Re-Release: Five Things Every Fundraiser Should Do in the Summer

Jeff Schreifels 

Here in Philadelphia, when summer arrives, that means we’re deep in the summer season. With the heat, and the vacations, and the out of office messages, there’s just a different kind of rhythm during the summer. Especially in fundraising, where it’s not just that the office empties out. It can be tough to get a hold of your donors, too. So, where should you invest your time during the summer months when things may be a little less hectic? Today’s episode is a re-release of one of our most downloaded podcast episodes from a couple of years back, where Lisa and I shared five tips for how fundraisers can make the most of the summer season and set themselves up for a successful year-end.

Recorded 

Welcome to the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group featuring Richard Perry and Jeff Schreifels. Twice a month, we bring you the latest and best thinking about major gift fundraising so you can develop authentic relationships with your major donors. Here are your hosts, Richard and Jeff.

Jeff Schreifels 

Hi! And welcome to the podcast today. I’m Jeff Schreifels. And while Richard is off this week, I have the pleasure to introduce to you Lisa Robertson, who is a Client Learning and Experience Leader for us at Veritas. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Robertson 

It’s great to be here, Jeff. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah! You know, today’s topic is going to be fun. Because it’s all around what you can do during the summer to be successful as a frontline fundraiser. And since we just celebrated the summer solstice, yay, this is perfect timing. Now, we don’t want to overload you as the listener, so we prepared five things you can do now, so that you’re ready for the year-end.

Lisa Robertson 

Yeah, that’s right, Jeff. And this is a really good time to start preparing, even though it seems far away for the fall and the year-end giving season. So let’s talk about the first one. Now is really the time to look at who’s on your caseload and who you can connect with directly this summer. Especially if you’re going to prepare and you’re going to get ready for an ask in the fall or the end of year. And you may have donors who are snowbirds, and now is a great opportunity to see them or you know, maybe they just prefer an outdoor visit. And it’s a great time to get outside right now. So it’s a good time to connect. And they sometimes have freer schedules in the summer.

Jeff Schreifels 

I mean, that’s what I’ve also seen, too, is donors are more relaxed… we’re all more relaxed in the summer for some reason, right? You take more vacations, all of that. And it’s a good time to connect with some of those donors that you might want to do something different with. Like, you know, sometimes, like, go to a ballgame, or you know, different activities that you wouldn’t normally do outside of the summertime. Alright, so number one is figure out which donors to connect with this summer. That’s what you need to look at. Look at all those donors in your portfolio: who can I connect with in a different way this summer?

Jeff Schreifels 

The second thing you should be doing as a frontline fundraiser is take a good look at your caseload. And summertime is a great time to look at that portfolio as a mid-year review, and do an assessment of your donor and refresh your caseload. Right, Lisa?

Lisa Robertson 

Yep, that’s right. And we talk about refreshing the caseload and we say like every six months. So you know, if you’re on a calendar year, this is the time, right? So I counsel all of my MLOs and MGOs to really look at and spend time during the summer, looking at caseload and deciding if some donors should come off. And if they’re, or if they should move somewhere else in the pipeline, right? So if they’re MLOs, are there folks that we’ve been kind of hanging on to that we need to move up? If they’re MGOs, should we move them to MLOs, that sort of thing. So we kind of figure out where we are in the cycle of the program, and some donors might move off or move up, or move over.

Lisa Robertson 

There’s only two caveats to that. And the first one is, if summer is your fiscal year-end, it is good to do the cleanup, but pay some attention to your calendar year-end donors. And what I mean by that is sometimes, maybe they gave, just since it’s 2021, at the end of ’19, and you’ve had really good connections, but they didn’t give at the end of ’20 or during ’20 during the pandemic and your fiscal year ends in June. You might be thinking, now I need to move them. Well, maybe you give them another six months, right? Maybe you give them through year-end, because that’s when they’ve traditionally given. So that’s one caveat. And then the other is, if you have a new mid-level program. We really like to encourage that for the first year, that caseload stays as static as possible. Obviously, we move people off if they want out of the program and we move them up to major gifts or over to major gifts when it’s time, but if it’s your first year, don’t get too excited to move people off if they don’t connect right away. You know, give them more than six months.

Jeff Schreifels 

Yeah. Okay, great. So now, our third suggestion is to take summertime and get creative and try something new with the donors. Something we can get into sometimes, I mean, we can get into ruts, right? We’re doing these things. And we are following our plan. And sometimes it can just feel like we’re just, all we do is just follow that plan to the tee. And we can get rigid with our plans. So, this is a time to be spontaneous or creative with donors. So Lisa, what are some things your frontline fundraisers have done to be creative with donors during this time?

