Inviting your donors to give

The vast majority of fundraising programs have had and I hope are having, success in asking folks who attend events associated with the organization to give. Typically this is done through a thank you effort and it may include a personalized note or letter from a volunteer leader.

Some places are finding success in asking folks to give prior to the event. This is the process that I follow as it has worked far better for my purposes and I call them "solicitivations." These appeals center on the event details and a reason for giving that is directly connected to why the event exists. A good recent example is St. Patrick's Day. St. John's participates as a "marcher" in the NYC St. Patrick's Day parade and we have a brunch gathering prior to the march in the city. That gathering draws around 200 attendees, many of whom are already donors by March. The invitation goes out to around 12,000 alumni who live in the area who fit criteria determined by the alumni office for invitation. We provided a case for support tied to an alum who was clearly of Irish descent who also received a scholarship named for an Irish donor and we asked for general scholarship support.

Total responses were in excess of the total number of attendees at the event and dollars raised exceeded cost of the invitation.

Our new challenge is working to do the same via electronic means. I am looking at creating not just landing pages as we currently do for each event but adding microsites for those events with strong built in participation already. Creating opportunities for folks to engage with the signer, with students and with one another prior to the event actually happening and do it with a fundraising background clearly involved. The first of these that we are looking to do is our Annual Summer concert in July - I will post links and responses to this thread as they become live.