January and February for fundraising
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008Well, here it is, December 31. How are you doing with the close-out of the year? Are you finishing your calendar year of fundraising as you had hoped? Or is the recession hitting your nonprofit hard?
Take heart! January and February are great months for fundraising, if you choose.
First, your board of directors will be thinking about this past year and determined to make next year better. January is a great time to schedule a board retreat to go over the past year and to look at the upcoming year. If you’re scheduling a retreat, now is the time to ask a professional fundraiser to come and hold the retreat, to specifically talk about ways the board can fundraise. A fundraiser can lead the whole retreat, or just conduct a specific educational section on it. You can find professional fundraisers at www.afpnet.org, which is the Association of Fundraising Professionals, formerly the National Society of Fundraising Executives.
If you can’t find a professional fundraiser nearby, you may have to pay someone to come in from somewhere else. Talk to other local organizations and see if you can share someone — perhaps they can conduct a retreat for you on a Saturday and for another group on a Sunday, or perhaps your groups can sit together for sessions and break apart for discussions.
If you don’t think you can afford to bring in a professional fundraiser, talk to any of your funders, especially foundations. They may be interested in paying you to find some professional help.
January and February are also good times for fundraising for other reasons. People are at home more, reading their mail, so mail appeals work well. They often have made pledges to themselves that this year they’re going to be more generous, so they’ll be responsive to your asking. There are few special events now, so any fundraising events or thank-you parties will be well attended. Their taxes are upcoming, so they’re considering how they have given to the government when they could be giving to you and getting tax deductions. So, for a number of reasons, your fundraising can do well in the next couple of months.
Do you have questions about fundraising, or about bringing in a professional fundraiser to teach fundraising? Write me, Katherine Wertheim CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com.
Happy new year! I hope this is your best year ever.