With the holidays behind us and a new year ahead, it’s certainly not too early to start thinking about your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy for this year. Perhaps you spent some time at the end of 2022 considering how to take your organization to the next level, or maybe it’s item number one on your January to-do list. Either way, let’s spend some time considering a few strategies you might want to implement this year and, specifically, how Atticus can help.
Look Back.
To start, you may want to do a bit of reflection — a thorough review of last year. What worked? What flopped? Are there things your team meant to implement but simply didn’t have the capacity for? These are all things you’ll want to consider as you draft your plan for 2023.
Where strategies worked and are reasonable to repeat (an email campaign, an annual gala or walk to raise money, etc.), do that! Your time is limited and valuable and you’re wise to recycle the things that have proven historically successful. There is likely no need for your plan to include 100% new tactics.
That being said, as you review your 2022, think about what you do want to change or add. Begin by being realistic and asking yourself which of these things your team truly has the bandwidth to take on and give the full effort required.
When you make some decisions on this front, next you’ll want to start planning. Yes, now! Go ahead and create a calendar or plan of some sort, use your project planning tool — whatever your nonprofit uses to stay organized. It doesn’t necessarily matter how you do it so much as it matters that you develop a plan early that is realistic and that you’re able to fully commit to. It’s crucial that your team knows ahead of time what’s expected of them, who is responsible for what, and when their deadlines will be.
One note on this: In this planning, make sure to include a plan for collecting data on and evaluating any new strategies or events you plan to execute. Having a plan in place for this will allow you to more effectively determine what worked, what didn’t, and where you might make some tweaks next time.
Utilize Your Data.
In addition to reviewing your strategies from last year, you’ll also want to spend some time reviewing your donor database. Let’s face it — these can get clunky and cluttered, which makes them a hard tool to use effectively, but it’s essential that you do.
You’ll want to look at who your consistent donors, major donors, and inactive donors are. This should narrow your focus a bit and help you in deciding how to target and build relationships with your active givers, and what type of new donors you may want to seek out.
How Atticus Can Help.
This is where Atticus is primed to step in and help. You may start looking at your list of donors and realize that it’s lacking — you’d like to expand it. Or, although you see a few names of people who you know have major giving capacity, you suspect there are many more in your database that you simply haven’t identified. It could also be that you want to look for a whole new audience that is passionate about your cause.
In all of these scenarios, Atticus’s proprietary technology can make the difference. As you help us to understand your organization’s mission, vision, and values, we’ll help you identify new and existing donors who care about your cause and have the ability to become major donors for your organization. That’s a win for your organization and for potential donors looking to give their money to the causes they care most about.
Atticus brings a human face to the data in front of you. We deliver insights that amplify your know-how with know-who, what, and when – surfacing the things you have in common, like people and places, to help you make new connections. From there, your people can do what they do best—build relationships, raise funds, and keep empowering your organization to do good.
We know taking the leap to try a new strategy and platform can be daunting but taking your organization to the next level will likely include trying something new, and we are confident that Atticus can help take you there. Join us in changing the game of fundraising in 2023.
