point for everything, but also something that's a little bit hard to nail down. We'll be talking about your storytelling, how you're able to translate that goal into something that's really compelling for your audiences, and then empowering everybody at your team to be a fundraiser. And then for those of you who are in that data that community relationship with your database or those of you who are not yet, we'll be talking about, how to be strategic and realistic in your data cleanup. And then finally, what to do after year end. As you know, kind of like we hit January 1 and year end is not over, and then it comes into what is the next step and how do we keep this going. So we'll be talking through all of that. I'm waiting for my slides to catch up with me. Here we go. Alright. So as I said, we're gonna root a lot of this conversation and Lisa's experience, but I would like to kinda give an introduction to another resource that we'll be talking about throughout. So as I mentioned, I worked at a nonprofit for a lot of years. And, earlier this year, we wanted to put together this fundraising campaign template. And my guiding light was kinda like, what do I wish that I had when it came to planning this kind of campaign? And we created this template, you know, inspired by that and also inspired by your feedback, all across our different communities. So this, template I'll be referring to throughout as kind of, like, your step by step to take all of these action steps that we're discussing and put them into action, document them, and create a single source of truth to share across your organization. So when you see these kind of screenshots throughout, those are there. And then we have a link in the doc section where you can go ahead and get your free template if you wanna follow along as well. But enough about all of us and what we're doing here at Blackbaud. We wanna hear what's going on with Lisa. So we are going to talk about how they started off with their goal setting. So hi, everyone again. Just a little bit of background about Cedar Run, just so you have an idea of what kind of organization we are. We are a wildlife refuge in Medford, New Jersey, like I said. We sit on a 171 acres of preserved land, and we're a three part mission of environmental education, habitat conservation, and wildlife rehabilitation. We're the largest wildlife rehabilitation hospital in the Tristate area where we service over 7,500 animals every year to rehab and release back to the wild. So, just for a little bit of, like, context, we're about a $1,600,000 budget. And when we were going into our end of year appeal last year, we had actually had a new transition. I am newly appointed the director of development as of July 2024. So it was a a new thing for me. I was the assistant director prior, and I've been with the organization for three and a half years. So when we were sitting down as a team, we were, like, trying to figure out, you know, what kind of goals do we want to hit for this year, not just monetary. And I think with us, our team consists of, especially at that time, was three people including and also our executive director, but myself, my database my database coordinator, and my nature center and membership manager. And we just try to stay as realistic as possible. As much as you think that you might wanna try and hit these, like, really big, goals, that might not be as attainable as you think, especially if you're kind of planning towards, you know, the full time and not have not haven't been able to plan throughout the whole year. So setting goals can kind of be the hardest part because I feel like the first thing that you are trying to do is making sure that you're catching up from everything that you might have missed from the beginning of the year. Definitely take a pause and try and be sure that, you know, you are able to with your team and your abilities while also still doing your day to day job, you're able to accomplish those goals. So with us, what we had decided was we needed to make a $100,000, and we do a mail in appeal for end of year. And this year, we had decided to do direct asks. So we had decided to take our, end of year appeal and in house send out, I think it's about 78 letters to donors segmented from $750 and higher that had donated the last three years to our end of year appeal. And, I am excited to say that we ended up making an additional $28,000 just from those direct asks and ended our end of year appeal with a $130,000. So that was very exciting for us. And I think by us just staying as realistic as possible, we knew that with our team of, you know, three people and some, volunteers, we were able to get those letters mailed out. Our executive director signed every single letter, that was a direct ask. And then you we used a printing, third party to do our other mailers, which is about, I think, 12 to 13,000, sent out. So when we were trying to discuss, you know, how can we stay realistic, it was really seeing, okay, what time can we put into hitting our goals? The next step is really just, you know, trying to make sure that you're tying your end of your appeal to your greatest impact. For us, we wanted to make sure that the donor really understood where their impact was coming. So making sure that you're kind of listing out whether it's, a scholarship fund that you're looking for or an in kind donation or if you are looking for monetary. For us, in the slides, you can see I put an example of a $500 gift can rehabilitate up to eight of our injured birds of prey. And you can even change this especially with the direct asks, if you know that your donor might like, you know, one part of your mission more than your other, where with us, some people might be more involved in the environmental education opposed to the wildlife rehabilitation. We might be able to segment those even further to see if we can get, you know, our end of your appeal for some of education and then some of the wildlife rehabilitation side. I think making sure that you're focusing on what your donor the donors that you already have and seeing how you can really segment, to consider the participation, goals as well. So seeing if your monthly giving can convert into also your end of year appeal or seeing if you've had any new donors from the beginning of the year and they're going to come in for your end of year appeal. Something else that we really like to consider is really seeing what the average gift size for those appeals are. Our summer appeals tend to not be as high as our end of your appeal, especially with people looking for those, like, tax breaks and everything like that. And then lastly, I really wanna touch on, for us, it's one of the most important things at Cedar Run, is making sure that we're staying consistent with full transparency. When the donors are able to really understand and relate to what the needs are of your organization, they're more likely to give. And I think trust is a two way street. We want the donors to really trust us, but we want to really trust in the donors as