 Hi, everyone. This is Susan Sandvik. I'm just getting us set up for the Retain Giving Tuesday Donors and Boost Your End Fundraising webinar. So hold on one second while I get everything set up. All right, hopefully everybody is logged in. You're able to see my screen and we can start the webinar on how to retain your Giving Tuesday Donors and Boost Your Year-End Fundraising. So you guys can end 2023 really, really strong. All right. So today I'm your presenter, Susan Sandvik. I'm a fundraising success specialist here at Mighty Clause before coming to Mighty Clause last year. So I've only been here for a little over a year, but I spent over 20 years working at nonprofits. So I, and I've worked or been a board member for everything from tiny little grassroots nonprofits that don't have any staff to huge national headquarters where we're helping, you know, tons of chapters with their fundraising. So I've been in your shoes. I know what it's like to try to get those end of year gifts. And so I'm just going to give you some of some tips that I have learned throughout my career to help you guys out. All right. So first thing that we're going to talk about is building gratitude into your fundraising strategy. I am a huge donor stewardship person. Early on my career, somebody gave me Penelope Burke's book called Donor-Centered Fundraising and that kind of changed everything and how I do my fundraising. So I'm constantly thinking about how can I thank donors and not just thank them, but keep them informed so they know that their gift created an impact. And so there's just a bunch of ways that you can start doing this right now with your giving Tuesday donors and then just try to think about ways that you can start integrating more gratitude as a strategy in the next coming year. So as I've said, thanking and appreciating your donor is essential to donor retention. If you want to keep those donors, you want to make them feel special and it costs a lot less to retain an existing donor than to acquire a new one. So make sure that stewardship is a part of your fundraising plan. It's just as important as asking people for the donations is thanking people and you can build your donor appreciation and your gratitude into these fundraising operations that you create. Get your staff and your volunteers involved in thanking. We always talk about using your resources and your reach to get people to sign up to volunteer or get them to make a donation. But in keeping all of those people just to be a part of, we would want to show appreciation. We want to thank these people. We want to call these people and just send them a thank you note. Personalized holiday cards, personalized postcards, whatever it is that you guys can do as a group, definitely try to incorporate some stewardship and some gratitude into that. And then everyone wants to know how they're creating an impact. People don't just give donations because they just want to get rid of money. They want to know that they're making a difference. So think about that when you're strategizing is that thanking people doesn't always have to have the words thank you in it. It could be because of a donation, because of your donation, we were able to do this. This story happened because you made a gift last year. Those are other ways that can help really, truly make a donor feel special and make sure that their gift is appreciated. Some keys to thanking your donors. Make it a priority. As I keep saying, this should be just as important as asking people for money. Make it a part of your routine. If you maybe once a week, you know that you're going to call some five donors and you give the yourselves that's your New Year's resolution is to call five donors a week. That is definitely something that can create an impact. And I've done this at organizations and I've dreaded making those calls at organizations. And I will tell you that those calls end up being so inspiring. There's always, because you trust me, somebody's like, oh, yeah, you're calling me because you're asking me for money again. And when you flip the switch on them and you're saying, no, I'm actually calling to thank you and find out what's important to you, that conversation, the balls come down and the conversation shifts. And sometimes you get some really great ideas on ways that you can help tell your story to your donors and find out what's important to them. Have procedures and resources in place ahead of time to help streamline the process. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time you want to thank somebody or you want to show impact or you want to ask somebody for a donation. You can have a lot of language in place images in place. You know, right now it's very common that you create like a social media post. But that post can also be added to an email and that could be added to, it could look like the graphics for a postcard you send out. There's a lot of things that you guys can do that can kind of brand your organization and thank people multiple ways. But it's using the same tools and resources over and over again. Obviously anybody who feels appreciated is more likely to provide future support. So when you are thinking about ways that you want to show impact, how does your organization impact the community? How do donations impact your organization? You want to showcase this so many ways all year round. And by showing that impact, you're not only marketing your organization, but this is a way to thank those donors. And it's a great way to acquire new donors. There's nothing wrong with having something that is bragging about what your organization has done. And just having one line at the end that says if you would like to support us, click here. And because you guys are mighty clients, you guys will have a website that they can go to and make a donation and create that impact. So it doesn't have to be like a huge