TIPS FOR THE NEW YEAR

Instead of resolutions to diet or exercise, my friend, Kathleen Reidy, Director of Communications for the Lake Bluff School District, and I came up with a few marketing and fundraising tips for you for the New Year:

1. Review and update your web site. Enhance or augment the content. Refresh images and graphics on a regular basis. Besides, the more you do online: blogs, surveys, articles, content changes, for example, the more you optimize your organization's site and the more people find it.
2. Is your fundraising plan in place? If not, checkout online resources and books to develop a condensed plan right now or, better yet, call me.
3. Use your database to best advantage. Segment your lists and create communication campaigns that pay the biggest dividends. Keep your organization uppermost with your target market segments.
4. Focus on what makes your cause or service or organization different or special. Find the one or two top points and then drive them home in all of your messaging.
5. Think about fundraising from the donor’s point of view:
• Is it meaningful? Does the request for funds matter to them. Are you changing your message for the appropriate groups? Do they get something from it (a membership, a feel-good feeling)?
• Is it easy to do? Online, use a credit card, tax donation receipt follow-up without being asked.
• Will they want to tell others? This is dependent on the first two.
6. Mix it up. Always doing the same thing and results are sliding? Try something new.