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Fundraising Tuesday: All the New Years

August 13, 2024 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Where are we in our year?

It’s August. You may be taking a well-deserved vacation. If not, if you’re at work, probably the end of the calendar year is looming. Your nonprofit may be planning end-of-year appeals: a Fall appeal, one just after Thanksgiving, and one in the very last week of December. Sound familiar?

It’s August 2024. It’s an election year. For your cause, or for you personally, Tuesday, November 5 may mark the most important day to remember (not Tuesday, December 31). A new administration could mean your organization loses its federal grants, you lose your own bodily autonomy, and/or our nation loses its proud history of rule by the people. The election year may the most significant to you.

But what about the year that’s beginning in only a few weeks: the school year? If you run a school or an afterschool program, of if you’re a parent of school-age children, you may be aware of the other two dates, but the first day of school is the one that’s impending.

We live in many calendars at once. That’s no surprise. It’s nothing new, and we are used to keeping those different new years in mind. So how difficult would it be to pay attention to other people’s new years?

Different calendars, different years

Christian

Whether we realize it or not, the Gregorian calendar that most of us use most of the time is based on a Christian cycle. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who put it into place back in 1582.

New Year’s Day, January 1, is eight days after the purported birthday of Jesus into a Jewish family. Jews circumcise boy babies on the eighth day, and that is why January 1 is the Feast of the Circumcision on many Christian holiday calendars. Christian countries’ military and economic predominance led to the Gregorian calendar being the shared calendar we use in secular spaces.

Muslim

But January 1 is not the start of a new year for Muslims. The Muslim New Year is on the first day of the month of Muharram, What’s that, you say? It’s the first month of the Muslim year, the same way that January–named after a pagan god who looked backward and forward at the same time–is the first month of the Gregorian calendar.

When is the first of Muharram? If you’re trying to find it on the Gregorian calendar, you’ll have to look for it on different dates. That’s because the Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar, with twelve months of about 29 days each, adding up to a 354-day year. The calendar most of us are used to is a solar calendar, with 365 days (366 in leap years).

So, the Islamic New Year has already occurred, on July 7, 2024 (the first day of Muharram in the year 1446). The next Islamic New Year will be on or about June 26, 2025–eleven days earlier on the Gregorian calendar than it was in 2024. And so on every year.

Jewish

You may think that Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish year, is always sometime in September, and wonder why “it keeps moving around” compared to the Gregorian calendar. But in 2024, Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of Wednesday, October 2! Why?

The Jewish religious year doesn’t follow the sun only, like the Christian one, or the moon only, like the Muslim calendar. Instead, it’s luni-solar. A regular year has twelve months of 29 to 30 days each, just like the Muslim years. But because certain holidays HAVE to occur during certain seasons–Passover in the spring and Sukkot in the fall for instance–Jews add an entire leap month every so often.

This one of those thirteen-month years. In 2023, Rosh Hashanah began the evening of September 15. In 2024, Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of Wednesday, October 2. In 2025, it will start the evening of September 22. All of those dates are the first of the Jewish month of Tishrei, no matter what the date is on the calendar most commonly used.

Many cultures, many years

You have probably heard of the Chinese New Year. Next year (the Year of the Snake) starts Wednesday, January 29, 2025. But that is not the only Asian new year celebration!

The Tibetan New Year (Losar) starts Friday, February 28.

The Cambodian New Year (Chaul Chnam Thmey) begins Monday, April 14.

A little further west, in Asia Minor, the Persian New Year (Nowruz) occurs on the spring equinox, which in 2025 will be Thursday, March 20.

Click here for a list of 26 Completely Different New Year’s Days Around the World!

Happy New Years! What do nonprofits do with them?

Taking note of when different years start for people you know is a sign of respect. Just knowing about Rosh Hashanah, Nowruz, or lunar new years will be a step in the right direction. But once you know there are so many different years, what do you do with that awareness?

At minimum, I’d suggest, you can wish employees, clients, supporters, etc., a happy new year in a culturally appropriate manner. For instance, a traditional greeting for the Jewish new year is “Shanah tovah,” which means “A good year.” (But please don’t wish me a happy Yom Kippur!)

A step beyond that: start learning about the meaning of the new years and other holidays that your particular community observes, and what they do for those days. Children’s books are a good place to start. I recommend Two New Years, by Richard Ho, for a good introduction to Rosh Hashanah and lunar new years (and a valuable reminder that families can participate in more than one culture!).

Please consider, too, whether your policies enable people to celebrate their new years and other holidays when those important dates aren’t part of the Gregorian calendar. If you provide two weeks of paid vacation to all employees but some of your employees have to use nearly all those days for religious or cultural observance, consider what you can do to make your nonprofit more welcoming, diverse, and inclusive.

TY Thursday: The Great New Idea that Will Raise More Money

July 7, 2022 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Is your nonprofit looking for a new idea on how to do fundraising? I’ve got one for you.

What is it? Should you spend your time and money on a revamped website? Or get on TikTok? Should you add a chatbot to your Facebook page, or start texting all your donors and prospects?

That’s not it. That’s not the kind of new idea I’m talking about.

Chasing the latest piece of technology is a distraction. It’s what they call Bright Shiny Object Syndrome. Unless you are a magpie, you should avoid that!

So what is this great new idea? It’s thanking your donors.

Apparently, that is a new idea for a lot of nonprofits, because they aren’t doing it–or not very well!

