Year-End Giving Strategies By Mark J. Marshall

November 2014

The clock is ticking, but there is a tremendous opportunity ahead! The end of the calendar year offers a unique chance to engage your donors and prospects in a meaningful way. While there are numerous personal reasons that donors will prioritize giving throughout the year, for U.S. residents, none is universally greater than the end of the tax year. As a result, a disproportionate amount of money is given during the final quarter of the year to those places that emphasize strategies around end-of-year benefits.

Heading into the last 6 weeks of the year, there are three core strategic areas to focus on to strengthen your development program:

n Annual Giving

n Major Giving

n The Year Ahead

Annual Giving

Calendar year-end offers a crowded, but important window to maximize annual giving efforts. There is a need for a quick call to action during these last critical weeks and days before the tax incentive for giving disappears for another 300+ days.

n Direct Response Program. Your last direct response mailer of the calendar year should arrive between mid-November and early December. Giving Tuesday offers an opportunity to heighten donor awareness of your invitation to participate in giving. This full solicitation should include all the components of a traditional package: statement of case for support, ask, and a response piece. The call to action should include a response date that emphasizes calendar year-end—heightening the awareness of the tax implications.

Transform Philanthropy

Periodic Essays on Emerging Philanthropic Trends and Practices

$85BMore than $85 billion was given to nonprofit

organizations in November and

December 2013 2

17.5%of all 2013 charitable giving occurred in the month of December.1

3XIn 2013, subscribers

received three times as many fundraising

emails in December than any other month.3

$85BMore than $85 billion was given to nonprofit

organizations in November and

December 2013 2

17.5%of all 2013 charitable giving occurred in the month of December.1

3XIn 2013, subscribers

received three times as many fundraising

emails in December than any other month.3

$85BMore than $85 billion was given to nonprofit

organizations in November and

December 2013 2

17.5%of all 2013 charitable giving occurred in the month of December.1

3XIn 2013, subscribers

received three times as many fundraising

emails in December than any other month.3

Copyright © 2014 Bentz Whaley Flessner & Associates, Inc.

1 Blackbaud 2013 Charitable Giving Report, 2 Giving USA Foundation/Giving USA 2014, Blackbaud 2013 Charitable Giving Report, 3 M&R Benchmarking Survey 2013

Bentz WhAley FleSSneR2

Alexis P. BarberJoshua M. BirkholzAnna n. BurgasonJan B. CadyChristopher A. ClarkMargaret Sughrue CarlsonJames P. DanielM. Bruce DreonBruce W. Flessnerthomas W. GrabauJamie l. hunteS. Douglas hutchingsJudith M. JobbittMark W. JonesJudy y. KirkKatrina A. KlaprothBond t. lammeyJenny S. lappegaardWilliam R. loweryMark J. Marshall John S. McConnellJennifer A. McDonoughAli R. MclaneChelsey D. MegliMerrell A. MilanoMarisa e. OntkoDennis A. PrescottAlison e. RobertsAndrew C. SchultzWilliam D. tippieJustin J. Ware

7251 Ohms lane Minneapolis, Mn 55439 (952) 921-0111

2461 South Clark Street Suite 910 Arlington, VA 22202 (703) 413-5505

www.bwf.com

Mark J. Marshall leads the firm’s healthcare practice. With over 20 years of institutional advancement experience, he brings a strong background in major and planned gifts, alumni relations, annual giving, and campaign strategy to clients. he has a particular interest in strengthening development teams through coaching of leadership.

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lost in the holiday mail pile.

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EmailReminder

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Complete Solicitations

Year-End Strategies Calendar

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n Last Chance Reminders. The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve offer an incredible opportunity to make one last push. Unlike the Direct Response Program, a brief email message serves as a very lean and efficient solicitation effort. While there is an opportunity to do some limited case stating, the emphasis is on being a service reminder.

“The end of the year is days away. Click here to make your tax-wise gift to support the health of our community!”

Social media such as Facebook or Twitter enables you to send a link and remind prospective donors to take advantage of the remaining tax year window. If you are fortunate enough to have an online ambassador program in place, the ambassadors should be deployed to share the message to their individual networks.

As part of your preparation, ensure that all links are working. If you do not always have a giving link on the front page of your organization’s website, negotiate a one-click giving button on the front page for this special giving period.

n Personal Calls. A review of all calendar year LYBUNTs should produce a small target group upon which to focus limited resources. Particular emphasis should be placed on multiple-year donors who have not yet made their gift. Annual giving staff should be prepared to work through calling lists to encourage donors to renew their gift. Some organizations utilize this time to organize “flash phonathons” by enlisting gift officers to contact their prospects over a defined hour or two during the month of December.

Preparing for that year-end push in annual giving requires several important elements to ensure that you make an impact:

1. Have control of your data. Be prepared to focus efforts on those prospects most likely to make a gift in this narrow window of time.

2. Clarify your strategy. Review the time that is available to you during the remaining weeks of the year and attempt to accomplish only what is appropriate for your organization and program.