solicitation piece. It could be an education and every educational piece. You could just have an opportunity or a button that will hyperlink and lead people back so they can make donations in the future as well. All right. So closing the loop on Giving Tuesday. Hopefully, all of you participated in Giving Tuesday and got some donations in and you want to close that loop and so that way you can finish out the year with your end of year giving. If you didn't participate in Giving Tuesday, your end of year fundraising can start today. So I'm going to be talking a little bit about Giving Tuesday, but if anybody out there did not participate in it, do not feel like, oh my gosh, we're never going to catch up because that's not the case. End of year fundraising is huge and actually the very last week of the calendar year is always the biggest fundraising year for any non-profit or most non-profits I should say and then the last week is very big with online fundraising. So there's still lots you can do, but I'm just going to give some examples for people who did do a Giving Tuesday campaign, what they can do. So some things that you can definitely do and this will help you retain those donors is of course you want to send an email out. Thank them for participating in Giving Tuesday or a giving event or whatever it is that you had and let them know those results and just say that because of your donations, we raise this much and this is how we're going to utilize these funds. This is a great opportunity, like I've said, to think about other ways to thank your donors as well. Automatically if somebody donates online, you know that they're going to get that receipt, but this is now above and beyond that receipt. So if there's ways that you can report your results on social media, engage, you know, adding thank you videos or graphics that kind of engage people and thank people for participating in Giving Tuesday that works like we've talked before calling some key groups of donors is definitely a thing that you might want to do and doing a follow-up with snail mail still it still works and it still matters and so there's lots of ways that you can send letters, thank you cards, welcome packets, postcards, anything that you want to do to help welcome them as Giving Tuesday donors and keep them for the future will definitely help your organization. Hold on one second. All right, okay, the one thing that we definitely want to talk about is the myth of donor fatigue. Trust me, we all I've worked at so many organizations and there and people talk about oh well my donors just they're too worn out they don't want to give anymore and there is I will admit that there is some truth to donor fatigue but there's also that also is an opportunity for you to figure out ways to re-engage those donors. So donor fatigue what a non-profit usually thinks it is it's like this mysterious condition that causes non-profit donors to feel tired of donating and they're going to start pulling away from your organization and it's the best way that we can remedy this is by not asking these people for donations anymore and that you have nothing there's nothing that you at the non-profit can do to stop donor fatigue and that's completely untrue. So the condition is created by non-profits both individually and collectively it's just it's it's a term that we like to put out there as an excuse to why we're not raising more money but what it really is is this a sign that you're a non-profit is doing something wrong and you need to change up your strategy maybe the ask that you sent out didn't work but that doesn't mean that you stop asking it means maybe now try asking in a different way and just re-evaluating how you're asking people for funds and and see if there's anything more that you can do to help make people understand that they are creating an impact and that they are making a difference in their community. Check in with your donors see what they want what are they interested in why did they give a donation to you this can be a survey this could be at a donor appreciation event just talking to people but you just want to find out what makes what made them make that donation in the first place and is there a way that you can show them that that donation did in fact create that impact in the future. With donor fatigue is definitely something that can be fixed with fundraising strategy marketing etiquette donor management all of those things are really important i know one thing that will make a donor feel like that a piece is not that will make them feel unwanted is it when you obviously send a mass email out to everybody and it's very clear that you aren't treating them like that they just gave a hundred dollars to your organization that they if you're not treating them like that they acknowledging that they just gave in some way shape or form that sometimes makes people feel like well i just gave and now i just got another email and it's asking me to give more and it's not even and i haven't even gotten my thank you message yet you know those are things that you can prevent and kind of create your fundraising and stewardship strategies work together with your marketing team to make sure maybe some certain audiences are taken out of marketing pieces that get sent out and then just kind of you know really pay attention to donor management but all of this is definitely curable with some better communications with your donors all right so some donor fatigue causes um too many urgent requests is probably the number one thing that i see all the time i always say that your lack of planning is your lack of planning is not my emergency um and so that's how your donors will sometimes feel is if everything is always urgent either you're not doing something right with at the organization or or or this is just too big of a problem and why should i even make a donation you you just don't want