Dolores McDonagh takes you through part II of the two-part series. Guiding you through the important considerations as you craft your year-end strategy and plan, she breaks down the who, what and when tasks a fundraiser can tackle in the months leading up to your year-end campaign to insure maximum success.

1. Be a Year End Superhero:
A Month-by-Month Guide
August 25, 2017

2. 2
Introduction
Dolores McDonagh
Principal Consultant
Charity Dynamics

3. 3
Your Presenter
Professor D Professor X

4. Be a Year End Superhero
July: Build Your Fantastic 4
August: Truth & Money
September: Super Strategy
Part I: July 27
October: The Power of Empathy
November: Super Speed
December: The Will to Win
Part II: August 26, 12pm CST
4
• Super Power: Time Travel
• Your Month by Month Guide to a Super Year End

5. Super Power: Time Travel
5
Location of July webinar

6. 6
Webinar #1 Wrap Up
• July - Assemble Your Team
• August - Review 2016
Results & Line Up Your
Matching Gift
• September – Finalize Your
Strategy

7. Month-by-Month Guide
Part II
7
How can you have a Year End?

8. Empathy & Brain Science
8
OCTOBER SUPER
POWERS:

9. 9
October Activity:
Empathetic Creative

10. Use Empathy to Connect with Donors
10
It’s not about you…
It’s all about your DONORS

11. What Do Donors Want?
11
• To make an impact
• To feel appreciated
• An effective partner
• A faster than a speeding bullet
experience

12. The Four Phases of Year End Campaigns
12
$0
$50,000
$100,000
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$300,000
$350,000
$400,000
$450,000
Pre #GivingTuesday
GivingTuesday
Early/Mid December
Year
End

13. Creative Balance through Year End Campaign
13
Show Impact
Appreciate
Partnership
Speedy UX

14. Phase 1: Pre #GivingTuesday: Show Impact and
Appreciate
14

15. How Can You Show Impact?
15
• Work hard to weave donors into your
organization’s story
• Articulate that gifts of all sizes matter
• Digitize Annual Reports or other
donor cultivation communications
• Use statistics to show impact

16. Use Statistics to Show Impact
16
Test a discrete ask in
your cultivation emails
• Be the Match Foundation turned
organizational stats into an
infographic that illustrates impact
• Bonus points for humanizing the
email to humanize the impact

17. 17
Consider Video/Live Streaming to Cultivate

18. Phase 2: #GivingTuesday Grows Up
18
$0.00
$10,000,000.00
$20,000,000.00
$30,000,000.00
$40,000,000.00
$50,000,000.00
$60,000,000.00
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
90% Growth
36% Growth
51% Growth
20% Growth

19. www.givingtuesday.org
19

20. • Need a #GivingTuesday Campaign
– Riley’s?
http://www.charitydynamics.com/project/riley-childrens-foundation-giving-tuesday/
20

21. 21
October Activity:
Brain Science Creative

22. More About Email & Personalization
22
• Campaign Monitor conducted an
online survey in May of 2017 to
assess generational preferences
around communication.
• Across generations email is the
preferred channel.
https://www.campaignmonitor.co
m/resources/guides/insights-
research-report/#five

23. Consumers Want Better Email from Nonprofits
23

24. Online Giving Preference by Generation
24
• Millennials were more
than three times as
likely to say they used
email “always” or “most
of the time” to donate
(compared to 18% of
55+ respondents)

25. Brain Science: The Power of
Personalization
25
• Generational Email
Preferences
• What’s in a name?
• Getting Personalization right
• Other Ways to Personalize

26. 26

27. Personalization in Subject Lines
27

28. Super (and not so super) Personalization
28
Super
Not So
Super

29. Email Text Personalization by Donor Segment
29
Current Donors Lapsed Donors

30. Look to Your Data to Help Define Your Segments
30
Traditional
• Recency
• Frequency
• Giving Level
Other Ways to Segment
• How Acquired
• Engagement Types
• Interest Area
Focus on segments that
have the most potential to
move the needle

31. Personalizing Donor Type and Donor Level
31
Sustainer Upgrade Invite leads to
a customized donation from

32. Dynamic Form Shows Immediate Impact
32

33. Thank You Page Continues to Communicate Impact
33
Hitting ‘Update Gift’ button
automatically updates monthly
commitment.
• 3 Clicks
• No User Name or Password
Needed
• Form includes phone number
if donor would prefer to talk to
a Donor Services
representative.

