Now that you’ve created your fundraising plan for 2024, how are you planning the communications to make it happen?
How will you go beyond two appeals and a newsletter this year, to creating the kind of “rinse and repeat” system that keeps your donors giving, not only at year-end — but throughout the year?
When you’re working with a tight budget and limited staffing, how do you communicate regularly across all channels?
If there’s one thing decades working with small nonprofits has taught me, it’s this. Communicate more and you’ll raise more money. It’s as simple as that.
Or is it?
Here’s what we’ve found. When it comes to donor communications, you need to communicate both frequently and well. Communicating well involves switching from nonprofit “jargon” to the language of your supporter. And communicating regularly involves scheduling, making a plan, and implementing.
Haphazard communications simply don’t work.
You need a system to ensure that you’re ‘touching’ your supporters a minimum of 12 times a year. Easier said than done, especially when your days are consumed with busy work.
How do you create a plan to communicate consistently and well with your donors and supporters throughout the year…and follow through and actually do it?
Your Donor Communications System | Basics & More™ is a four-week class created to give you a strategic plan for communicating with your supporters and making the best possible use of your resources.
More and better communications = more money. I guarantee it.
This class includes three bonus recorded webinars valued at over $260, and our 12 Touch Donor Portfolio, loaded with examples you can tailor to your mission, and new.
Support
In addition to dedicated email support, your registration includes one 45 minute coaching call with Pam (a $250 value) that may be scheduled throughout 2024.
Syllabus
Week One (Monday, January 29): Written Guide: The Who is More Important Than the What
Your audience is not “everyone.” Module One will give you a plan for:
- Knowing which donors are ready for upgrades,
- Reactivating lapsed donors
- Welcoming new donors
- Converting event attendees into donors
- Bringing in new donors
- Thanking your donors — now and throughout the year
Week Two (Monday, February 5): Written Guide: Why Direct Mail is More Important than Ever
Direct mail remains one of the most cost-effective communication channels you can master. Without direct mail in your system, you’re leaving money on the table. In Week Two, you’ll learn:
- The difference between reporting…and engaging your donors through the use of effective storytelling.
- How to develop a realistic donor newsletter schedule
- How to write print newsletters that raise money
- How to stagger your asks throughout the year
- The importance of engaging your board, staff, donors and volunteers in storytelling
Bonus: Week Two’s module includes the Simple Development Systems recorded training, Nonprofit Storytelling, featuring Michelle Sanders Brinson. Week Three’s module also includes our 12 Touch Donor Portfolio filled with written templates you can adapt to your organization.
Week Three (Monday, February 12): Written Guide: Email & Social Media: Show Me the Story!
- Photography for social media
- Creating your email welcome series
- Email asks and email communications
- How to build effective surveying into your direct mail and email communications
- Getting more mileage out of the story: repurposing, the secret to robust donor communications
Bonus: Week Three’s module includes the recorded Simple Development Systems webinar Create Powerful videos on a Small Budget.
Week Four (Monday February 20): Written Guide: Creating Your System and Executing!
Execution is the hard part, isn’t it? In Week Four, you’ll learn how to integrate all of your donor communications into one easily manageable calendar, along with simple methods of keeping you on track throughout the year.
- How to incorporate seasonal topics into your communications schedule
- Topics your donors are interested in, other than you (the 80/20 rule)
- Why repeating yourself is a good thing (a very good thing)
- How to use AI to streamline your social media
Tuition
Tuition for this four-week course is $249. Your one-time registration fee includes access for up to seven additional members of your team.
Your Guide
Pam’s the author of Simple Development Systems: Successful Fundraising for the One-Person Shop, the founder of The Fundraising Calendar, the founder of Basics & More Fundraising, and co-founder of Veritus Group Academy.
In 2010 Pamela was named one of the 50 Most Influential Fundraisers by Civil Society magazine. She was recently named one of America’s Top 25 Fundraising Experts, and appeared on BizTech’s 2023 Nonprofit IT Influencer List.
Pam’s been featured by the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the Foundation Center, has written for NonprofitPRO magazine and contributed to SOFII, the showcase of fundraising innovation and inspiration.
She has taught her fundraising methods to over 10,000 smart nonprofit professionals across the world through Basics & More Fundraising.