Have you ever been confused when people mention their annual fund, campaign, or appeal? What exactly are they talking about?
Your annual fund (or annual campaign) is your 12 month long, multi-pronged effort to raise funds for your annual programmatic and operational needs. Annual campaigns often include traditional appeal letters (close to the holiday season and other times throughout the year), electronic solicitations, phone-a-thons, grant writing, event revenue, as well as personal, face-to-face solicitations.
This fundraising effort takes place annually and funds are used for ongoing needs such as programs, services, and keeping the lights on. Annual funds are not for capital needs (capital needs are long-term things, like endowment or buildings).
Raising More Money Through Your Annual Fund
What does your annual fund effort consist of?
1. Major Gifts Solicitations
Annual campaigns are primarily made up of individual donors, who are mostly solicited from a distance (email, mail or phone). That’s why if you haven’t already incorporated a major gifts plan into your annual fund, make this the year you do so.
It’s important to personalize your campaign as much as possible, including asking some of your best donors for their annual gift one-on-one (in person or via video chat). Start with twenty people to ask in person this year, and ask them to consider 2x, 3x, or even 5x what they’ve given in the past.
2. Appeal Letters
Think strategically about when you send donors traditional mail appeals. For most small to mid-sized organizations, this is usually about one to four times per year.
At a minimum, you should be sending an appeal letter in November for your year-end appeal. A spring letter is also appropriate, as many people give multiple times per year or need that second letter as a reminder to give.
Appeal letters should contain the following:
- An individual success story, featuring someone who was helped by your organization that year.
- Attention-grabbing facts or figures.
You want ATTENTION-grabbing — for example:
Did you know that 1 in 4 women are abused each year? That means one of your neighbors, someone in your family, and several of your friends have been touched by abuse.
Or…
One in ten children go hungry every day in this country. That means that two of the kids in your child’s classroom probably won’t have enough to eat this week.
3. Electronic Solicitations
More and more, organizations are receiving significant donations online. You should be integrating email solicitations into annual campaign solicitation plan for the year. Make sure you’re able to accept monthly gifts online (and you’re asking for them). Share a compelling case as to why people should give monthly.
Your email solicitations should:
- Provide a way for people to give by including a “donate” button on every email you send.
- Never be longer than a single screen. Don’t make people scroll down. For longer articles and more information, have people click links – drive them to your website.
- Have interesting subject lines. You must find a way to make busy people open your email.
4. Phone-a-thon (Optional)
While this option is not right for every organization, you may want to consider a phone-a-thon as part of your annual campaign. Some organizations choose to coordinate their one-day phone-a-thon in house, or have volunteers come in monthly to make calls.
The more personal you can make this, the better. Ask volunteers to use their cellphones so it’s less likely to come up as “spam” on the donor’s phone.
When done right, phone-a-thons can give a very significant boost to your annual fundraising results.
What do you do for your annual fund? I’d love to hear from you in the comments about what’s been successful and what hasn’t.
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