Lisa Robertson 

Right. Well, I loved your idea of going to a ballpark. Now all I can think of is baseball. But you know, one thing that I learned from our colleague Diana is to ask a good, what we call, a pull question (p-u-l-l) when you’re sending an email or leaving a message. And what I mean by that is, a lot of times we talk about our organizations, and this is maybe asking a question that is a little bit off topic, perhaps. Right? So let’s say you’re a cancer organization, and your touch point is about being careful in the sun and maybe then for your pull question you ask, you know, “What are your vacation plans?” Or even something innocuous, like, “What’s your favorite kind of sunscreen? Mine’s Banana Boat.” You know, that kind of thing. So it sounds funny, but I think… you and Richard shared a blog recently where they were talking about how this mundane question like, “Do you prefer vanilla or chocolate?” So those strange questions that we think, “That has nothing to do with us,” but it draws people’s attention and gets someone to be like, “I want to tell you that my favorite is chocolate!”

Jeff Schreifels 

I know, it’s true. Yeah, people do that.

Lisa Robertson 

Yeah, so that’s one really good one is to think about some, you know, creative questions you can ask this summer. And then, you know, some donors, they’re feeling more comfortable with visits, right? They’re kind of coming out. We can get outdoors more. And so maybe do think of a fun and different way. Like take a picnic or go… I had a fundraiser do a driveway visit, you know, and the donor was on her porch, and the MGO was in the driveway. They brought her some flowers, and they shared like a glass of champagne, you know, 20-feet apart, basically. But it was fun.

Lisa Robertson 

And then, since it’s a slower time of year, it’s a good time to do some fun research. Like, can you discover new and different things about your donors? And just, you know, don’t make this into a multi-hour project. But take 15 minutes and research three to five donors and figure out, you know, can you figure out their anniversary of giving? And then really make that a good touch point. Or even do some online sleuthing, and you might find something fun. I have MLOs and MGOs that are discovering interesting life details that way. One discovered that her donor is the CEO of this great company, that’s woman-run, and she found this television interview on YouTube. And so she was able to then say, “I saw your interview. I love what you had to say about women in leadership.” So it’s that sort of thing where you’re like, you know, you’re not stalking them and saying, “Hey, I saw your kids,” but you’re finding things to say, “Oh, I saw you went to Ohio State,” or you know, something that you can relate to and say, “I did too.” Yeah.

Jeff Schreifels 

I love those. That’d be awesome. Yeah, I mean, get creative. All right. So this fourth one is more about you, the fundraiser. Right?

Lisa Robertson 

Yeah. And I think that because it’s a little bit of a slower time, and you’ve encouraged us inside of Veritus, to take some time and do some things that really build you up and learn something new that will support your work. So maybe take an online course, or attend a conference, or choose something that really fulfills you, and helps you take your skills to a new level.

Jeff Schreifels 

I know. It’s really important for you to take that time for personal development and summer, I think, can be a great time to do that. And that leads me to our fifth and final recommendation, and that is to make sure you take time to rest and prioritize self-care. I don’t know about you, Lisa, but I love taking what I call mini-breaks during the… you know, like, maybe I’ll take the Friday off. Or I’ll take the Monday off. Or I’ll take Wednesday, Thursday off, or something like that. And then I like to take one, at least one long vacation, at least ten days during the summer. So I mean, there’s different ways to do that. But I think it all depends on who you are as a person, but you have to do it. Right?

Lisa Robertson 

Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think you know, we say that this is the best job in the world in fundraising, but it’s also really hard work. And there’s a lot of demands on us, and deadlines, and a lot of headaches. And so you just need that time off, right? You need to reset so that you don’t burn out. And figure out what feeds your soul, right? So if it is time off, and then how do you re-energize? Is it quiet? Is it mountains? Is it ocean? Is it a few days? Is it long days? Just figure that out. And then, do it. Because we see so many fundraisers who don’t take that time, because it’s just, you know, so much to do. But then they pay for it later. And we don’t want that for anybody.

Jeff Schreifels 

Exactly. Well, our time is up, Lisa. It was great to have you with me to talk about what we should all be doing this summer. Thank you for being here. And I wanted to let everyone know that our next Certification Course for Major Gift Fundraisers starts August 30th. But if you register before July 31st, you can save $200 off, and I think that’s a pretty good deal. So just go to veritusgroup.net and click on our training tab and you’ll find the course right there. I would love to see you in class. Well, thanks for joining Lisa and me today, and we’ll see you next time.

Recorded 

Thank you for joining us for the Nothing But Major Gifts podcast from Veritus Group. Richard and Jeff also write an ongoing blog that you can subscribe to for free at veritusgroup.net. Please join us again next time.