well to make sure that we're able to do the work that we can do. For us, and I'm sure a lot of other organizations were so community heavy. We could not do the work without the our community. For us, we have over 380 volunteers that help us with daily feeds and the stewardship of the land and even development with finding grants and stuff like that. So making sure that you're really understanding and being transparent in what you need for your end of year. For us, we know that that $100,000 that comes in is to really prepare us and start for baby season of, you know, the the following year. So for us, 2026. Telling your donors exactly how much you need, can really pay off in making them feel truly a part of the impact. Awesome. Thanks, Lisa. I was just this is Stacy again. I'm just jumping in with a little bit more to kind of punctuate the point around thinking about how to go about setting goals. And one of the ways I like to think about it is if you have ultimately a destination goal and then maybe a sub journey goal. So how I think of that is, I put the vision there. I did a road trip years ago from Minneapolis down to Savannah, Georgia, and I knew I needed to get to Savannah, Georgia by Tuesday. But I had all sorts of choices on how I could do that journey. I could take a scenic route. I could go parts of it really fast, spend more time in certain parts. I could have flown. So, ultimately, you all have either likely been handed a goal of, like, hey. You need to raise a minimum of this amount of money or what have you what have you, or maybe it's a goal around we need to get more donors. Whatever that goal is, that's ultimately your destination. And then it's helpful for the team element, and we'll talk more about stakeholders later. But to know that you have a plan of how you're gonna get there, because it as we all know, it doesn't happen just magically. So I just wanted to add that point, and I know Kate has some great advice here from the resource. So before we jump into that, I wanted to, voice McKenna's question. Lisa, would you mind just within your own words talking about what you mean by direct ask? I know that was a really crucial part of your planning. Yeah. As you can do a little bit. Yeah. So we basically took our, end of year appeal. And in the one of the things and I'll I'll mention it again in later slides. But, one of the things you wanna make sure your direct ask is at the top. Not always are people going to read your full end of your appeal or any appeal. We all know just from social media how short our attention spans are becoming. But so what we had done is so I'm gonna give an example. Let's say the donor gave $750 the year before. What I had done is ask them specifically, you know, dear friend, are you able to give a thousand dollars this year? So actually giving them a direct how much we need from them, and we were able to get 28 responses. Now we did send out 78 letters. So, obviously, we could have had an even bigger turnout, and which we're hoping for this year. But putting in something that is directly asking them for the amount that you need kind of helps them to understand one that that is the need that you have. But also, it takes away them having to think, well, I'm only gonna get $50 or I'm only gonna give a $100. Especially knowing that they they had given, you know, the year prior, around that amount or the same. Now I also did some research on the donors. If I saw that every single year, they gave a thousand dollars for the last five years, and they might not be in that, like, you know, uptick of my prospects of knowing that they potentially could give more, I might have just still put a thousand dollars. Now if I saw that they had given, various amounts, you know, between 1,500 and a thousand and $7.50, I kinda rounded up and did a thousand dollars. I think this can be very effective because, again, it helps them to, like, not have to think too hard about what to give, but also really understanding what you guys need and seeing that that is being very transparent. They want to feel a part of the mission and knowing that that is the amount of money that you need to in order to hit your goals can really help the donor feel a part of the mission. I hope that answers your question. Thank you. I really appreciate that that more detailed explanation of that because I think it also ties into, like, the at the beginning of this planning process, you also have to know, like, specifically how much you need to go towards, like, the specific purpose. So, like you said, I think, you know, an end of year campaign where you're just saying, here's everything that we've accomplished this year. Looking forward to a great year next year. It kinda leaves this big question mark, for donors. It's like, well, how am I making an impact? So that's part of this template that I'll touch on now is this idea of, like, what is your campaign purpose? Like, of course, your campaign purpose is we need operational funds to get through the next year. This is our budget. This is what we're looking at. But getting more specific than that, really asking, like, why this specific campaign? Why is this your specific goal for this year? Do you want to, establish a new program? Are you running into certain challenges in last year that you want to help, get support from your donors to overcome? And then also think about, like, what is that measurable outcome that it can drive? And being able to incorporate that measurable outcome into that direct ask so that they know before they even give what the impact of every dollar that they give is going to to be. And so that's something to get you started in this template is just asking yourself and also sitting down with your team and asking each other how to really frame that. And then this is probably something that you all have seen a million times, but I always like to reiterate it is when you're thinking about your goals, think about your smart goals. So when Stacy's talking about, like, the journey that you're on, these are to me, like, these are your mile markers. Like, making sure that each goal is specific, making sure that it's measurable, that it's actionable, making sure it's realistic, and also making sure that everything is time bound. So making sure that you can meet all of the benchmarks that you need to meet in order to get to the end of that goal. And please keep, bringing in your questions. We'll hopefully have time at the end for full q and a, but, as you saw, like, if any question comes up that seems within the flow, we can also bring it up, during the conversation. So now we'd love to talk a little bit more about that storytelling aspect of, like, how do you translate that impact to your audience. So I'll hand things back to Lisa. So with storytelling, I think this can kind of like Kate said, it's the most important, but it's also some of the hardest, I think, you know, for you to really understand something that we might, as our organization, feel so close to, as, like, a really good storytelling piece, sometimes might not always