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How to Make Your Calendar Your Best Friend

December 5, 2016 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

calendarNothing feels more awful than getting up in the morning and realizing you have no idea what to write.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Create a publication calendar and you’ll never have that feeling again.

Create a publication calendar in 5 easy steps

Step one: open up your favorite calendar tool. Outlook, Google Calendar, a specially designed piece of software or a paper calendar with pictures of puppies every month: it doesn’t matter, as long as it works for you.

Step two: think of seasonal topics.  Back-to-school, Fall, Winter, New Year, Spring, Summer. National holidays like Thanksgiving and Independence Day. If appropriate, religious holidays like Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah, or Ramadan. Heating season, if you provide heating assistance.  Camping season, if you do summer camps.  Mark each topic on your calendar at the right time to be talking about it.

Step three: find the hook that will make each topic a real story, one that’s interesting to your audience. Back-to-school is not a story in itself. “What you need to know about your child’s first day at our preschool” is a story! Mark that on your calendar.

Step four: now think of events your organization is holding. Fundraising events, friend-raising events, community forums, advocacy days at the statehouse.  Put those on your calendar too, and find the hook for each one.

Step five: think of campaigns your organization is launching at specific times of the year. Are you registering people to vote? Signing them up for low-cost bank accounts? Creating sports teams? Put those activities on the calendar, too, along with the hook that will make your audience want to read about each one.

Use your calendar to make communicating easy

Now, your calendar is full of ideas and specific ways to present them.  That means:

  • You can work on them in advance. Get photos, line up interviews, look up statistics…whatever you need for the post can be done ahead of time instead of at the last minute.
  • You can coordinate your messaging. Your blog, your social media postings, your newsletter, and even your face-to-face meetings with supporter can all reinforce the same message, so people are more likely to grasp it and retain it.
  • You can improvise.  It’s easier to improvise when you already have a plan in place. If a hurricane strikes, or one of your issues trends in the news, or if you receive a visit from Michelle Obama or the Pope, of course you can put that into your calendar. You’ll be in the perfect position to decide whether to delay a previously scheduled topic or just post more often.

What do you put on your publication calendar? Is there something that you post about that makes you stand out from most other organizations?

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TY Thursday: The Ideal Thank-You Letter Went Out Today

December 1, 2016 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

I have seen the ideal appeal letter.  I haven’t yet seen the ideal thank-you letter.  But it went out today.  Did you send it?

Thanks in many languages

Write the ideal thank-you letter

If you wrote the ideal thank-you letter, you:

  • Called me by name.
  • Confirmed how much I gave you.
  • Told me how my gift would make a difference.
  • Illustrated my impact with a story.  (Not the one you told me to persuade me to give.  Another story.  You have more than one, right?)
  • Included a photo or image to make my impact real.
  • Told me about how else I can help: by volunteering, or liking you on Facebook, or spreading the word to my friends.
  • Signed it by hand, and wrote something just for me.

Most important: it’s the ideal thank-you letter because it went out today. 

The sooner you acknowledge my gift, the more likely I am to remember it, and give again. Within 24 hours of your receiving my check is ideal.  Within a week is acceptable.  But no matter how long it’s been, don’t put it off any longer.  Send that letter today.

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Fundraising Tuesday: Follow Up Your Appeal Letter with Email

November 29, 2016 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

fundraising by emailYou work so hard on writing the ideal fundraising appeal letters. At last, it’s printed and folded, stamped and addressed, and sent on its way.

You breathe a sigh of relief. Then, you worry.

How can you be sure the donor will pay attention to your letter? Will he or she respond with a gift?

Don’t Worry, Use Email

You do have some reasons to worry. Just look in your mailbox. How many organizations have sent you an appeal? In just one week in mid-November, twenty letters asking for money arrived in my mailbox…and the pace is only going to pick up as we reach December!

But you don’t have to just sit and wait. There are things you can do now to make the donor pick that envelope out of the pile, read your letter, and donate online (or send in a check). One of them is to follow up your fundraising letter with email.

Find out how to use email to make your fundraising more effective. Read my guest post at JohnHaydon.com.

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