While not all major gift donors give at the end of the year, many do. So, whether you are an executive director doing major gift work or major gift fundraising is your job, you’ve got a big task in these next 10 weeks and the clock is ticking.
Your time should be spent writing, e-mailing, visiting, phoning, and basically doing whatever you can to help your donors make their year-end giving decisions.
Leave the rest behind! Here’s what not to do during the fourth quarter:
Rely on mail: Sending a proposal is a way to start the donor thinking about giving and it’s great tool to start a conversation. But it’s not (except in a few cases) going to be the thing that gets the check in the mail. You’ve got to get those proposals out early enough (Halloween is a good deadline!) that you can follow up without running out of time during the winter holidays. Then, once the proposal is in the mail, use personal visits, e-mail, phone, social media, and whatever other channel you can to engage the donors around that proposal.
Create an event: At year-end, no one doing major gift fundraising should be looking at invitations or seating charts. This is waste of your time and if you have an event in the last quarter of the year, you’d better look at the return on investment and it better be high because you are giving up some of the most valuable time you have to engage large donors for far less cost.
Bemoan board involvement: At this point in the year, you’ve got what you’ve got in terms of board involvement. It may not be perfect, it may be just a couple of board members that you can count on, but don’t waste your time trying to change that. Just give your best, most inspired volunteers the tools they need to do their own year-end fundraising and let ‘em loose!
Wait around for program staff: Oh, I know this sounds mean, but how many times have you waited for a program person to put the finishing touches on their plans or make comments on your proposal, while you jump up and down, waiting to share it with your donor by December 31? Is that just me? Work with your program staff to get their plans to the point where you can share them with donors by year-end. They can be preliminary or draft or “insider-only” plans, but they just may the thing to inspire your donor.
Bury yourself in prospect research: Researching donor interest and capacity is incredibly important, don’t get me wrong, but unless your are doing capital campaign work, you really should have done your prospect research before this point. Instead, consider going straight to the donor and engaging them in a conversation. You’ll find that much more productive at this stage – and you’ll find out some things that no computer can tell you!
Re-vamp materials: I’m a fan of having materials to take to donors. Brochures, photos, reports, and iPad presentations can really be a great aid in solicitation. But don’t spend your time in this last quarter of the year creating or reworking your materials – it’s just not worth it. Use the ones you have and see what input your get through your visits to revamp them in the first quarter.
Take time off: Gosh, I know. I hate to say it, but this no time of year for a major gift officer to take time off. This fourth quarter (especially in the US, but increasingly more in the rest of the world) is when people think about giving. You don’t want your donors to get your voice mail when they call. Two of the largest gifts I’ve ever been a part of landed in my lap on New Year’s Eve when I answered the phone in my (deserted) office. At a minimum, be sure that if you do take time off, your donors know how they can reach someone at your organization, quickly and easily.
Do you have any other things major gift officer should not do in the fourth quarter? Add to the list!
p.s. Not all major donors want to be put into the annual giving box. Read our post on evaluating major gift retention to make sure you aren’t missing any opportunities for a bigger-than-annual major gift!
