Fundraising is Easy--Summertime July 3, 2005

Is it? Many people are on vacations, but not everybody goes at the same time. Summertime is a great time to keep your supporters in the loop on your activities. Send to supporters a letter that doesn't ask for money--try it. Tell them about your accomplishments, plans, and progress, and tell them to enjoy their vacation knowing that they've helped improve the world by supporting your efforts. Donors want to feel appreciated, and want to feel as though their money is going to good use and that they are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Do you collect summer home addresses from your larger donors? You might want to consider that--some people spend months at a vacation home, and would appreciate news from their favorite nonprofit (you, we hope!). But be careful about the direct appeal--if your donors are on vacation, they might not want to feel obligated to do anything other than relax. Sending positive news reinforces their image of you and the effect of their support, but sending an appeal might be an intrusion into their peace of mind. Sending news keeps them aware of you going into the Fall fundraising season.

Summer fundraising events and appeals can work particularly well, however, when sent to home addresses. Why? The majority of nonprofits send their main appeals between the months of September and December, and use the summer to prepare for that or to focus on their missions. It's easy to get lost in the large amount of Fall and holiday bulk mail , but in the summer the volume goes down, giving you a chance for increased visibility.

Of course, it depends on who your donors are. If they are New York City venture capitalists, the likelihood they will be in the Hamptons at the beach house or away for a full month is a lot higher than if they are suburban professionals from the Midwest. You have to gauge your support base; either way, fundraising--or just keeping in touch with donors--during the summer months can be very productive. I'm personally about to send out a mailing for the Crystle Policy Center--wish me luck!

Let me know if you've had any success with summertime fundraising--post your comments below.

ps: GiftWorks tracks as many addresses as you'd like, by the way, as does Kintera[KNTA] and Blackbaud[BLKB]. Some fundraising software does not--be careful to look at how fundraising software handles addresses before you buy it.

de.licio.us : [fundraising software] (de.licio.us is a "social bookmarking" website--a way of organizing the web the way you want it. Check it out!)

Comments

We are running our first summertime direct mail campaign this year and it is going very well! My Development Committee was horrified when I informed them that because of conflicting schedules/agendas the mail was going out in June but is now mid July and we have raised 62% of our goal and anticipate that the rest will arrive by the end of August. (And we have even heard from our many donors who spend the summers in the country!)
The major difference this time was that we upped the ante. This was a special naming opportunity for our high level donors (or those that have wanted to jump into that category) and although it was inaccessible for some, the exclusivity attracted others. Our more generic annual drive will be mailed out as usual in December but this risk has proved a worthy one so far!
ASIDE: I am very new to this profession and it has always seemed intrusive to ask for multiple addresses from our donors, i.e. home, summer, business. I assume that the address they wish to be contacted at is the address they provide. Is this naïve, am I missing something?