August 12, 2020 | Read Time: 6 minutes
In this week’s edition of Ask an Expert, we answer reader questions about navigating year-end giving in a year of compounding crises.
Laurence Pagnoni, chairman of the LAPA fundraising consultancy, and Kristin Wiggins, head of development at Father Joe’s Villages, a homeless-services charity in San Diego, provide the answers.
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This spring we lost a few big gifts to donors pivoting their giving to urgent community needs such as homeless services. My challenge is making a case that our needs are urgent as well but that we’re still strong and weathering the storm.
— Development director for a private Jewish high school in California
This is a real concern for many organizations, Wiggins says. Early on, many donors’ initial reaction was to support frontline organizations such as food banks. Now people are realizing that “the Covid crisis has impacted everybody” and will continue for many months to come.
She suggests doubling down on communication about how your organization has pivoted its programs and services and remains committed to meeting its mission despite the crisis. In the case of education, that might mean paying for increased expenses to bring students back to the classroom or ensure students have the materials and technology they need to continue learning from home.
Your messaging should emphasize that “what you do and how you serve your community is critical and needed,” she says. “Remember that your donors who cared about you in February care about you now. Show them again that you are strong. You will get through this, but only with their help.”
With many offices closed and people working from home, will there be a shift away from hard-copy year-end appeals? And should there be? Are people thinking about direct-mail pieces differently this year?
— Senior development officer at a public-policy organization
For months now, charities have been grappling with how the pandemic may require shifts in direct–mail strategy. But when it comes to year-end, the short answer is that direct mail is essential and still effective for many charities, Pagnoni says. Still, he expects some charities will see a higher rate of returned mail for addresses where the business or organization have closed during the pandemic.
One of his client organizations is working to comb through its donor list to identify which businesses are closed. They’re contacting those supporters by email to ask for a better address. “That took a lot of work, but it’s worth it,” Pagnoni says.
Direct mail is still producing significant returns, especially for larger nonprofits, he notes. Smaller organizations might find the scale of their direct-mail program challenging. Sometimes, without enough volume, the returns don’t justify the costs. But, he says, if you work to expand your list, clean it up, and keep it up-to-date, you may see strong results.
Wiggins advises charities to be mindful about when their mail will land in donors’ mailboxes.
“This being an election year, there will be a lot more mail that people are receiving leading up to Election Day,” she says. “If you can time yours to come right after Election Day, in that first week of November, that may help with how long it takes to get through the bulk mail system.”
Some groups report delays in mail delivery through the U.S. postal service. Wiggins says her organization has not experienced that but recently switched to a local vendor to manage printing, production, and mailing. “Moving to the local vendor helped a lot because it sped up the time of when that piece was produced and when it landed in the mailboxes of our donors,” she says.
Can you share some sample language or just describe how a fundraiser or a nonprofit might describe the Cares Act’s impact on charitable deductions to a donor? How might they do that in an appeal?
— Executive director of a therapeutic horseback riding organization
Nonprofits have long asked Congress to extend charitable deductions to people who don’t itemize their tax returns — now about 85 percent of Americans since the passage of the 2017 tax law. In April, Congress did that, allowing taxpayers who don’t itemize their deductions to claim up to $300 in charitable gifts for the 2020 tax year. (See our primer on how the $300 “universal“ deduction works.) Donors who do itemize can now claim cash contributions up to 100 percent of their adjusted gross income on their 2020 returns, up from 60 percent.
Pagnoni says that some of his clients have created small boxes on their websites and in their appeal letters that describe the changes. “Your job is to just inform the donor about the law and what it provides,” he says.
Pagnoni says a sample description could read something like this: “This year because of the Covid-19 emergency, the federal government approved legislation called the Cares Act. This means that a charitable deduction is unlimited for your 2020 tax returns. If you don’t itemize, you can take up to a $300 deduction for cash gifts to public charities.”
In a recent survey of fundraisers, nearly 44 percent said they had mentioned the new universal charitable-deduction provision of the Cares Act in their fundraising solicitations.
We’re hoping to cultivate new major donors from our existing donor base. Do you have any tips or advice about cultivating folks who are existing donors for higher levels of giving? How can we cultivate those donors who might have come in as a first-time donor during the crisis?
— Development associate at a regional conservation organization
The key is to be very familiar with your donor list and to mine your data, Wiggins says. Every week, the development team reviews a report that details each gift of at least $500. “Essentially, we’re making sure that all donors of $500 or more are getting a personal contact by a member of the team, whether that’s a phone call, a note that is sent to them, or an email that thanks them.”
Her colleagues are looking for clues that suggest someone has the potential to give more. Father Joe’s Villages considers someone a major donor who gives at least $5,000 annually.
For example, fundraisers may flag someone whose first-time gift was $1,000 or more or someone whose giving in 2019 totaled $500 but they just made a gift of $2,000, Wiggins says. “It’s about mining the donor data and looking for those cues that suggest to you that someone is particularly interested in supporting you now and that they’ve given some indicators that they have the ability to do that.”
Note: Pagnoni and Wiggins shared more advice about shaping year-end fundraising strategy during a recent webinar. Buy it now to watch their presentation on demand.
