Drowning in donations? Use this checklist to turn chaos into opportunity
At a time when many nonprofits are struggling to keep their doors open, an influx of donations sounds like a blessing. But fundraisers on the frontlines can tell you: it feels like a crisis.
Few organizations are set up to handle a surge in demand and donations. Fewer are set up to do so in the context of a personal crisis for their staff—with fundraisers coping with a traumatic situation, worried about health risks to themselves and loved ones, confined to their homes, navigating parenting without open schools or childcare, and trying to be productive at work without any of their normal resources and support systems.
As experienced disaster fundraisers, we know what you are going through—and we empathize. We’ve worked the 24/7, adrenaline-fueled weeks. We’ve made the tough choices between work and sleep and family and health. We’ve felt the rush of donations pouring in…and the sense of drowning when we can’t keep up with them.
Most of all, we’ve learned through experience that for nonprofits, an influx of donations is only an opportunity if you make it one.
Unfortunately, most organizations don’t. With limited bandwidth they:
Process donations inaccurately or late—eroding donor trust
Mire fundraisers in back office tasks and reactive “donation-catching”—leaving dollars on the table
Skimp on real-time impact reporting and stewardship—missing the opportunity to engage new donors as loyal supporters
Burn out staff—driving turnover within 6-12 months, with 12-18 months of lost momentum and revenue
If you feel your organization slipping into these damaging practices, know: It’s not too late. A one-time surge in donations can be leveraged to permanently elevate your fundraising program and the ‘art of the possible’ for your mission.
With a little upfront investment in bandwidth and organization, you can put your development team on the path to sustained momentum. Here’s a checklist of what to focus on.
Reactive fundraising
You know you’re in crisis fundraising territory when you see a dramatic increase in the number of donations per day. For most organizations, this increase so far outstrips ‘blue sky’ bandwidth, chaos ensues. It becomes an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, but there are not enough hands.
The risk is not only that you mishandle a few donations. The risk is that you permanently undermine the community’s trust in your organization.
Crisis donors do not have to be ‘one-time donors’. You can engage some of them as loyal supporters by following this checklist.
1. Get your gift processing, data entry, and acknowledgement processes in shape.
Beef up support for these processes using volunteers or other support resources, such as consultants or contractors.
Put in place clear, efficient gift processing workflows that ensure gifts are processed quickly, accurately and data is entered correctly. Make sure everyone processing gifts is aware of the importance of details—including information in cover letters and checks—and knows what to do with them.
Do not use frontline fundraisers for gift handling or tax letters. Your finance team, database staff, volunteers, or other support resources should handle these steps.
Use frontline fundraisers to call every donor to say thank you within 24-48 hours of the gift.
Give all members of leadership a shortlist of donors to call every day, prioritizing high-potential donors.
Put one person in charge of distributing call lists to fundraisers and leadership and doing ‘quality control’—making sure that all donors have received a tax receipt/acknowledgement letter and a thank you call in a timely manner.
Create a script and series of questions for thank you calls so that these calls can be used as exploratory conversations. Ask donors what motivated their gift, how they’re personally affected by the crisis, and how they’d like to stay updated on the impact of their gift. If donors don’t answer, leave a voicemail. Follow up every call with an email so that donors have your contact information readily available.
If you do not have enough fundraisers to keep up with thank you calls, engage volunteers (such as board members or other) and/or hire a consultant or contractor to make calls on your behalf.
2. Treat donors to this crisis as a special segment.
Create an attribute/tag in your database for these donors so you can easily run reports.
Ideally, find a way to separate new donors, re-engaged lapsed donors, and loyal donors within your crisis donor segment.
3. Every week, wealth screen and segment incoming donors into your core fundraising programs. Don’t fall behind on this step, as it becomes difficult to catch up.
Place all donors with major gifts capacity—regardless of gift size—into a major gifts portfolio. Task major gifts officers with getting to know the donors as individuals, connecting with them regularly to supplement the stewardship plan discussed below.
Flag a handful of VIPs and high-potential donors for the ED/CEO and CDO to focus on.
Place all donors with middle giving capacity—regardless of gift size—into a middle giving portfolio. Task one fundraiser with providing them supplemental touchpoints that complement the stewardship plan.
Integrate the rest of the list into your direct response program for digital and print touchpoints, in alignment with your stewardship plan. Integration into your email program is especially important so that donors can get real-time updates.
4. Create a special 12-month stewardship plan for your crisis donors. Don’t wait to put this in place. It’s not a ‘nice to have.’ It’s an urgent priority.
Think of all your crisis donors—regardless of gift size or donor type—as a single segment that you will provide a special experience in the coming year.
Create a welcome series for crisis donors, especially new and re-engaged lapsed donors. The series should include a thank you call from a fundraiser, as well as an email series thanking them for their support and starting to broaden their understanding of your general case for support beyond the crisis.