3. Ensure proper resources. The end of the year is crunch time for everyone in your

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76543210

Number of Fundraising Emails Received by Month

Source: M&R Benchmarking Survey 2013

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organization, so ensuring that you have the tools, services, and commitment from partners in advance enables effective implementation.

If you operate on an academic calendar year, many of these strategies will be effective at the end of the fiscal year in May or June as well.

Major Giving

There are two significant strategies around which to focus your year-end major gift activity.

1. Pending Proposals. Within your prospect pool there are donors who have an “ask” in front of them. The hard work of cultivating and soliciting has been completed. What has not been completed is any remaining negotiation and the close.

n Review the proposals that are in front of your existing donors and prioritize which of those are still open discussions.

n Find out what is necessary for the donor to make the decision to fund that proposal. For example, is there a critical piece of information they are waiting for your organization to deliver before a decision can be made? Was the proposal delivered verbally, and the donor was anticipating a written proposal before making a decision?

n Schedule negotiation time. Get face time with the prospective donor to enable a thoughtful discussion about how to move the gift forward. This will require you to focus on the key decision makers who can make this gift a reality.

n Allow time for the gift. Be clear with donors what is necessary to process their gift based on how you anticipate their gift being made. Planned gifts, gifts of

property, and even stock can take much longer during this period of time than donors anticipate. Being out in front of any potential barriers can position the organization and gift officers as a philanthropic advisor, equal to other advisors they use such as financial planners and attorneys.

n Make the gift their priority. You are reaching out and offering an important service. “Mr. Johnson, you were considering the gift opportunity we discussed, and I realize the year end is fast approaching. Would it be a good time to connect to see if there is anything that I can do to facilitate your gift? Tax advantages of giving before the end of the year could increase the impact and affordability of your gift.”

2. Targeted Proposals. Second only to pending proposals, are those prospects who have been appropriately cultivated and are awaiting solicitation. Prioritizing their solicitation creates the optimal timing. The confluence of the cultivation and the end of the tax year creates a unique urgency.

Managing the pace of solicitations is important in any donor relationship. If the decision is made that a good, effective solicitation can be made in the time remaining—proceed. The calendar can add to the sense of urgency on the donor’s part and that creates a good opportunity.

n Build and refine donor cultivation and solicitation strategies. Adjust any existing strategies to ensure that the time is right to secure the desired or optimal gift.

n Complete solicitations by end of November and early December. Allow time for a thoughtful and meaningful

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solicitation. Although you may be fast forwarding the timeline, these prospects deserve to be thoughtfully solicited.

n Plan for negotiations and closing in late December. Nothing will be more frustrating for a donor than to be ready to make the gift and have no one available to help them. While the holidays are important, it is important that ample time be allotted to following up on the most important moment of our work—the closing.

Looking Ahead

One of the standard complaints of many gift officers is there was just not enough time to get everything done—particularly around calendar year-end holidays. The most successful fundraisers are strategically using all twelve months to their advantage. Whether your fiscal year is an academic year or a calendar year, utilizing January strategically can provide you with a significant advantage to meeting your revenue goals. Planning for that success, however, begins in November and December. Two key strategies include raising awareness of planned giving opportunities and ensuring top prospect engagement in January.

n Estate Plan Review. The wave of New Year’s resolutions and reflections on those who passed in the previous year should be put to good fundraising purposes. As individuals are considering how to get their affairs in order and reflect on their own mortality, it is an ideal time to encourage a reflection on their ability to leave a legacy.

To optimize this time frame, a targeted mail or email effort scheduled to arrive shortly after the new year can encourage action by prospective donors and create a dialogue

with gift officers. A discussion about the importance of new year’s resolutions and the importance of planning can help frame this conversation very effectively.

Major and planned gift officers should be provided with a list of prospects to contact in the first week of the new year to offer a new year’s greeting—a very non-threatening engagement. Additionally, this contact opens the conversation on the topic of philanthropy and can set the pace for the new year.

“Mr. Johnson, I wanted to wish you and yours a happy new year. You may have received a note from us about charitable estate planning as a new year’s resolution. If it would be helpful to you, I would be happy to sit down and share with you some strategies others are using.”

n January Donor Visits. Prioritizing donor visits for January will ensure that you get 10–15 of your top prospects moving forward early in the new year. Scheduling those donor contacts will take a focused effort near or between the holidays. Blocking time on calendars with the sole purpose of scheduling visits will yield results.

Utilize the last two weeks of the year to aggressively and proactively schedule donor contact for the first two weeks of the year. At the end of December, people are beginning to open their calendars again (too far in front of the holidays can be daunting). The added value in doing this is that you will identify potential travel plans for the winter as part of the discussion.

Also, prioritize donor stewardship for this early part of the year. It will set the stage for a potential year of engagement and reintroduction to the cultivation cycle! n

7251 Ohms lane Minneapolis, Mn 55439 (952) 921-0111

Inside

Year-End Giving Strategies

Maximize End-of-Year Giving!this is the optimal time to close gifts; be prepared to maximize that outcome.

1. Plan your activity for December very deliberately by prioritizing your donors who are most ready to give.

2. Be available! your donors should be able to get in touch with you (even if your institution is closed).

3. Use the entire time available to drive your gift closing!