that you want to have a nonprofit that's in great standing that it looks like that you're spending money wisely that you're you're doing everything you can to keep um keep your organization going your impact going and and strategize all of that so just make sure urgent requests are truly urgent at your organization failing to close that loop like we keep saying is that donor stewardship is such a huge huge thing and you want to make sure that your donors know how is this nonprofit using my donation did they even get it you know are you making sure that they are receiving their thank you notes their receipts and all of that do they have a place to go if there is a feeling of dissatisfaction with your organization can their voice be heard those are all things that are really important to try to maintain those donors and make sure you create that that conversation at all times poor donor management losing touch or failing to reach out is that's huge and so make sure that once they become a donor that you have a set plan of how you're going to communicate with these people and keep in touch with them um throughout the donor donation cycle so that way they donate every year and they're in that stewardship cycle is always a part of that um not changing up your ask I've seen this happen a lot people um think well this is I'm asking I like the way that this person put this ask together and so I'm going to keep asking with this exact same language over and over and over again um that doesn't always work and so just think about how the reasons and the personalities of people who might donate I'm a person I all you need to do is tell me what you're going to be doing and give me some bullet points and and an easy way to make a donation that's all I need other people really want that story they want to hear those stories from the individuals that this is impacting some people really love to see data and they want to see infographics with all of the numbers of of how you've impacted your community and some people just they just want to make sure that you're you're in good standing and will they give you every year and they just want to make sure that you're you're doing what you promised to do with their money so those are all ways that you can keep changing up the ask you can also think of different ways um to use mighty cause to do your fundraising you know having different um events different part uh peer to peer fundraisers um creating different opportunities where um when you're creating a fundraiser you can create it for specific programs um things that there might be a little bit more interested in those are all ways that you can kind of change keep changing up the ask throughout the year so that way you're asking different ways for different things and hopefully making more money um and make sure that your donors when they give they don't feel if they're not getting anything back from the non-profits that's never a good thing um so make sure that they know about their impact that they've made invite them to opportunities to hopefully impact your organization some more and and make sure that you feel like this is a relationship that isn't just about somebody writing me a chat once a year it's something more and important all right so let's I'm sorry so let's talk about the transition to end of year giving so um year-end fundraising Giving Tuesday uh was kind of created as a day to kind of kick off your year-end giving but like I said before if you did participate in Giving Tuesday that's great we're going to talk about how it go into year-end fundraising but if not today is a great day to start your year-end fundraising so let's just start thinking about from now until the end of the year and what you're doing to get as many donations as possible um we really think that having a year-end fundraising throughout the entire month is a great opportunity but if you can put some extra effort into the last week especially those last three days of the year um that will it will create an impact and we do see a lot of online fundraising um in in that last three days of the the calendar year um there's lots of data out there um I know one-third of all charitable giving takes place in December I know I've been seeing that those numbers are changing a bit but it's still a huge percentage of all charitable giving takes place in December um and then and then as I've said before a big percentage uh takes place the just the final three days what I have started noticing more and more is the online fundraising um is is even bigger than um the amount of that people give online when you compare your online fundraising throughout the year December is a huge online fundraising month um for the transition for the end of the year um just like we said donors tend to give on GivingTuesday in addition to their their end of year giving so don't feel like that um just you cannot acknowledge their GivingTuesday gift but if you want to see if they want to give um maybe a recurring gift like ask them to give monthly throughout the year um the upcoming year that's a great opportunity to get these people who just gave to even make a bigger impact at your organization um asking them to give again as long as you're you're recognizing that they just gave um it's definitely an opportunity that you can you shouldn't be afraid of doing um other than that you will want to think about how you're going to create your year-end plan so option one could be um a GivingTuesday it launches your year-end campaign and it's your whole entire campaign is kind of one big thing with GivingTuesday an end of year giving or you can create a separate uh campaign for end of year fundraising and we're going to go over that all right so use GivingTuesday to launch your year-end campaign um this definitely it's a very popular thing that a lot of people do it helps with branding it helps creating consistent