Irene's impact and renewals

I am sitting on my couch listening to the wind howl outside and hoping that my power stays on while I watch my 5 year old's reaction to the wind and rain. He asks how long this will last and I tell him that it is supposed to go until the middle of the afternoon. He replies with a whiny that long?

The reality of course is that the storm will end shortly, the immediate clean up will take a week or two and I am sure that we will all hear a very large number associated with the "cost" of Irene. For many a small business owner who is in the construction, landscaping and home improvement business this might be a terrific stimulus, it is certainly going to create some short term jobs.

My focus though is on the fundraising aspect of it. The vast majority of us in the annual giving arena are dependent upon folks making gifts from their checking accounts. While I am sure that a small number of leadership annual donors are giving from assets, most of our support is "current operating" to that donor. My concern with this storm, especially for those of us with an east coast/northeastern centric donor base is on the timing of the storm.

I have every expectation of starting fall calling in a couple of weeks. My second major mail appeal of the fiscal year is on the slate to drop on Sept. 7th and has an email lead and social networking follow up to it already scheduled.

That is all going to have to change. 83% of my donors are in the northeast corridor and almost all are going to have some damage/cost associated with the storm. I am not sure yet what adjustment I will make and thus far it looks like the impact will be temporary. That said, it will put me behind and that is always a concern as you never know if you can catch up.

My approach on the next work day (be it tomorrow or later this week) is going to be to put a proposal in for additional budget to get one more appeal out this fall. The idea is to ask for the money while your managers are still well aware of the concerns and likely to be willing to fund something reasonable to help overcome projected concerns.

That appeal is going to be a monthly approach to folks who missed their renewal month (defined as the month of their gift last year for a LYBUNT or 2 years ago for SYBUNT 1) making the case for participation this year. We already do a month before appeal asking for renewals and increased gifts so this is going to serve as a "last chance" appeal to get them to renew and I expect to see it return between 4 and 5% participation and total gifts of about 50% of their last gift totals.