relate to the donor. So the thing that we try to do as best as possible is to just use real stories. And it doesn't always have to be a happy ending or even a successful story. We definitely have unsuccessful releases, and, there are just, like, really cool patients that will come in, for us to be able to talk about, you know, species that people might not know about in New Jersey. And even if, you know, they might not have made it through our rehabilitation, that it's still really interesting for people to to capture onto and have a better understanding of what we do. In other organizations, you might be able to talk about the kids that you're helping or health care or some kind of new science. But really just tying in a really unique and real story is, I think, some of the most important pieces of your storytelling piece when you're first planning that piece. The next thing is really just highlighting your uniqueness, really seeing where you can find your little niche that people will remember you. Something that, I think people make us very memorable, is that we have twenty four seven drop off. It sounds like maybe such a small thing, to say. It's a very, minimal sentence, but the fact that we are an organization that stays, and to answer phone calls and also has a twenty four seven drop off for animals all year long is something that's very uncommon in our industry. So when people think of Woodford Cedar Run, they're thinking, oh, well, I know I can go there at any time to drop off this animal even if it's at 2AM. So really capturing that that little uniqueness, can really help to bring your donor a little bit closer to your mission and understand the stories that you're trying to present. And the next thing is really just making sure that you are kind of posing your donor as, the hero. And it's not that that is even, I don't even wanna say, like, pose it as in, like, a lie because that really is. We call ours our wildlife heroes. We actually are not able to go out. We're a staff of full time 12 people, and our wildlife rehabilitation hospital has, only three full time staff members. So for us, we would not be able to go out to all of South Jersey and go and pick up these animals, to be able to bring them back and still do the care. So for us, the heroes really are the people who come to us, the people who who are donating, the people who are donating, especially at drop off. It's such a frantic time when you're dropping off an animal that might be injured or was hit by a car that the first thing that our donors are not thinking or or thinking are, oh, let me give a $100. So this can really help to, for them to understand, like, what their part is in your mission. And you can really translate this in the, experience of the storytelling and making them feel like they are, kind of your your hero. You wouldn't be able to accomplish half of the things that that we are doing in all of our organizations if it wasn't for the volunteers and the community and the donors. And my last piece is just visuals and emotions. I think one of the biggest pieces for us is making sure that you're using and utilizing real photos. I want to press this harder than anything is that I think a lot of our donors can tell when we're using stock photos. They can definitely tell when things are staged. So utilizing throughout your year in getting real photos of events, and tables that you guys do or any kind of exciting things happening even of your staff. People want to give to people. People like seeing the happy faces of your staff. It makes them feel more, connected to the mission and definitely more tied to that specific person and knowing, oh, okay. This person is is who I'm giving my money to. I trust that. So making sure that you have those really good visuals. Also, one of the things that I wanted to mention, I think I had said it already, but when you are doing those direct asks, the visuals in just the way that things are worded are also very important. If your direct ask is all the way at the bottom of the letter or even on the back of the letter, it might not be as effective because we all know, again, our attention span. People might not turn that page over. So for our end of year appeal, what we ended up doing usually is a front and back letter. This year this past year, we had decided to do just one page letter, which, I'm not gonna lie, was very difficult for us. We like to speak and we have a lot to say. So sometimes a one pager is not enough for us. But then our last our our back of the page was actually just visuals of really cool, like, impact, numbers so that and and photos of the animals so that people can still read it and they're still getting something from the message, but they're not having to read these full paragraphs. It's a little bit easier. So especially with a younger demographic, I believe maybe that that back page probably spoke to them a lot more than just that front letter, but then we knew we were capturing both demographics. So really taking steps into consideration your design and what you want to do for this end of your appeal is very important. I love that idea of, like, getting creative with it because I think, you know, it especially when you sit down to write, like, that year end letter, I think you often like, you start by pulling up last year's letter, at least I did. Maybe I'm lazy. And then you build out from there. And so it can be difficult to kind of, like, break out of that mold. So, again, I'm just gonna keep I'm gonna keep showing this template as a way to do that, but really to be able to, to get creative with your team and be able to kind of, like, break that blank page moment of where do we even begin. So a few things that I wanted to share with you all just to get you started on this, if you do wanna utilize this template to help you in that storytelling piece, is, again, like, going back to this donors as heroes, element, looking at, like, what are your audience motivations, and really diving into that. Like, what is the key reason that will motivate your audience to participate in this particular campaign this year? And what's that core human need that it that is going to be that motivator? I think, of course, like, we are always looking at, you know, the pulling of the heartstrings, but I think, you know, like you mentioned, Lisa, like, having that direct connection to the organization, to the people involved, to the animals involved, no matter what your organization is, that's always really crucial. It's like, what is that human connection? And then how can we address that core motivation? And being able to document all that, I find, extremely helpful when it comes to breaking across that page. And then another two two points to also mention are the idea of, like, what what kind of opportunity do they have to help us achieve this goal? And then what are their proof points? Like, what's their reason to believe? So, like, you mentioned, like, on the back, you have these amazing, like, impact stats. So these really quick, ways to look at, like, how