Ep 274 | Streamlining Your Donor Follow Up During Year End Campaigns

The year-end giving season is a busy time for nonprofits, with donations pouring in and teams scrambling to keep up. But the real work begins after the gifts are received – it's all about following up with donors to show your appreciation and nurture those relationships. Get practical tips and strategies to help you nail your year-end donor follow-up, so you can start 2025 on the right foot.

What you'll learn:

→ How to analyze your donor data to set realistic follow-up goals
→ Ways to engage your board in the donor stewardship process
→ Ideas for personalizing thank-you messages (beyond the standard receipt)
→ Tips for nurturing new donors with email sequences
→ Creative strategies to show appreciation to long-time supporters

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[03:31] Start with the data. Understand your donor data to create an attainable follow-up plan, including the breakdown of new vs. repeat donors and common donation amounts.
[05:56] You don't have to do it alone. Leverage your board members to write personalized thank-you notes, which you can then send out quickly as gifts come in.
[06:42] Think about how you can stand out from other organizations. Use tools like Loom and Zoom to record personalized video messages, tailoring the delivery method to each donor's preferences.
[08:22] Automate what you can so you can free up your time for one-on-one outreach. Set up an email nurture sequence for new donors to help them get to know your organization better and set expectations for future communication.
[10:45] Thank EVERY SINGLE DONOR!!!!! Remember that every donation, no matter the size, is significant, so be sure to express gratitude to all your supporters.

Resources

EP 265 | Your Board’s Role in Donor Stewardship with Sabrina Walker Hernandez
EP 273 | Crafting the Perfect Year End Emails with Vanessa Chase Lockshin

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Year End happens during the year end. And so you and your team are likely super busy trying to get all those donations in, as well as trying to spend time and space with family and loved ones. So the follow up once donors give during year end can sometimes fall to January or February and not happen right away. And so today we're going to talk through some ideas and ways to really think about your follow up plan now so that you can have it in place to make things easier as those gifts start rolling in, so those donors feel touched, loved on and cared for as you go into January. Then when you hit January, it's really all about, how do we build out our nurture campaigns, our donor stewardship and continue connect, connecting with donors throughout the year before we gear up for our next campaign? So that's what we're going to talk about today. Is how to put some things in place to make follow up easier, so that you can thank your donors before we get into it. This episode is brought to you by our September freebie. It's your year end giving checklist, so it has all sorts of ideas and things for you to consider when it comes to putting to your campaign together from start to finish. You can find this resource at thefirstclick.net/resources, as well as a bunch of other free options and opportunities for you to get the help that you need as you continue to move forward in this online fundraising space. So again, thefirstclick.net/resources, can't wait to hear which tip is most helpful for you. For now, let's get into the episode.

Intro
You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Follow up during year end is crucial, especially because for so many of your donors, or maybe if you've got so many, I don't know, depends on your organization, you might have some new people that are coming in with giving Tuesday with individual donors. People might be trying you out for the first time, and we want to make sure that they know that they're going to be loved on. Similarly, for those that have been giving to you year over year. We want them to feel loved on too. We want to really work hard on building up that donor retention rate increase in the likelihood of that second, third, fourth gift. It's just going to make your fundraiser so much easier going into 2025 so thank yous are a big way to start that. So what I want you to do is really first start with, what are your goals? Really take a look at the data and figure out kind of the rough breakdown for how your donations are coming in, what percentage is coming in through giving Tuesday, what percentage is coming in from repeat donors, what percentage is new donors? What is the gap like, what is the pricing range that people are giving? You know, is it that you see a real big break of 500 or less, and then all of a sudden, there's 1500 and to 3000 and then you've got the people that are higher on top of that right, really understanding kind of how many people are in some of these buckets, so that you can put a plan in place that's going to be attainable, so that you can have the right numbers of volunteers, you can have the right board engagement, you kind of can see, okay, this is the type of donor that's coming in during this time of year.

This is the way that we want to thank them, right from handwritten cards to phone calls to video emails to, you know, personalized gifts, whatever that might be, you want to make sure that you have things ready to go so the whole team knows exactly what to do also. So you can set up your automation to notify people when they need to do something right if a gift comes through, that's $10 in your CRM, can you automatically assign that to the right person on your team, who's going to go ahead and send out a card, right if a gift comes in that's $1,000 or it's a repeat donor, or it's whatever is the criteria that those tasks are being disseminated. We want to have as much personalization in this time with as little double work from your team. We want to make sure that the people that are doing these thank yous are ready to go, and they know exactly what to do, and they're getting the information, and there doesn't have to be somebody kind of managing the flow. Now, if your system is not set up appropriately for that, that's fine, but just still putting the thought into figuring out the flow and the process and who's doing, what is going to be super helpful if you're enlisting volunteer board members or volunteers to help you with some of the thank yous knowing like, hey, every Monday you're going to get a list. We want them all called by Wednesday, right? Being specific and being intentional. And the beauty of doing this now is that you can also start to think about ways that you can prep for it. So for example, in episode. 265, Sabrina Walker Hernandez shared with us some tips on how to engage your board in donor stewardship. So it's a great episode if you haven't checked it out yet, perfect for this time of year. But one of the tips that she mentioned that I really loved was at every board meeting, she would hand every board member like three to five note cards and a pen so that the so that the pen color matched, and she would have them just write a thank you note and sign their name. You know, thank you so much for giving. You could start to say thank you for giving to your own campaign, but doesn't matter, just have them write a thank you note, and then when gifts come in, there's a stack of cards. All you have to do is right, dear Joe, sign your name to it if you are the executive director or development director. Now you've got a card that's ready to go out and on its way. Right? It takes you two minutes, versus maybe five minutes to get those handwritten cards out. So having that stockpile is great.