messaging and and it just kind of helps you think about everything as okay from GivingTuesday till uh December 31st it's all going to have this kind of look or feel to it um so you can keep all of the same messaging branding um it's um it just kind of helps you keep your entire fundraising campaign in one instead of two campaigns and it can kind of help you transition from GivingTuesday to the end of the year giving the ones there are some definitely some challenges to this that there is a difficulty in sustaining that momentum um you want to carry everybody from November to the 31st and some of that information if you're branded it you've created everything it might feel stale by the end of the calendar year so you just want to make sure that you're aware of those challenges and you make everything very exciting um and and you're thinking about those different audiences um sometimes donors will feel less responsive if the the appeals look exactly the same and they keep getting them over and over again in just a short period of time so by um switching it up and making sure that your donations and everything kind of it you can have branding and then you can change but you can still change a look and feel of some of your donations that might help things out also really do think about the subject lines every time you send an email that's a big way um some people just that's the reason why they didn't respond to an appeal is literally whatever you had in the subject line so by changing the subject line alone that could definitely impact things um and then just kind of keep trying to think of um appeals that are fresh and engaging for your supporters i i keep saying it but the reason why i keep saying it is because it's so important people want to know the impact they're making in their community and so anything you can do to kind of keep telling that story but in a different way um is definitely going to help you out um campaign pain planning um you can you should really kind of break up your planning in two different phases um it's a nice idea in this beginning phase to kind of introduce your theme um talk about giving Tuesday um talk about what you know how how funds are going to be used um for the end of the year you know keep people engaged with just kind of this phase one giving Tuesday type phase but then start talking about the impact start talking about ways to keep in donors engaged and plant seeds to for the reason why somebody should give at the end of the year so this is a great time to start bragging about your organization um i've seen organizations that do 12 days of christmas type things but it's 12 reasons to give to your organization um and and it's just this constant plan of showing people bragging about what you did for the year and showing people um what their donations are going to um from December 19th of 31st really focus on that impact get some hard hitting content get some stories for this phase this is the time where people are going to start making that last gift of their calendar year and so you want to keep them motivated you want to make it very easy for them to give and um and then it's also a great opportunity to maybe think about matching gifts stretch goals anything like that to help incentivize people to give at the end of the year all right um a lot of this a lot of people always feel like you have to create everything you know like a day before you send things and really you can start creating all of your appeals and everything and really start scheduling things out i get it you guys hopefully you guys will be taking some time off for the holidays and doing things that you want to do that doesn't mean that you can't fundraise throughout the month of december and still have a life you just need to prepare things a little bit ahead of time so doing things like creating videos um creating images infographics um using canva i'm a huge huge fan of canva using canva to kind of create different social media imaging and all of that you can kind of create all of that and schedule social media posts all month long um and that that way you know you have a solid social media campaign you can do the same thing with email campaigns and doing all of that and um you have a lot of opportunities to use a lot of different areas to plan this content all right so we kind of talked about um using creating campaign that really utilizes giving tuesday but if you ever want to create a separate campaign that this is definitely something you can do too i know a lot of people they almost treat their campaigns like one it looks like your november campaigns and one looks like your december campaigns um and and these are definite things that you can kind of play around with and see what works best at your organization one of the things with hosting the separate is that messaging is fresh it's exciting the images are fresh and exciting um so that kind of helps you out um it definitely allows you to kind of focus on this december holiday giving give before the end of the calendar year really focus on on the importance of end of year giving um and that that definitely helps out as well challenges when you're doing the separate campaigns um sometimes it it just it's more work for your organization so it's just something that kind of think about what do you really have the ability to do at this place in your in your organization and what maybe could be an idea for next year so you want to make sure that you get your end of year gifts this year but maybe we'll do a bigger campaign next year and we'll start everything um in october versus starting it in december um you want to make sure that you have fully wrapped the giving tuesday campaigns as i keep saying um if you are treating them as separate campaigns you really want to make sure that the people gave giving tuesday um have been thanked and the impact has been shown because as i said