Now What?

If like me, you have a fiscal year that operates in the shadow of the academic year and have just spent the last 2 months building up to a calendar year end ask, you may now be finding yourself dead in the water in terms of momentum.  With charitable giving flattening out (lots of theories on why, I believe that it is a result of lower dollar donors continuing to give but to an ever larger number of causes and higher donors becoming less willing/able to continue to drive growth after a half decade of doing so) it is becoming harder and harder to get that momentum started again.

I advocate 3 segments to focus on now; long lapsed and non donors, Parents, and donors who give at this time of year (define as you wish.)

Be aware that constituents who have not supported you have no tax or fiscal year focus, makes them a good audience now.  They may well be philanthropically active so have just given to other causes, that said, they are likely to tell you such, especially on the phone.  Make sure you get that recorded in a way you can pull it and come October, appeal to them again based upon that knowledge - you don't know where they give, but you do know when so put together some focus groups, get a strong effective message created and get it in front of them before they make their calendar year end giving decisions.

Parents are sending their child back to you - in most cases kind of grateful they are leaving again - that first break home from college is usually a rough transition.  That said, a message regarding career services or maybe the library can often support conversations that they had with their own child over the break and that can create a good combination of messaging for getting additional support.

Donors who give at this time, at any time, is always one of my favorite audiences.  While we call what we do annual giving, it is really annual asking and there is often a reason that folks make gifts when they do, especially if they have done so multiple years at the same time.  If they do so ever year, in a similar window, look at the vehicle and give them multiple opportunities to take that action ie: phone program donors should get a call from a student and then if that does not produce the correct result, have a staff or volunteer call them.