they can really know that by backing your organization, they're making a tremendous impact in the world. And then I think as well, this idea of, like, what is your most important message? Being able to tell your whole story in one sentence. And I think that can be the most difficult thing to do. Like you mentioned, like, cutting down to just one page for a letter is so hard. It's also very hard for me. So being able to start with, like, if you had to take your whole end of your campaign and crystallize it into one unique message, what would that be and have it be one sentence? And then from there, being able to expand, like, okay. If we have more room, then two to three sentences, a paragraph, adding in those proof points, adding in these pieces, so that as you're adapting to your different platforms, whether that's via letter, via social media, via email, you have more room or more, variability, then you just have that language there to draw from. And then finally, thinking about, like, your copy and executional consideration so that when you do share this amongst routine, everybody knows, like, we don't use an ampersand. We use a plus. This is how we like to refer to ourselves. All of these things, even if they're a volunteer or a board member, as a board member, I know that we sometimes can be out of the loop on some things as our own fault, and so having that to share their board members is really helpful. And then one thing that I really wanna target from this template is this audience segmentation piece. So we've created this kind of, audience segmentation mapping worksheet for you. So you can see we've left the segments blank here because that could be it could be your mid level donors. It could be your major donors, but it also could be, you know, the people who volunteered with us on the specific event that ties into the goal. Like, it really can be unique to your organization. And then being able to show, like, which fundraising channels are you engaging them on. How do they really interact with you? What particular impact story will resonate most with them? And then what do you want them to do? What's your call to action, and where will they take that action so that everyone can have these things documented? And then finally, something that I find really helpful when it comes to mapping out large campaign like this is looking at your communication cadence. So in the same way, you look at the same segments and you say, like, how many times have we actually gotten in touch with this segment in the last year? How often are they hearing from us, and what platforms are they hearing from us? And then being able to go through and say, like, is there certain, certain groups that we maybe have neglected over the course of last year that we wanna get the most out of? Or is there someone who's maybe heard a lot from us via, direct mail, but maybe they would like to hear from us via email or text? So I think that this is also just a good way to, again, like, level set across your teams. And when you're putting in the effort to tell this incredible story, making sure that it's reaching your donors where they're gonna see it and where it's gonna have the most impact. And so with that, I think we'll move into the section on, you know, once you have your story, you have your goals, you kind of have this roadmap laid out, how do you empower everybody at your organization to then run with it and become a fundraiser as well? This is probably the, like, scariest part because, I know when you're kind of in that development world, you're like, oh, I'm I'm silo. I'm alone. I don't know who I can lean on, and I am here to let you know that there are plenty of people, especially to make it very easy. For us, one of the things that we really try to do is lean on our board and volunteers. I will say our volunteers are absolutely incredible. Our our board members are really great, but our volunteers are in it day and day, really helping with the feeds and our, actual, you know, day to day work sometimes. So they can definitely be some of your biggest advocates in helping to further your end of year appeal. With empowering people, it's not just about them really understanding your organization, but really taking what you're trying to do for your end of your appeal and making sure it's across all boards of, everything that you're trying to promote. So really putting that out there on different platforms and making sure it kind of relates to back to your end of your appeal. For us, making sure that we're still sharing patient stories and really good why people are giving graphics, and giving them out to your board and volunteers, like, right around the time that your end of your appeal will hit mailboxes can be really, informational for people. The more they're seeing it, the more likely they're gonna be like, oh, yeah. I got that in the mail. Let me respond to that because I just saw that on Facebook. Also really utilizing your team outside of your development staff, Your admin people, your educators, your caregivers, your clinical staff, they are all in it just as much as you guys. They have stories and networks of people that you might not even know. They might have also seen a story that you saw the same story but had a different perspective. And that can really help in the other slide that we were talking about with the, you know, just considering your storytelling, seeing what your other staff are really thinking about when it comes to their way of viewing, you know, something that had happened at your organization. It might be something that is a little bit more relatable to your donors than somebody who, you know, even myself is just sitting in the development office thinking about how we're gonna fund this inside this giant project. And then utilizing your peer to peer, for us, it's really Facebook, using Facebook fundraisers or even tying in your Giving Tuesday. This year Giving Tuesday is December 2, so it falls right into that end of your appeal, time and really making sure that if you're hitting on what impact you guys have made this year and how it's going to be for next year, how, you know, you need to be able to do more for next year. For us, one of our biggest things was that we saw a 26% increase in animals. We saw 1,100 more animals than we've ever seen ever in our hospital, and we knew that we needed to have the funding for an increase again, whether it was going to continue with that increase of the 7,500 and or, actually, 7,700 animals we saw, or were we going to even see even more? So knowing that we needed that amount of money to get us through for the next year, I think, was such a big heartstring for people, that really was successful for us. And then making it as easy as possible, having that stuff ready to use, templates, language, and impact numbers. Small organizations, I think, sometimes think it's a lot harder to have this stuff ready, but you can reuse things that you've already used prior to the year if you, you know, have somebody that works on social media. Take advantage