Getting Started with Annual Giving
Welcome to Smart Annual Giving!
Whether you are working to improve your annual campaign, renew your lapsed donors, nurture major gift prospects, or produce a better annual appeal, you are in the right place.
We are here to help you BUILD an annual giving program that truly anchors your development efforts – annual giving that POWERS your mission.
First things first: What is Annual Giving?
Annual Giving ( or Annual Fundraising) is more than just a source of income each year from individual donors.
This is the definition that best defines our approach at Smart Annual Giving:
Annual giving is a strategically planned series of activities designed to establish and nurture a broad base of donor support that will ensure the fulfillment of an organization’s mission.
By nurturing long-term relationships with donors over time, annual giving programs ensure future resources for organizations.
Annual giving, when planned and executed strategically, is the primary source of future major gifts, capital support, and personal bequests – the very gifts that enable your organization to fulfill its mission.
Annual giving is not one annual appeal. It is also not just a year-end campaign. While these are important components of annual giving, they are just components – an important distinction.
An Invitation
I’d like to invite you to sign up for our free online mini-course, Jumpstart Your Annual Giving
that will get you started building a more powerful annual giving program. Over the next 2 weeks, we’ll share…
- the basics of what makes a strong annual giving program
- how to get started with donor segmentation
- how to create a donor cultivation plan to grow your donor base
- our annual giving assessment to determine the best place for you to start.
When you sign up for the course, you’ll also have access to the introductory annual giving academy with additional tools to help grow your annual giving.
It’s free and we hope you join us.
Learn more and register for free here
Premium Learning Tools
Our full length, multi-media online courses and our shorter online workshops provide in-depth, hands-on training:
Mid-Level Donor Workshop
Winter 2019 Session Now Enrolling!
The 2019 Donor Management Blueprint Course
This 4-module, multi-media course helps you create a simple system to retain and grow your donor base. Sign up here for 2019 enrollment announcements (and a special enrollment rate for list subscribers).
The 2019 Smarter Year-end Campaigns Course
Launches August 2019!
This 10-module course (launching in August 2019) guides you step-by-step through producing, managing and implementing a simple but highly-effective annual campaign including:
- direct mail appeal production (primary and secondary appeals)
- designing a 3-part email series
- incorporating social media into your campaign
- upgrading donors’ giving amounts
- thanking your donors so that they give again
- evaluating and measuring your campaign
Learn more and get on the list for our 2019 course launch
Frequently Explored Topics
To help you get started building your annual giving program, I’ve organized the best of Smart Annual Giving’s content into 4 primary learning categories:
Donor Retention
Thank You!
Thanks so much for visiting today. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments at dmehr@smartannualgiving.com.