Being effective with the time left in the fiscal year

The end of the fiscal year is a challenge for most of us in the fundraising field. We have tremendous pressure to bring in results before an arbitrary deadline that has been established by our institution. This deadline has little to no meaning to our donors, let alone constituents without a strong connection to us. The lack of a WIFM (what’s in it for me – and no, I don’t know where the second “I” went) and the fact that you have spent the last 11 months making the case for support to these same donors makes for a tough audience to penetrate. This is in clear contrast to the end of the calendar year when the IRS is kind enough to provide many of our donors with a “new” WIFM that we have not played off of yet that year.

So what to do? I completely agree with Stephanie that it is not too late and for that matter, short deadlines are a very powerful way to create a “need” to give in response to a solicitation. I am going to disagree a bit on what that solicitation should be – I would suggest that you should create a piece that can be used as the fiscal year end piece this year and then with some minor modifications as the “we hit our goal” lead piece/thank you piece for late July in the next fiscal year. This cost split over 2 fiscal years can help greatly with budgeting in these tight economic times and the shared look helps to create a sense of consistency that can be powerful – i.e. use a case study of a student in a flash piece this spring and then have that student announce the success you achieved early next fiscal year, thanking donors and letting those who did not give know that you were successful (make up a success if you need to do so – this is about marketing, not reporting).

The next step at the end of this year is an important one – segment your constituents based upon: who has given at fiscal year end before (even if they have given this year, this can be a great time to get in a second ask), who has given for multiple consecutive years but not yet this year, all other LYBUNTS and other donors. For these pools (they need to be mutually exclusive) follow up with a simple html message with trackable results and a message that is consistent with the criteria for the segment – this looks like a text based email from a person at the university with a hard deadline 2 or 3 days from now with that date also being the end of the year. Most importantly it provides a framework for those who are likely to give to do so before the end of the fiscal year – and that was our goal.