Six ways to thank your donors poorly

If you want your thanks to have no meaning, and no effect on your fundraising, here is an idea of what doesn’t work:

Not thanking them at all. (I’m a donor, and yes, this still happens!)
Letting an automated system send out a thank-you email that sounds like it was written by a robot.
Having that email acknowledgement of the donation be the only “thanks” they get before you ask for money again.
Sending a written thank-you letter that reads like a tax form.
Mailing a more personal thank-you letter that asks for another gift right away (the dreaded “thask”).
Mailing a good thank-you letter–even the ideal thanks–as a “one and done.”

A Thank-You Plan? Now, There’s an Idea!

If you really want to make friends, influence people, keep your donors and increase their lifetime giving to your organization, thanking donors well and often is the most important thing you can do. It cannot be haphazard. You will need a plan.

Here are some steps you can take that will make donors feel your gratitude.

First, edit that auto-response to the donor so it sounds like a person-to-person communication. (If your system won’t let you do that, get another system!)

Second, change your language from “We can’t do it without you” to “Thanks! Here’s what you did, by giving.” (Make the donor the hero.)

Third, have your written thanks go out in the mail within 48 hours of receiving the donation. That means having the ED, the Director of Development, or a Board member on call to sign and personalize the outgoing letters–during the busiest seasons, they should do it every day!

Fourth, invite them to take follow-up steps that get them more involved with the organization that do not involve giving more money. Ask them to follow you on social media, or sign up for your newsletter, to sign a petition or show up for an event.

Fifth, communicate, communicate, communicate! Make sure they never ask “Just what difference did it make when I gave to that organization?” without readily knowing the answer.

Sixth, put your thanks on your communications calendar. Not only will the donors be happy to hear from you, but it will make your day, too!

Happy holidays! (For which religion, though?)

April 11, 2022 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Your nonprofit organization probably has donors (and volunteers, staff, and Board members) who practice different religions, or no religion. How do you recognize and appreciate them all?

Happy Passover–if it’s your holiday!

As I write this on April 11, 2022, we are in the middle of the month of Ramadan, for Muslims. We are four days out from Pesach (Passover), for Jews. Easter is celebrated this coming weekend by most Christians in the West, although Orthodox Easter is a week later, on April 24.

A month ago, we passed through the vernal equinox (sacred to Wiccans and followers of other pagan religions). Major Buddhist holidays are still ahead.

How can your nonprofit say, “We see you, and we value you” to supporters from all religions?

Ways to welcome people from different religions

You have several options when it comes to religious holidays. None is perfect, but some are better than others.

Ignore religious holidays

If interfaith understanding is not part of your nonprofit’s mission, you could choose to go secular. Strip out the mention of any religion or its holidays from your communications.

The advantage of this approach is that it’s apparently neutral. The disadvantage is that in a society where Christian culture is assumed, a secular approach is not neutral at all. If you have an event with food during this time, for instance, Muslims will not be able to eat any of it until after the sun goes down, and observant Jews will have to avoid bread, cake, pasta, or anything that might have leavened ingredients.

Plus, as we’ve seen in December, a certain number of Christians will view the non-mention of their holidays (Christmas or Easter) as erasing them. So, I do not recommend this approach. Ignorance is not bliss.

Acknowledge them

When you’re creating your communications calendar, make a note of the holidays that occur each month. In your newsletter or on your social media feed, make mention of them and say, “To all those who celebrate these holidays, we send good wishes.”

I used to do this in the staff newsletter at the agency where I worked, and it was mostly appreciated. When I missed a holiday, however, I had to apologize humbly and sincerely, make up for it, and learnt to do better. (And this is not just about religious holidays. When I failed to mention National Hispanic Heritage Month, one staff member was incredulous. “It’s been a holiday since 1968!”)

Mere acknowledgment can sometimes feel tokenizing, however. Having blue-and-white decorations along with red-and-green doesn’t change the fact that a party in the third week of December is a Christmas party.

And in your communications, you don’t want to make mistakes that say you’ve never met a Jew, like having matzah and a shofar in your Chanukah greetings. (They’re for Passover and Rosh Hashanah, respectively.) You may not be marketing products like the ones featured on Hanukkah Fails, but you are speaking for your nonprofit. You really don’t want to send the message, “All your piddly little holidays look the same to us!”

Make religious holidays into learning opportunities

I think the best thing a nonprofit can do for all its constituents is to make religious holidays (and other cultural events like Nowruz) into learning opportunities. Here are some questions you can find out more about:

When exactly does this holiday occur? Is it a one-day holiday (and if so, when does the “day” begin)? Or is it a week, or a month?
What does this holiday mean to people who observe it? Does it mean different things to different practitioners of the religion?
What are some of the customs associated with this holiday, and do people from different countries have different customs associated with it?
How will this holiday affect people’s ability to work, or attend Board meetings or community events?
What are some appropriate greetings for this holiday? What would be odd to say then? (“Happy Yom Kippur” doesn’t quite work. Nor does “Merry Losar.”)

If you are a member of the majority culture in the U.S., whether or not you go to church, you may not realize how often people in religious minorities feel foreign. To get a sense of what it would be like if the majority were Jewish and Christians were a misunderstood minority, follow the satirical @JewWhoHasItAll and the explanations on @JWhoKnowsItAll on Twitter.

Learning about others’ religion is a matter of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s also basic respect. You do not have to believe a single thing that Baha’is or Shintoists believe in order to say to them (as well as Christians, Muslims, Jews, pagans, and Buddhists), “You belong here.”

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Fundraising Tuesday: All the New Years