of Canva. Canva has some really great graphics, that you're able to kind of plug in your own images and make it very easy for people to share. And the more people are sharing through pages and groups, the more your awareness is out there. So then you're able to then really capture onto your mission and who can fundraise for you even outside of your organization. It could even be new donors. That's great advice. I really like that the make it easy portion as well because, yes, I think we tend to want to always raise the bar higher, and donors may or may not notice if it's a similar language to last year or whatever, but, you know, you can do that. So I love that. But in terms of empowering everybody as stakeholders, I just wanted to add really thinking through who the stakeholders are in the process as well in terms of the execution internally. I know a lot of you are from small organizations, so you might be doing this all as a team of one. And you might be laughing at this slide saying, marketing, That's me. I'm all of it, which is exactly, so much of, the reality. But just thinking through who will you need so that you don't feel alone, particularly in that case. Who do you need along the way that might be able to be helpful, and how can you communicate your timeline to them? I know I saw a question about, like, the timing of when a year end campaign should go out, and, hopefully, we'll have time to speak to that at the end of the session. But, just thinking through whatever date you choose is kind of the the era of that and then working backwards and trying to give a heads up on all the people that you might need along the way. And particularly, if there are any, folks that, like, are not a 100% on board, make sure you have a really succinct why this campaign matters, which is also great in your messaging to donors. But, for those that you're trying to have help you get this out to the door as well. Like, why do you need their help? Why is this important? And what their roles would be in the timeline? So, again, I think when it comes down to whether you're a really small organization, I think, Stacy, you hit the nail on the head. Like, I think that's the truth for so many of us. I was on a team of three. So, yeah, looking at, like, how you break down silos if you are all sitting around the same table every day. But I think it actually can and should still be done. So, you know, I think I wanted to look at the idea of, like, breaking down silos as a way of, like, increasing transparency. So within this template, being able to have your stakeholders documented so that you know who can be the loop. That also involves community partners. I think that a lot of times we don't think about, like, the network, within our community, whether it's businesses or individuals who might play a really big role, whether it's a peer to peer, corporate giving pro program. You know, who do you wanna bring in as early as possible to make your campaign as effective as possible? Who do you need to be the approvers of things so you can move things quickly and be that first letter to hit people's, mailboxes? And then finally, who are those decision makers for a lot of the same reason? So the idea behind this is really to have, like, that single source of truth for your end of year planning. I also kind of I think this would be really helpful if you have that one person with a lot of institutional knowledge who has been doing your end of year campaigns for fifteen years. Also, using this as a way to, like, be like, let's document this, and be able to get everything in one place. I think that would be incredibly important. And then be able to share all of this, like, in a single slide to your board of directors and give them a direct call to action on, like, how to get involved and how they can help raise funds. It's also important to consider, like, what is your ROI for each of these things? Like, what's your return on investment for this direct mail versus an event? Being able to look at the history of how different, programs performed in your end of year so you can make sure that finance and development are really in sync, when it comes to, getting the most out of, the funds that you're receiving. And then also just another thing to note is, like, make sure, like, again, you might be marketing IT finance and the social media manager, but I think to also document in, like, making sure that everyone's on board to make sure any major updates are accounted for, for your donation pages. You might be optimizing your donation forms, making sure that all of that is good to go. I think it's really important to keep in mind too. So I think it's fun to do the creative stuff, but then this stuff's also very, very important. Speaking of, let's dive into the data because you cannot get anything I'm gonna be bold when I say you cannot get anything effective done if you're working with bad data. I'd be bold. I'm gonna send to Lisa. Yeah. It's a bold statement, but it's true. Us switching, we use a a system prior to Blackbaud called DonorSnap. Not sure if people know what that even is. But for us, we were not able to keep clean data or even just up to date data. So switching out of that to Blackbaud was such a huge project for us, but it really for me, like, it made me understand why clean data is so important. And the first thing I wanna touch on is donor segmentation. I feel like even without having this giant database, really segmenting and knowing who is in your system and how you can pull these different lists is so important. Once we started doing this last year, it and it was not just for end of year appeal. This was for every appeal that we do. Every type of funds that we're trying to do, I am now pulling segmented lists. Even if it's just to send a a generic email, it really understanding how people are giving and what list that they're falling into. So some, just ideas are your first time donor list. Really, that can help throughout the entire year in knowing how to hit those certain people's touch points, and hopefully having them in for your end of year appeal. Understanding, you know, who your lapsed donors are, who your monthly donors are, and who your major givers are. And then there's also segmentations within those lists. So you can do your major givers for the last two years, your major givers for the last five years. Your major givers that have given only up to $5,000 or more depending on what your, major gift, parameters are. So there's so many different lists that you can do. I was actually just talking to the ladies before, and just as an example, we pulled a segmented list this year for our camp scholarship fund, and we had decided to do just a direct email to anybody who had who had given for our camp scholarship fund, the last three years but didn't give yet this year. And we were trying to increase our, camp scholarship fund to be able to fund 10 more children for our camp. And we had an overwhelming, twenty four hours. We were able to fund $4,000 just from emails, and it was just sending to that