Why Not Start Now?
What are your plans for your year-end appeal?
Did your heart just sink a little bit? Do you find the mere thought of this year’s year-end appeal terrifying?
I get it.
And I suggest that the way to get that sinking feeling to go away is to start now. Not with a full-on appeal plan, but with a small step or two.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
There were so many years in my career when October rolled around, and I found myself thinking:
“Holy crap. I need to do a year-end appeal.”
I would scramble like mad, grab last year’s letter, tweak it a bit, and then spend hours printing, stuffing and labeling. Sound familiar?
If I was lucky, I’d get it all out by Halloween. And wonder why we didn’t raise any more money than we did the year before.
Then one year I actually booked out time in August to start thinking about year-end. I had the luxury of looking at what worked (and what didn’t) in the past, as well as where we were versus our annual fundraising goals. I came out of that one-hour meeting with myself with a list of things to tweak or try this year and a clear number I needed to hit by the end of the year.
That one small step forward really had an impact on my experience that year. I didn’t feel as scattered or overwhelmed, and we hit our goal!
If you think you have all the time in the world…
…or if you think you’ll never have the time…
…to start thinking about your year-end appeal, I strongly encourage you to take one tiny step to start the process as soon as you can. You will have better results, and you’ll feel better during the process!
Here are some ideas for you:
Schedule 30 minutes to look back at last year’s appeal and make a list of what worked/what didn’t.
Set your revenue goal for this year’s appeal.
Set one non-revenue goal for this year’s appeal: donor retention, lapsed donor conversions, email open rate, etc.
Then, drop into the comments below and let us know the one small thing you’re going to do. We look forward to being inspired by your action!!