before those people can still give before the end of the year and they'll they'll give again so you just want to make sure that that that's all has been put to bed and um but at the same time a lot of this some of those donors might feel you're moving from one ask too quickly to the next um and so you just want to make sure that those people feel very special that they've made a donation and that that it's just a suggestion it's just an idea to um get people to make a larger impact all right some tips for success um plan campaigns that are distinct but reflective of each other um you want there's a lot of stories that you can collect at your organization from your programming departments and you can work with marketing departments and like i've said i've worked with organizations where i am the programming department and the marketing department and the development department i totally get that um sometimes you're the person that that does it all um but if you do work at a place with a lot of different um departments make sure that you guys are talking to each other that you're collecting those stories that you can tell that you're using them in marketing and then that you're not training marketing and fundraising as completely just separate silos that that all of this um these campaigns can work together um use visual cues and branding to differentiate between campaigns um just colors and and changes and and logo changes and all of that all of that really does impact the way some people view things i mean just look at how people get excited about the holiday cups at starbucks it's still a cost it's still doing the same things but people get excited when things have a little visual difference or have something where it's still branded but it's something that kind of signifies the end of the year or the holiday season and so just kind of make sure that you're taking advantage of some of that focus on your impact in your year end campaign i keep talking about this but this is such a great time to share highlights and milestones of everything that you guys did in 2023 um think about this as like that end of year wrap up that you want to make sure that um you know those end of year newsletters that you send up to to people to let them know what you did throughout the the calendar year this is such a great opportunity to put that information together and not only can it help you with your end of year giving but if you put this information together it's going to help you in your january giving in your february giving because you're going to have like okay we collected all of this data to show people what we did in 2023 let's share that again but with an ask that's happening in january um make sure your giving campaign has that distinct end um and and like i said it just helps you out to report your results or i'm talking about mighty clause so there's definite things that you're going to want to maybe change if you did do a giving tuesday campaign um make sure that you're you've updated everything that you need to update in mighty clause so you have the section in the story of your mighty clause pages you might have mentioned giving tuesday make sure that you're you switch that language so it talks about end of year giving or it has more evergreen language to it um make sure you your checkout flow meets everything that you want if you wanted to change your donation forms you want to change your thank you message that pops up after they made the donation or you want to change messaging that went with the receipts now that the giving tuesday is over or giving event is over this is your opportunity to kind of make those changes and that way you're once again now you're thinking about more year end giving or um or or thinking about how you might want to get people to give in 2024 um make sure and and like i said with the checkout flow checkout flow is more than just um your donation form is that thank you page and the um thank you receipts that they receive as well so just make sure you're updating that messaging um the other things that you might want to do like i as i mentioned you would want to maybe edit your about section or your story you also for a lot of people they may have you may have changed your goals or your metrics to be just specifically about a giving campaign or giving tuesday so make sure you reset your goals and your metrics um update any custom donation descriptions or suggestions and then um if you can just add a little year end flair to your thank you page i think that will be a big help um and once again thinking about that stewardship year round um and thanking people in in a special way if they give it this end of year all right finally donor retention is huge i i know people seem to always think about like how do we get new donors how do we get new donors but if you're not keeping the donors that you've had um then there's definitely something wrong with your system so um why donor retention matters well it's cost effective and it's efficient it's it takes less time and resources to um to keep those donors than it is to acquire new donors so just make sure that that's a constant part of what you do every year is that you're trying to make sure that you get those donors to come back um this is going to help you grow your donor base if you're constantly trying to find new donors and you're not getting those people that gave in the past to give again and again you're not really going to end up growing you're just going to end up you're kind of replacing donors instead and so you want to make sure that you're growing so make sure um retention is a huge part of that growth um and then it's just about creating that relationship um to get people to be a little more faithful to your organization um donors can become fundraisers they can become volunteers they can become ambassadors they can become board members they can become