segmented list, I think, of, like, 300 people. So you can really even with a small list, get a really good, result. And so don't let your lists, even if it is just, you know, a couple 100 people, discourage you from using those segmentations. And then just a few other just, you know, making sure that you have that clean data is checking your contact information. This is something that you'll do throughout the year as you're doing your touch points, your phone calls, your letters, your emails, and really seeing, like, what bounces back or what changes. Blackbaud does have a really good way of, like, letting you know if something bounces back. But if you are using a different system, for some of your emails, like a constant contact or something like that, definitely make sure that you're keeping up to date with their contact information and how they like to be, communicated. And then just coding your gifts correctly, making sure that, you know, one gift doesn't end up in a different, report, that can really change things especially as you're doing your segmentation. Somebody who might have given for your end of year appeal but somehow ended up in your spring appeal. Knowing what times of year that your donors are giving is so important because we wanna make sure that you're still capturing that amount of, you know, donation for the right time period. And then those personal touches, making sure that you're really, you know, talking with your donors and making these as personalized as possible. The clean data makes it possible to be able to do this and then to start really doing those really fun stewardship things. For our end of year appeal right after, after, obviously, it's the holidays. So we had sent a holiday card and, my in one of my interns from last year had created a recipe card that was, all vegan recipes named after our residents. So for example, we have a red fox named Amber. It was Amber's chicken pot pie but vegan. And I got so many phone calls back from our donors saying how much they absolutely loved getting a recipe card, how they wished that more people were sending things like this and not, you know, t shirts or water bottles that they really didn't have any use for, and they knew that their donation was going towards something so much larger. So really take into consideration, we know that our donors love sustainability and animals and, you know, they're more into that environmental world. So we're gonna try and use our touch points for things like that. And I took it a step further and even in February, I took a segmented list of all of our donors at the age of 65 or higher, which we're still it's not a large list because we're still trying to gain a lot of people's ages. I think that's one of the hardest things I've had a a problem getting. But we decided to send them all Valentine's Day cards from our, residents. And this was no ask or anything like that. It was just happy Valentine's Day from our crow, Krogan. So I think there's a lot that you can do that can be really interesting, you know, sending photos of of, you know, children having fun or even paintings or, you know, if you guys do crafts or anything like that. Save that stuff and send it to your donors. They will absolutely love it. That's so clever. I love the creativity. I was just gonna jump in here as we're still talking about the being strategic with the data and recognizing, Kate, I know you kicked us off with a controversial statement that that you can't do anything without clean data, which I think is true. And, of course, here at Blackbaud, we really like, making sure that you're thoughtful about the data, but there's also reality. So we know that there is sometimes, there's just the hand you've been dealt. You're in an organization that, maybe didn't have all the clean data, you know, through history. So part of this is I wanted this slide to just be a chance where we can all take a deep breath and enter reality with what we also need to get done. So first, it's really identifying, thinking through if you could have a magic wand and putting down on paper, like, what are all of the changes that you would make to the data at your organization if you truly could do anything. So it's just letting your brain go there and kind of living in that fantasy land for a minute. And then you can take another deep breath and move into scale, like, thinking through of of that list, what's even in your control? Some of it might be out of budget. Some of it might not even be realistic. You might have, you know, unicorns on rainbows that would do it, but in reality, it isn't possible. So what is even within your control at all? And then of those that are within your control, really getting clear about what's the reality of how long that would take. Because I know I'm very guilty of thinking, like, oh, that'll just take an hour. I just need, like, a dedicated hour. Not only is it usually that it's a lot longer than that, good luck finding a dedicated hour in the world that we live in that's so distracting and whatnot. So trying to be very realistic and then ultimately prioritizing of that. Like, what can you do that's most important for the success of a year end campaign and that's within reality so that you can at least feel like you've taken a little a little bite out of the elephant. Isn't that how do you I I don't wanna hurt any elephants in that example, but the idea that, clearly, we're just trying to take it one step at a time. So deep breath, we can do this, but we should keep trying to move forward. And I know there's some great advice in the ultimate year end fundraising toolkit, so definitely look for that in the resources. And then our last section here is what to do after year end. And note, the the little hint here is the year end campaign is actually all year. So it's about trying to pace yourself throughout the year, and I know Lisa has some good advice on that front too. So, thankfully, we're still in August. So I feel like there is still some time to to still prep for your this year. But for, you know, next year, really just making sure that you're taking into consideration. We all know it to make sure to thank our donors. As I just mentioned prior, it's just trying to be as personalized as possible. Personalization goes such a long way. When I open something that I saw that somebody, you know, personalized to me, even if it's personalized to me and 10 other people, I know that they did something that, you know, they're trying to make sure that that we feel appreciated. So, you know, the same way that you would feel appreciated, think about how your donors potentially would feel appreciated as well. Keeping them informed throughout the year and of your progress, again, it falls into that transparency. Sometimes doing an impact report is some of the most daunting because you have to get gain all these numbers and figure out all of the, you know, nuances of what you wanna present to this, and then also think about the funding of putting out an impact report. Remember that you can do it digitally. And