Here we are in another New Year! For us, it’s our 24th year in business – which hardly seems possible… And over that time, we’ve learnt a thing or two, so this month on the blog we’re hoping to motivate you into action and get you going with our 5 step plan!
That’s because we get that January can be a tricky month – once the sparkle of Christmas and New Year has worn off, we’re all faced with a long year of challenging work ahead. It can be tricky to figure out what the priorities are and what you should focus on, and the risk of overwhelm is quite high.
This is where we can help, by identifying 5 steps to get you off to a flying start with your 2024 fundraising – whether you plan to focus on acquisition, retention, or longer term growth and development – we have some pointers for you!
1. Easy wins
Let’s start with some really easy wins – thank you and gift aid campaigns. These are great campaigns to start early in the New Year, a really positive way to strengthen those relationships with supporters and donors who might not be feeling so cash-rich at this point in time.
Calling to say ‘thanks for your support!’ and a ‘Happy New Year!’ reminds donors that their support really matters to you, and is great way to aid retention. You can take the opportunity to do a gift aid check and a consent check – and the outcome is a feel good call, building the foundation for your fundraising comms for the year ahead.
2. Other admin calling
Here is some other low hanging fruit for you to pick off – welcome calling and admin reactivation calling. Both really should be part of your retention strategy, which is why most of our clients run these as rolling campaigns, month in month out. And if you want to add a promotional element to these calls, we can easily run these as marketing campaigns instead.
3. Keep recruiting!
Alongside your retention campaigns, we’d encourage you to be bold about acquisition planning in your 2024 fundraising – and the campaigns we are seeing return strongly time and time again are lead gen, lead conversion and valex conversion. We strongly encourage you to get those digital adverts in place and run them all year round – then we will do the hard work and convert the leads for you! Don’t be put off if you don’t know how to generate the creatives for your ads – reach out to us, we can you help you with that. And if you’re thinking about adding a valex element, keep it simple. Pin badges are still doing amazingly well as giveaways – we can even help you with the fulfilment of these so you don’t need to worry about the admin of posting all your items out.
4. Ask for more
If asking more of your existing donor base fills you with dread, be assured that our approaches are tried and tested and can produce some great income generation, as long as you are already practising good stewardship of your donors.
Currently donors are surprisingly receptive to a compelling ask to upgrade, and, if not in a position to do so, may respond instead with a one off donation or alternative way to support, such as lottery or participation in an event. We can also address gift aid as part of an upgrade campaign, which will always result in additional income. Definitely one not to overlook!
5. And the ultimate…
We all know that legacy fundraising should produce the best ROI of all your fundraising activity. But it’s a slow burner…you can’t just start calling supporters and ask them for a gift in their will. We plan and deliver campaigns which segment your donors and focus on their different needs to support them in understanding the importance of a gift being left in a will. We’ve even set up a specialist arm of our business to manage legacy fundraising – you can find out more here.
So in summary – there is so much we can support you with your 2024 fundraising plans if you’re feeling the January overwhelm. And even if you’re on top of your telephone fundraising, feel free to get in touch, we have some brilliant new ideas we’d love to talk to you about! All the best – here’s hoping you have a fantastic fundraising year.