so much more and that donation is just the start of that relationship with your organization so you can it's really important that you keep that retention um ways that you can help with that retention is to know your numbers so right now you can calculate your current retention rate by looking at this year's retained donors to last year's retained donors to see what your retention rate is um there is a mighty clause retention report if you have been using our system for um over a year um you will be able to see um uh you will be able to run a report that you can see which donors um gave in 2022 and have not yet given in 2023 by running that report and and sending those people a special year and repeal or sending them multiple appeals until they um make their donations there this is a right audience that a lot of them maybe in their brains they already made their donation this year they don't even realize that they haven't given yet so just by sending those kind of reminders out is definitely a good thing for your organization and it will help with your year end numbers um with all that put together goals make sure that you um have a goal of how many donors you want to retain how much money um of what what are you going to be doing to retain these donors um how many are you going to try maybe making some of these past donors into monthly donors or get them to increase their donations what are you going to be doing for those goals and really kind of put those goals into place and treat those people a special um with those goals and that's going to just help your organization and then finally um just really celebrate reaching those milestones and come together with some of these little short term strategies by breaking up your your um your year round retention goals breaking it down into okay this is what we're doing for december and this is what we're going to do in january to like like i've said to think about how can you make some of these donors into maybe monthly donors um you know they donated a hundred dollars for giving tuesday let's ask them see if they want to get start giving ten dollars a month in 2024 in the end of next year they're going to end up giving you know twenty dollars more than they did this year so it's just something to kind of think about all right finally you want to make it easy um and by using mighty clause you're already helping it out helping everybody out with all of this so um as i've said before introducing recurring donations can be a huge and simple way for people to give more but it doesn't impact their wallet as much so this is a great opportunity to try to introduce recurring donations and subscriptions um getting people to start giving every single month versus um just once a year really look at your online presence and when i say look at your online presence some people that are like oh okay i'm going to go in and work on my mighty cause page but it has to be so much more than that um we were just talking about you you can't you can't just throw a great party and and expect people to come you have to send out invitations to get people to come to your party and that's what you want to do you want to create that that online presence the website but you have to remember to send out marketing you have to remember to do social media you have to remember to do all of that as well to get people to come to your really cool mighty cause website so really kind of think about that and make sure that people know where to go and how to get there and then um offer multiple ways to donate um we always feel like maybe if oh if i add that link if i do this i'm asking too much and that's never ever the case if by creating a text to give um it just gives those people who are interested in text to give it gives them a way to to to donate from their phone um same thing with qr codes people who know what qr codes are they're great resources and makes it really super easy for them to make a donation quickly from their phones other people every in your emails it's always frustrating to me when i see an email that says donate to our organization and you didn't include any hyperlinks any buttons anything that makes it super easy for you to just click a button and make that donation so really make sure that when you're looking at your emails you can add hyperlinks throughout some people like to click on a word in a um in the text other people need a pretty little button that they can push and and and um it hyperlinks back to the page and you can have it throughout your documents that leads to the same place um so that's always definitely helpful um think about your we've already talked about qr codes and donate buttons remember that you have if you're an advanced subscriber you have um embeddable donation forms but you also have widgets that you can start using and maybe there are blog articles or you have companies that you partner with and they can put a widget on their websites um there's all sorts of different tools and resources that you can do to make it so multiple ways you have multiple ways for people to make a donation and they're all coming in to mighty clause to make that donation all right so let's open this up i'm going to check on the chat and the q and a and let's open this up for uh questions so hold on one second let me open up chat all right this presentation is definitely going to be shared and um and we're going to make sure that um that we send you guys the slide deck as well as a video recording of this presentation um let's see here if you are have been using us for um colorado gives or a lot of these others i think almost all of them you can use the system until the end of the calendar year definitely check with your giving event to make sure that you have that functionality but almost everybody who just recently had a giving event that they they really did kind of create the giving event to go with