Every month, send a simple impact report to all crisis donors. Share with them the impact of their donation, the progress you’re making, and your ongoing need. Make the piece feel personalized, even if you’re using batch communication methods (like mail merges or eblasts).
Include other stewardship touchpoints, such as donor update video/conference calls with your program staff, thank you notes from clients, print stewardship reports, phone calls or notes from board members, etc.
5. Add 6- and 12-month milestones on your calendar now and build in some lead time for special touchpoints at those moments.
At 6-months, provide a robust impact report to all crisis donors. Use this report to demonstrate the impact of giving to the crisis—as well as to start broadening the case for support to your work beyond the crisis.
For your major donor segment (as defined above—by capacity, not giving level), provide the piece in print and/or delivered to the donor 1:1. For middle giving and direct response segments, provide the report digitally.
Couple the report with other targeted outreach. Ensure everyone in the major donor segment receives a personal phone call from a fundraiser offering additional stories and insight into the report. Consider hosting a video/conference call with program staff to bring the impact report to life and answer any questions.
At 12 months, repeat the above process, but couple it with a renewal campaign/appeal. Make a personalized ask of every prospective major donor. Reach your middle and direct response donors with a targeted, multi-channel campaign. Consider leveraging a challenge match. Make phone calls.
After your 12-month outreach, assess your renewal rate and make adjustments to your segments as needed. Keep an open mind. Not every crisis donor will become a loyal supporter, but with an intentional approach, more of them will than you might imagine.
Proactive fundraising
Proactive fundraising typically falls by the wayside during crisis fundraising because simply keeping up with incoming donations is more than an organization can handle. In addition, organizations fear “annoying” loyal supporters with extra communications and asks.
The reality is, by not engaging your loyal supporters and other crisis funding sources in your community, you are cutting them off from a meaningful opportunity to be part of the response. Your loyal supporters don’t want to be last on your list of people you ask for support. They want to be first—in recognition of their special role and significant investment in your mission. Crisis response funding sources have been created for organizations like yours.
So, in addition to putting in place the best practices above for reactive fundraising, take a systematic approach to your proactive fundraising—carving out a little time each week for the steps below.
1. Connect with your supporters personally.
Task your fundraisers (or support resources, such as volunteers, consultants, or contractors) with personally calling every major and middle donor (current or prospective).
Make these conversations about caring, not soliciting at first. Ask people how they are faring, share your organization’s story, and thank them for their loyal support that has positioned you to respond to this crisis.
Create ticklers to call these donors every 2-3 weeks at minimum.
As conversations progress, you will find natural opportunities to ask people to join the response with a gift. In those moments, ask. You are not stealing people’s wallets. You are giving them a sense of purpose and value in this challenging, uncertain time.
2. Create a toolkit for proactive fundraising—but do it simply and quickly.
Define your goals for crisis fundraising and how donations will help your community. Create a core set of messages that can be replicated everywhere.
Build your toolkit on this story. A toolkit should include donor-facing solicitation materials (one-pager, template proposal, etc.), resources for fundraisers (call scripts, exploratory question lists, answers to FAQs), etc.), and communications/marketing assets (emails, website pages, social media assets, etc.)
Don’t worry about making it perfect. Make it authentic. On proactive outreach, timing is everything, and the time is now.
3. Don’t wait to ask.
Start outreach even while your toolkit is under construction. You’ll miss the moment for genuine connection.
Add a donate button to everything, everywhere. Each email update should end with a soft ask and link to donate. Create a button on your website’s homepage. Include an ask in every social media post.
Don’t wait to send appeals and add donate buttons to everything.
4. Assign a team member or volunteer to scour the internet daily for new emergency funding opportunities. In our tracking of crisis donations, we are seeing new funds opening daily—but closing quickly due to demand.
Create a workflow for responding to opportunities. You may need extra resources (volunteers, consultants, or contractors) to help with contacting funders and filling out applications.
Don’t wait for crisis grant opportunities to be posted. If you believe your mission is aligned with a philanthropist, foundation, or company, reach out. If you don’t have contact information, try LinkedIn. A simple note requesting a call goes a long way—especially these days as people are unusually accessible.
5. Leverage your leaders and board.
Create a shortlist of donors to for your ED/CEO, CDO, and board members to contact. Revisit the list at least weekly to make sure your most important donors are hearing from leadership on a regular basis.
Remember how busy your leaders are—and make outreach as easy as possible. Prepare emails, letters, and call scripts for them.
No matter where you are in working through this checklist, thank you. You are an essential part of our country’s response to this crisis. We recognize what you are giving up personally to rise to the occasion—and appreciate it.
Consider Aperio part of your support team. Whether you need a welcoming community, some fundraiser self-care, a free hour of consultation to receive some guidance, or an extra set of hands through our services, we are here for you.