34. Super Power: Speed
34
NOVEMBER:

35. 35
November Activity:
Get Out of Gate Fast

36. Be a Super Hero Test Pilot
36
Year End Testing pays year round dividends:
• Some early tests can be implemented
immediately, boosting year end results
• For some organizations, testing in early
messages is a low risk way to gain
valuable information that can be used
year round

37. Phase 3: More Brain Science Plays Out in November
Review Your Copy Like a Brain Scientist
• Trigger Words
• The Consistency Principle
• The Principle of Scarcity
• Social Proof
Early Tests
• Subject Lines
• Content Positioning
• Asking Amounts
• Sustainer Upgrade
37

38. Trigger Words
• Certain words act like ‘Eye
Magnets,’ increasing open rates
• Once spam triggers, mailers are
now finding success with words
like:
– FREE
– NEW
– SECRET
– WIN
• Brainstorm variants on these
names and them IF they are
relevant to your copy
38

39. The Consistency Principle
39

40. Using ‘Yes’: The Consistency Principle
• Reminding people that they have supported in the past is a YES.
• Asking a question that invites affirmation is a YES
• Two part Calls to Action make a YES
40

41. The Principle of Scarcity
• Urgency and Exclusivity are time-honored
tactics to boost response at Year End
– December 31st
– Matching Grants
– Impact Status
41

42. Urgency + Scarcity + IMPACT
• Time is running out header
communicates urgency
• Animated GIF shows how close
readers are to missing out on having
their gift be matched
• Individual buttons show how their
impact will be doubled through the
match
42

43. Leveraging the Hive Mind (Social Proof)
43
Humans are trained to believe
authority figures. Many organizations
use Better Business Bureau or Charity
Navigator logos to establish credibility,
but consider using early results from
supporters to inspire others to give.

44. Early Email Testing Ideas
44
Emoji’s have been hot in 2017. Test early to see if they will boost results.

45. Email Subject Line Testing
• If your file is large you can do a test on a small portion of the list, read
results quickly and ‘rollout’ the winner to the rest of the file later in the day.
• Or you can do a 50-50 split and use the winning subject line for a ‘resend.’
• Best practices call for subject lines of 35 characters or less, but test longer
ones to see if ‘teasing’ out your idea generates more opens.
– Make sure ‘Trigger Words’ are in first 35 characters
– Pay attention to ‘Sub Subject’ lines and use as additional content to entice
donors
• Try to test “replicable” tactics such as sending email from your org vs. a
‘real’ person.
• Test Positioning of Match
45

46. Testing Inside Email
• Impact Positioning (use STC example again?)
• Simple Text Design vs. Graphical Emails
• Interactive GIFs or video vs. static graphics
• Ask Strings
– One Size fits all vs. different asks for groups of
donors vs. individual asks driven by MRC or
HPC
46
Don’t test re-
sponsive emails.
Just do it!

47. Simple emails
47
Subject line: If not you,
then who?
Subject Line:
Your last chance

48. 48

49. It’s Not Just About Email
• Lightbox – give % of $ from website
– Can talk about testing here as well
– Talk about timing settings (# of times to see during the different phases)
• Sites Ads
• Try to get a match large enough that you can use in all channels
(remember, people are omni channel)
• Social – supporting channel
• SMS – would love to hear if anyone is planning an 12/31 last minute texts
• Ads – Remember, many of your donors have opted out of email, but that
doesn’t mean they’re not online. Consider retargeting ads and SEM ads to
opted-out donors so that you stay ‘top of mind’ at year end.
49

50. Super Power: Willpower
50
DECEMBER:

51. 51
December Activities: Campaign Tracking
& Adjustments

52. 52

53. 53
Wishing you a
wonderful holiday
season

54. 54

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57. 57

59. ©2017 Charity Dynamics
THANK
YOU