the end of your strategy so you can use our free fundraising tools till the end of the year also you cannot if if for any reason you're like i want to test out or try any of our advanced subscriber tools and you aren't subscribed now right now is a great opportunity you can sign up and get a two week free trial um and test us out that will get you guys to kind of dive in and start using um our tools see if it kind of meets your needs for the end of the year and then maybe it's something that you'd want to actually subscribe to and purchase for the end of the year so we have lots of options there um how do you recommend thanking donors who gave anonymously but pretty much if they if somebody gives anonymously and and they really really truly are anonymous to your organization thinking is not the biggest thing to them you know that stewardship is not the biggest thing to them um the other big but i am a huge huge fan of um as we keep talking about the impact people can make donations sometimes people will give anonymously um on the site but you still know exactly who they are and those are still people that you should you should be sending those updates on how donations are being used in the community so that way they get that good feeling of this is how we are positively impacting our community and and how those donations are being used um somebody wrote canva rocks which i completely agree with i love canva so so um yes so please everybody get into canva and start using it it's it's kind of jaw dropping when i think about you know 10 years ago the limitations we had with graphic design and how easy it is to kind of create some things some really great looking pieces um that's all out there um all right um i'm just kind of going through sorry everyone okay um the retention report um i'll um i'm putting i'll put together a follow-up email and one of the things i'll do is i'll put in the directions on how to send a retention report and do all of that but the reports are all located in your reports field um and when you go into your you just go to reports on the left nav and then there's one section that's just for retention reports once again you have to be have been using us for you know for like two years because that's the only way that you can change um look at the data from you know 2022 to 2023 to make sure that the retention is there um otherwise you might have to change and look at some of your other reports um and see who hasn't given yet this year um but as you use mighty cause more and more just know that we those retention reports make life a lot easier and those reports are really great tech um and as i said i'm going to be sharing the recordings for this class um same thing with the slide deck is all yours and so that will be a follow-up to everybody who rsbp'd for this class um how long after a donation comes out do you suggest getting a personal note or thank you out um one thing that's really great is hopefully mighty cause is helping you out with um getting that receipt out right away they always say um there's been some data that talks about it donors who get um thanked within the first 48 hours are more likely to donate by a huge percentage i can't remember what it was any time but i remember that was always said this is where online fundraising has definitely made a huge impact because now it's instantaneous they get a thank you right away um but that personal the the personal touch can still happen so if you kind of um think to yourselves is there something else that we can be doing um i know some organizations they literally will just be like all right let's think about how we can thank people more in the next coming year and they start looking at their data and they're like okay i think that we could probably hand write everybody who donates $250 or more and then you kind of set yourself up with goals of when you're going to send these things out or when you're going to make those phone calls or when you're going to do that added touch and then just kind of see where that takes you and if that is starting to really truly make a big impact in donor retention as well as increasing donations um and so that's just a suggestion but one thing that's really great like i keep saying is that we get things out quickly and you can add that personal touch so you can have your give yourself a little bit more time because you know that they received if they donated online they received that that thank you right away um um somebody just wrote i thought mighty cause platform is available year round with no cost and you'd have to pay for the advanced features and that's that's true there are some some um tools and resources you can definitely use your round um with mighty cause and you will definitely be able to see if um some of those advanced those essentials and the advanced features are available to you um for some for some of you who participate in some of the giving events you also might be able to get um a reduced rate at this time if you do want to sign up for an advanced so it's definitely something to look into the advanced features are definitely definitely things that uh i really would recommend any organization investing that money into advance i'm not saying this because i work at mighty cause i'm saying this as my former fundraiser self um anything that you can do i think the tools can definitely help increase your online fundraising and get those messaging that messaging out in so many different unique ways and that you can really create a really solid year round um fundraising system by by investing in some of our advanced features but you can always use our free features at any time um i'm loving that so many people are writing about canva and i i mean if let's be honest if i will give them shout outs anytime if i i'm a i'm a big big fan of canva um let's see here okay people have asked about the thanking anonymous