Sharpening Your Fundraising Ax For Maximum Year-End Giving
August is a great time to slow down, go deep, learn, plan, and prepare for the hustle of the end of the year. Just like Abraham Lincoln said: “If you give me 8 hours to chop down a tree, I’ll spend 6 hours sharpening my ax,” my goal with this series is to help you sharpen your proverbial organizational ax.
Each week I’ll be focusing on one of the core elements that make nonprofits strong: fundraising, boards, staff, finance, and organizational strategy. Each week, I’ll be sharing content that explores the theme from a different angle – a combination of short-form strategy tips, long-form trainings that go deeper into some aspect of the theme, and an encore podcast episode featuring me in conversation with one of my incredible guests, exploring the theme from yet a third angle!
This first week of August, we’ll be sharpening your fundraising ax.
Tuesday, August 1
Going Beyond Giving Tuesday To Maximize Your Year End Giving
I’m beyond excited to kick off my Sharpening Your Ax Series: Nonprofit Summer Strategy Sessions with Jess Campbell, a dear friend, and the founder of Out In The Boons, a small shop helping nonprofits discover donors in their email list.
Jess has been deep in this work for a LONG time — she’s been a nonprofit fundraiser for 18 years and has raised over $17M+ working from New York to California in organizations big and small. She is also the founder of The Raise More Together Summit for nonprofit leaders and fundraisers, which is coming up this month, and which she and I talk about in the episode.
In this episode, we’re talking about end-of-year giving, and how to think and plan beyond Giving Tuesday to actually set yourself up for the most expansive year-end season you’ve ever had! Jess and I are both practical and tactical, so this episode is heavy on the “how do I actually do this”! Grab a notebook and a pen and get ready to map out an incredible year-end season!
Wednesday, August 2
6-Minute Strategy: The Rules of Donor Psychology
In this audio version of my 6-Minute Strategy series, you’ll learn how to leverage the rules of donor psychology to activate people in your community to give, how to build stronger relationships with your existing donors, and how to keep supporters active and engaged with your mission and work.
Thursday, August 3
Very rarely have I met someone as naturally gifted at resource generation as Suzy Myers-Jackson. I say resource generation, rather than fundraising, because what Suzy has spent the past 18 years doing – first as the ED of Opening Act, and more recently as a strategic consultant and coach, has been more expansive than just raising money. Did she grow her organization from $25K to a multi-million dollar organization? Yes, Did she perfect her Power of 10 campaign strategy to raise over $175K in 10 days through micro-donations, yes? And I’m excited that she shares strategies for how to do this.
But at the core of her fundraising prowess is a true gift for thinking expansively about how to define resources – she understands that the relationships that she builds, and the community that she grows, is the resource, and that has translated into money, time, investments, volunteers, raving supporters, advisors, partners, and transformative impact for the youth that she was working on behalf of.
In this conversation with Suzy, she breaks down her approach to resource generation, and offers tactical advice and tools – actionable steps you can take to improve your own resource generation. She also provides insight into the way that she thinks about fundraising more deeply, and how that is actually what made her so effective.
Relevant Resources Mentioned
- NextAfter
- Raise More Together
- Focus On Growth Webinars
- Also check out the free webinar: How To Attract (Not Chase) Your Ideal Donors
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