sending an email of an impact report is just as impactful. We decided this year, we did our first impact report. I had I ended up just doing a one pager. It was front and back, and we added it into one of our newsletters. We didn't do a direct ask with it or anything like that. I just wanted people to know what our impact was. The front page was literally an owl with just pop outs of numbers, and then the back had a little bit more, information about a patient story and then a QR code that led to a page on our website that went into more detail of our impact. So really finding those creative ways where you're not having to spend a lot of money or even a lot of time, I think the impact report maybe took me a couple days to make. So really making sure that you can, have that information, again, by having that clean data, by utilizing your team and knowing what your goal is, we knew we wanted to put it out an impact report. I knew I couldn't do a 15 page impact report. So I needed a one page. I knew I could do something, so at least I could get something out there. And be creative. Try new things. I feel like with that direct ask, that could have been a really big flop for us. It could have not worked, and we decided as a team that we were gonna move forward. Trial and error is the best way of learning. And we I actually saw this study recently that the most, our brains will learn new things is by making mistakes. So the more that you're able to kind of do that trial and error, especially in a a place like, you know, maybe your mid appeals where, you know, you're not waiting until the end of year, can really help you to see where you can land in those really big appeals like your end of year. And then just keeping the momentum, making sure that, you know, you're feeling ready and keeping your donors in the cycle of what is needed. For us, we start planning in December for spring and summer because it's baby season for us. We see over 6,000 animals between April and September, which is the height of, our busy time. We can see up to 500 animals in care and up to a 100 animals a day. So we know that we have to be prepared once April comes. So all of my prepping really happens November through March. So really see where you can keep your momentum and where you are with your donors so that when you get to your busy season, it's not kind of falling off to the side. Amazing. Thank you so much, Lisa. I think there's so many lessons to learn from you all, and I think, where you're closing off on, like, when your busy season's coming up, and I see in the chat this idea of, like, having these quiet moments to get ahead before things get hectic. I wanna do just one more plug for this ultimate year end fundraising toolkit that's in our docs section in the tab, and the docs tab in your chat section. Every single thing that we've looked at today is included in this, excluding Lisa's incredible expertise. You have to you have to be at this webinar to get that. This is your exclusive offer. But you'll be able to find, like, timelines around in certain, communications, step by step guides to cleaning up your, your database, that full cam campaign planning template. There's so much rich stuff in here. So, if you download anything from today's webinar, I definitely invite you to do this. You can use the QR code on this page. But I want to take us also just into q and a. We have a lot of great questions. So I'm gonna kick things over, to Stacy to get us going on. Thanks, Kate. Yeah. And I'll probably rely on you, Lisa, to give your experience as well. But we've got a lot of great questions here. One of the ones I wanted to jump to was about timing. What what do we think of in terms of the best timing for a year end campaign? And I will put in with that. I know there was part of the chat discussion around Giving Tuesday. And so when the timing, I think part of the question is not only timing in terms of the calendar, but, like, in sequence with other campaigns, if you're trying to do Giving Tuesday, do you also do an additional year end something? Some in the chat were saying we don't do Giving Tuesday, but we might do our own Give Day for an organization. So I know I have thoughts. I always have thoughts. But, Lisa, I wanna hear from you in terms of, specifically, with your example, like, when you had your year end campaign hit. Yeah. So ours hits, mailboxes, like, the week before Thanksgiving, which when I went to a couple workshops, it actually seemed a little late. Some people are getting theirs out in, like, the October, November so that they have, like, a full two months, for people to have that end of year, in their hands. I can't speak from, you know, a ton of experience. Last year was my first one with us doing this, and it's still hitting around the same year that we've done it every year. The year before, we were just shy of, I think, like, maybe a thousand dollars from hitting our goal, maybe 2,000. So this last year was our first year, like, exceeding our goal and hitting it. So time wise, I would say just you wanna make sure, like, where your donors and look at other organizations in your area. That was something I just started researching, just based on, like, what I get in the mail. I get a lot of mine in the October. So for us, getting it in November was kind of better for us because it was people had already gotten the other ones, and they weren't being flooded with 10 of them. So maybe doing a little bit of research, ask your friends at other nonprofits that are in your area opposed to, you know, just like organizations that are in your industry. Because you're not just competing with your industry, but you're also competing with people just in your area and who they're giving to. Some of your donors might give to four or five different organizations. So and then I'm sorry. What was the other part of the question? I think just in general, and I I'm happy to speak to this too about, like, the when maybe one campaign the timing of one campaign maybe competes with, say, Giving Tuesday or is competing with another effort. Giving Tuesday is not my favorite, to be honest. It's it's a digital campaign that we tend to see now not being as effective. It's the holidays. It's Black Friday. It's Boxing Day. It's there's so many other things happening outside of the fundraising world that I think Giving Tuesday kinda gets left. So what we've been using it as just, like, awareness of why we need funding and not, like, putting so much of a goal into our Giving Tuesday and really just focusing on our end of year appeal. That's where we can get personalized. That's where we can really make sure we're doing touch points. I totally also forgot, and I'm so glad that I just remembered. One of the other things that we did for our end of year appeal was a follow-up email. So anybody, we did it four weeks before the end of year. We so it was, like, three weeks into our campaign. We sent out an email to anybody from the list that got the end of your appeal and followed up saying, hey. Basically, we haven't seen your