Fiscal year end - is video the new norm?

I spent part of the day today working out the details for what our fiscal year end appeal will be. Not the mail - that is long since decided. Not the email - that too was created and designed 9 months ago. I am speaking of our electronic campaign - one of my opportunity pieces that I reserve funds for at the start of the year.

This is one of the times of year when I like to add something fun to the mix. I don't expect that it will return huge donors or dollars, rather I expect that it will create good will and maybe reach some of the folks that our "normal" efforts don't.

I raised this issue last week to my staff and asked that folks think about options. At about 8:45 this morning one of my assistant directors stuck his head in and said he had an idea - The 12 Days of Giving. If we replace each item in the song with a designation, we could have a pretty neat appeal concept. I asked him to research it and come back with options. He found this on google. As a Catholic institution that works perfectly.

So now I have to create something that fits good taste and yet has enough interest to make it work. My writer is reworking the song and I asked our communications team to come up with some executable options for a video. That will be sent on the 20th of December with a follow up communication every day after emphasizing that days item. As an example, scholarship replaces the partridge in a pear tree for the first day and we are looking at highlighting a student who has a scholarship that allows them to continue at St. John's and end with an ask for scholarship.

The original idea was to do these focus pieces via email but I am thinking that we lead and end with an email and use facebook and a special twitter feed for the other 10 days - will keep you in the know as things progress.

Anyone else have something fun in the works that you might want to share as we build toward fiscal year end?