So now in your board meetings here in September and October and even in November, you can have everybody write a handful of cards. And now you've got a lot of cards that you can utilize for this plan. And by knowing roughly how many you'll need, you can really make sure you set yourself up for success so you don't run out. And if there's extras, then just continue this process as you go through your whole year of 2025, and you'll always have handwritten cards that you can share with your donors or people that you really want to thank. So I loved the tip from Episode 265 so I wanted to share it here, but definitely check out that episode if you want more ideas for how you can engage your your board in donor stewardship. We also want to think about some of the tools that we have to make things personalized. With regards to video,

I love loom, I love zoom, I love your phone, making sure that you know how some of these donors want to be thanked. So for example, you might say at level, anybody who gives 250 to $1,000 gets a personalized video. Well, great. You can record them on your phone, just like you would have people do a phone call, have your script all ready to go, and then it knowing kind of whatever's in your system. Hey, they won't like they prefer email or they prefer text, right? Then you could send it to them in whatever way makes the most sense. Those personal emails just holding up your phone, recording it and sending it off, perfect. They don't need to be super polished. It just shows that you took a little extra step to say thank you, especially during a busy time of year, giving gratitude and thanks goes a long way. Now. Let's say that you have a bunch of new donors that come in each year, then I definitely recommend having an email nurture sequence that people get when they first donate, so you could set the trigger to be anytime it's a brand new donor, and they would get a series of three to five emails. Now the purpose of these emails is for them to really dive deeper and understand and get to know your organization even better, sharing more impact, getting to know the people on the staff that they might be connecting with, and, most importantly, setting expectation for their how they're going to hear from you moving forward. For example, you know, make sure you connect with us. Here's the channels that we're on. Here's some free resources that you can share with other people in your community. And we'll be reaching out to you every other week in a newsletter for you to be able to hear what's happening here at our organization so they know what's coming and they can expect it.

Now, you've got to be consistent. If you're going to tell people what's happening, but this way you know you can stay in touch with them moving forward, and they've got that expectation ready to go as well. Now you can do this for all donors through your urine campaign, and also do some of these higher personal touches. It's not going to hurt anything. People will just feel taken care of, that you care enough to send them some emails, some additional thank yous, some additional impact stories, and also encouraging them to share with their friends and family, so that they can increase their impact by donating to the to your organization as well. So the automation piece is super easy. You don't have to do anything. You just have it set up to your CRM and have it trigger anytime. Those parameters match. Now I'm not going to tell you what those are, because depending on your platform and how you kind of have it set up, it's going to vary and be a little bit different. Now, again, the other things that you can think about are phone calls or personal gifts for higher amounts. And it might be higher amounts of dollars. It might also be cumulative. So you might say, if somebody has given for four years or five years, if this is like an anniversary year for them, we're going to send out some extra elements, some extra pieces as just a great thank you. And so really, just get creative. Get creative with the way you're saying thank you. But remember, we don't want to just send that PDF receipt that is important. We want to send it, but we also want to make sure that we we know that we see them as an individual, as somebody who has made the choice to give to our organization, as somebody who has made the choice to give up part of their income to support the work and the work you're doing. And yes, some people might. Be doing it for a tax write off, but they still chose you. They still chose your organization. And so we want to thank them for that, because they have so many other options out there that they could be giving to and they put their trust in you. The other thing we always want to remember at this time of year as well is that if somebody's giving you $5 while it might not seem like a lot if that's what they're giving, it's probably the most that they can give, and that is a significant gift for them, especially same as somebody who's giving you $10,000 right? It's not the dollar amount that matters at this time of year at all. It's really about how can we really think as many people that are coming into our world, how can we encourage them to continue to partner with us? But you never know when that $5 gift is going to turn into an introduction to somebody who can give more, or for them to, all of a sudden, give 50 or $100 for them to continue to test the waters with you, to see how responsible are you with the money that I'm giving you? How are you treating me as an individual, and how can I be a part of this community. So I hope that this gives you some good ideas for how you can start to think about your thank you and follow up plan post giving and that you can have it ramped up and ready to go, so that people are getting thanked as soon as possible after they give their gift during this busy time, it will not go unnoticed. They will be so appreciative, and it will help you build these relationships in the long run over time.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to shoot us a message, hello at the first click.net, we'd be happy to talk through strategies with you. We have a few more great episodes around year end, giving coming up, so make sure you hit that subscribe button wherever you listen, or if you're watching on YouTube, so you don't miss out on those notifications. I know you have other fundraising professionals in your circle that are also struggling with how do we make the most of our year end campaign? So share this episode with them. I would really appreciate it, and thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Don't forget to grab that free resource for your year end giving checklist at the first click.net/resources, and of course, we'll have all of the episodes linked up and resources linked up here, including the episode we just did last week with Vanessa Chase Lockshin on setting up your emails, your cadence, and how you're going to do that for year end episode 273, But we will have all of that linked up at episode 274 show notes, thefirstclick.net/274 I appreciate you so much. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.