donors and like i said it's always nice to thank them but um but also you want to acknowledge there are people who just don't want to get the thank yous they don't want to get any of that so some of this you have to kind of see who it is and judge it but i think everybody wants to know that their donation made an impact so anything that you can create that um shows them at least that that will be a big thing um i hopefully i will have this recording out by the end of this week so you can get that later and there we go i think i went through everything that was in chat let me look up um the questions in the q and a during the holidays what are your thoughts about giving gifts to donors what about certain levels tokens gifts i there are some organizations where they've really done a great job with um you know that that kind of giving the gift to get donations and then there's ones where i'm like do we really need another mug or a keychain or any of that and a lot of people don't want that they want their their money to go to the cause so anything that you can do that is um creates impact or it creates marketing for your organization i i know some places those t-shirts that that they end up giving out it it really they those t-shirts get worn and they're really truly used and you know i know i've seen live united t-shirts all over the place um for united way and they and i feel like that's definitely something that people will will think about and and wear quite often um but then i also i i know for myself i have drawers and drawers of t-shirts from all the nonprofits that i've helped and so some so it's really kind of a decision that you guys would make um i think for most people they give the gift not for to get a gift back they give the gift because they want to make a different at the organization and anything you can do that really showcases that um that difference that they are making and they're they're able to impact their community that's the most important thing that you can give to somebody versus a gift card or anything else um once again i will have a video ready for everyone do you have some letter samples and and yes um i i was just talking to um somebody else on our team and i i was just saying that i'm going to send a follow-up email and i wanted to get the end of year writing samples um templates for for that so i will that will be a part of the email that i will follow up on also check out our blogs at any time i know that the blog that when we were talking about this that the blog was just posted um but it's it's all it we have a bunch of um not only giving Tuesday templates but also end of year giving templates and i'll make sure that that link is attached to my follow-up email um sorry i i always am clicking on the wrong things um anything that you guys can do to um to get influencers to to help get your mess amplify your messages out there that's definitely something that you can do um to help uh stand out with um the end of year giving so terry i really like this is is that just having um your board like putting a post out there is great putting a post out there and then and then writing to all of your board members and volunteers and staff and just saying hey everybody if you can share our end of year giving post that i just posted on facebook or twitter or whatever it is that you're using you know you um that it makes it a really easy way for people to make a difference at your organization without making a donation literally all they're doing is sharing a post but by getting that by having these people share these posts and put their own personal spins and their own personal stories two things it just amplifies your message gets it out there and hopefully will get you more donations so thanks terry um and then as i said it the the presentation will be downloadable and it will be uh recorded and sent to you so um along with slide deck so that will all be there and um and there we go so if anybody else has any questions at all for me um let me know um and and i will be sending a follow-up email that will give you guys lots of hopefully not only just the video and the slide deck but some um some other resources that will help you with your end of year giving and um and and anybody one of the benefits i know we were just talking about benefits for advanced and accelerated subscribers versus non-subscribers but one of the benefits is you get to talk to me um so actually i am a resource for our advanced subscribers and accelerated subscribers i um i hope with their onboarding once they get the they get a subscription but i also am definitely um people set up strategy calls with me all week long and we talk about things like creating peer-to-peer events uh campaigns how um they they might write to me and say we got a five thousand dollar gift that we're thinking about using as matching gifts for giving tuesday and the end of the year what would you suggest um and and we i like i said it's sometimes really nice to be able to just talk to somebody who's done fundraising for 20 plus years but also knows her way around mighty cause and has resources like i i'm not a mighty cause genius but i know a couple um so so we can definitely work together to make sure that um that uh you're strategizing for the end of the year so definitely if you're an advanced subscriber um just reply to me and i'll send you my scheduler and we can make an appointment if you aren't an advanced subscriber i would love to have you in our fold and um i would love to be able to talk to you but you can always get a demo of our advanced subscription tools uh in the meantime as well as try out our advanced tools for um a two week free trial so hopefully i was able to answer a lot of your questions hopefully you guys are going to have an amazing end of year campaign and uh look for my email and thanks again for stopping by all right good luck everyone bye