donation. We still need your your money, your help. Obviously, we said it in a much more fancy way. And, we were able to get donations from that as well. It's kind of just another touch point. So if you wanted to do phone calls, you know, calling your donors, seeing where they're at, and not even just to do an ask, but just to see within your end of year, appeal time, I think that is a little bit more effective than just leaning on some of these campaigns that can be kind of missed and oversaturated. Yeah. I think so too. I know there's a lot that goes into the Giving Days. And I will just add a little perspective because I think I actually participated in one of the first Giving Days perhaps in the country because here in Minnesota, we had an organization. It was back in, like, 02/2011, 02/2012, a foundation that was pushing the concept for Minnesota nonprofits. And really at that time, if you think back to what's been happening in direct marketing, at that time, the reason we were pushing Giving Tuesday was to try or any Giving Day was to try to encourage people to give online. That was when giving online was new, and it was really trying to encourage some of that behavior. And then giving days, in general, have taken on a whole life of their own in many ways that can be super duper effective. I'm not anti give day at all. But it is really important to ask those foundational questions about, like, you know, are we participating in this for the sake of participating in it? Is it, competing with some of our other efforts? Should we do a give day at a different time of year? So I don't know that there's a one size fits all answer for everyone, but I do think it's important to ask those questions, which brings us back to that goal section of, like, what is the goal of what we're trying to accomplish? Maybe participating in Giving Tuesday does help that, or maybe not. Okay. I think we have time for a couple of more questions here. I know there was one organization, here. I'm and I apologize I'm not going in complete order because, I'm trying to go through these. But, one saying, do you have any suggestions for a first time end of year campaign? We're very small. My first thought and and, Lisa, you probably do too, is just I know I mentioned this quote the other day when we were talking, like, best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. So I think just jumping in and doing the best you can, recognizing that your organization is very small, just do anything and you'll learn from it. So just do the very best best you can, and I would say really leveraging this template. The whole point of this template and the resource that's in the document section is to help help you think it through. And, so I think use the template, take a lot of deep breaths, anchor yourself in reality of what's realistic for you to do, and just go for it and learn what you learn. I definitely think that you have such a cool way of presenting this as your first year, depending on how long you've been operating as an organization, being able to say how exciting it is that you guys are gonna do your first end of year, like, that you have the ability to do it, even if it's just in within your team can really create some momentum in your team. But using that storytelling piece of look at where we've got to the point where we're, you know, we have this team now and this is where we need your help, I think can really help with your end of year, getting that out there as the first time. You can even say this is our first time doing this. Help us see how successful this can be, and really lean on your donors. Ask them for advice. Maybe reach out to some of your major donors before you release and say, hey. We're thinking about doing an end of your appeal. What do you think we should do? What would be the most compelling story to, you know, somebody who gives us x amount of dollars every single year? Lean on your donors for advice. They absolutely love giving advice. And when they see that end of your appeal, they'll be like, oh my gosh. I helped do this. So and if it's your first time, there's really no no negative because no matter what you get, it's gonna be better than not doing it at all. I also if I can jump in and just say, I think you're in a unique position too. If this is your first year, that means you're probably not even able to apply for grants. And so letting your donors know, like, this is no matter what, this is a grassroots movement that you can be a part of from the ground up. And I think this really empowers donors. So, yeah, just echoing. It's a really exciting unique position to be in. Yes. Absolutely. I'm gonna sneak in one last question, and then I think we'll probably have to wrap up. But I just liked this question, Patricia, that you posted saying along with the mailed appeal, we send several emailed appeals. How many is too many? And from my point of view, one, just celebrate multichannel is great if you can do that, more than one channel. Two, I would say, how many is too many is when you and your staff are stretched too thin, but I don't know that there's too many to receive because we live in a really, really loud world. And I know when I was doing this, I used to think that in my direct marketing way, I was, over the course of a year, doing the equivalent of screaming at them, like, give, give, give. I was asking so often. And I might hear from one or two that said, like, you ask too often, but I would also hear from people that said, well, if you'd ask sooner, and I would think, oh my gosh. I've been asking you nonstop. So I think, I'm saying that somewhat in jest. I'm sure there is a too many, but I don't think we we count the times we're sending them, and people are probably actually receiving them, you know, fully comprehending taking it in way less than we're sending because people are very quick to delete. So, you know, don't stretch yourself too thin, but I think as many as possible, in my opinion. So I think that's kind of wrap. Kate, were you gonna help wrap us up here? Or, Lisa, I think any final words? Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Lisa, do you have any any final words before we close out? Just good luck to everybody, and thank you. I'm not sure if my information can be shared, but if anybody does, you know, want my contact information, I can put it in the chat. And feel free to email me, if you have any questions or anything or even just wanna encouragement. We're, like I said, a a pretty small team, and we're trying to make big things happen. So, don't feel discouraged and just know that, you know, a small team can really make a really big impact. So And if you happen to be coming to BBCon in Philly this year, come find Lisa and I. We'll be discussing even more about this live. Registration is still open for that. And, also, if you want to sign up for the next end of year, webinar, please go ahead and do so. This all this goodness is gonna keep coming through the full end of the year. Thank you all so much. This has been so much fun. Thank you, everyone.