Just a year ago I posted here about launching an appeal to your donors as summer approaches.

This concept is based on the assumption that you have a Christmas or holiday season appeal in November – December that’s tried and true. But you have been reluctant to send a second or third appeal to your file out of fear that you’ll turn your donors off and they’ll never give again.

Let’s get over that hurdle right here and now. If you have a compelling story to tell your donors will listen and respond. Well. A significant number will.  Some may be turned off, and tell you they only want to hear from you once a year and that’s at holiday season. That’s just fine. But that doesn’t speak for all your loyal donors who are ready to help if you’re ready to ask.  Here are some update pointers on the subject:

Summer is almost upon us, and the living is easy. In some respects.  If you don’t do a mid-year appeal to your donor list, I recommend that you consider doing it this summer.  And, if you took my advice last year and did a summer appeal, it’s time to do it again.

Most nonprofit organizations do their direct response (mail, e-mail, social media) appeal to donors near the Christmas holiday. The competition for your donors’ attention is quite strong at that time of year. Many people, particularly women age 55 and over, donate to five, six, seven charities and don’t necessarily give to the same group every year during that Thanksgiving – Christmas interval.

Summer provides an opportunity to appeal to your loyal lapsed donors.  Some of you might consider prospecting for new donors this time of year. But in this blog post, my focus is on messages about your mission and what you’re delivering to your clients/customers that your donors will welcome and might make a second gift.

Some things for you to consider in this appeal

• Make it part of a newsletter, or follow a few weeks after your newsletter informing friends and donors what your nonprofit has been doing to deliver service to people who benefit from your mission
• Focus the pitch on a message you used last holiday season, but which is worth reinforcing now
• Tell a compelling story about how a particular individual benefited recently from a service you provide
• In telling a story, be sure to either get written permission to tell it, or change the names to protect the innocent
• If there are long-time and big-time donors, consider making the ask in person

For those donors who did contribute to your last annual campaign, start with a “thank you.” Let them know that you know they did in fact give within the last twelve months. That you’re not pulling a fast one, tricking them into a second gift. That the purpose is to do more. Because there are people out there who aren’t feeling the benefit of the easing recession. There are still people getting foreclosed on their home. There are still millions of people doing part-time work, looking forward to the economy improving and getting back to working full time.

Those of us fortunate enough to be working, or retired with a pension and a bit of a cushion, might be ready to do a bit more.

And you won’t know the answer ’til you ask.

A great conversation was hosted by Chronicle of Philanthropy at noon Eastern Time today.  Gail Perry a fundraising consultant (she tweets as @GailPerrync) and Dan Bruer, a major gifts officer at League of Conservation Voters (email dan_bruer@lcv.org) were the featured lead discussants.  Raymund Flandez a staff writer at the Chronicle facilitated the conversation.

Gail and Dan kicked off the discussion asking us for questions and comments on the importance of good manners in the context of the “ask” meeting.  During the hour-long interaction, Raymund posted questions to participants and took polls on various issues around correct behavior when meeting with a donor, or a donor prospect.

Here’s a link to the welcoming page for this event:  http://bit.ly/JnaJbF.  I believe access is limited to subscribers, but you could check it out.

Among other things, we discussed if it’s proper both on an etiquette level and an ethical level to have a drink with a meal when meeting a donor, particularly when the purpose is to ask for a gift.  Interesting.

We also discussed “picking up the check.”  The majority on the call seemed to agree that we follow the donor’s lead on this. That if the donor wants to pay for lunch, realizing that development staff generally have an expense account and will charge the cost to the nonprofit we represent.  The donor may not want nonprofit funds to be used this way.  However, staff in the right circumstance can feel comfortable saying, “Thank you so much for your time, but in consideration of all you do for us, please let us pick up this check as a small thank you for your generosity.”

A very good session.  Well done, Gail and Dan!  And, of course, Raymund!

Today I’m singing the praises of George Weiner, CTO at dosomething.org.  George has produced and published a series of Prezis that do a remarkably efficient job of explaining some useful “how-to’s” when it comes to social media.  This link http://prezi.com/hmc_dmnfjjvw/what-does-the-data-say-tweets-into-action/ takes you to his Prezi “What Does the Data Say?” demonstrating moving Tweets into Action.  George takes the reader through steps thusly: Gather > Analyze > Act.  Check it out!  I think you’ll like it and how George goes about teaching us about potential from social media.  He tweets as @georgecaweiner.

Of course you were enthralled with my March 13, 2011 post, “Special Events That Fit” http://itstheresults.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=318&action=edit. So you know how to build a fundraising event that works for your nonprofit.

Today we’re going to take a look at how to build a following of participants and volunteers who get the “nudge” to be part of something successful that moves you closer to accomplishing your mission.

First and foremost, you and the event are well organized.  You’re working off a timeline with checklists and your committee knows that your nonprofit clients are counting on them to deliver so we get the max return possible.  We’re growing net revenue every year so we can deliver more mission to our primary customers.

Second, the committee, the board, the staff and friends of the event know the importance of engaging our networks. If we’re Facebook fans, we’ll use it to recruit more participants and ask others to pledge.  We’ll let colleagues at work know we’re “all in” for this event, and hope they’ll catch the enthusiasm you have and want to help out in some way. Volunteer. Donate. It all works.  And if there’s a newsletter, we plug the event at least once if not twice in the company newsletter.

Third, we have incentives and a recognition plan that add to the fun and attract more people to be a part of it.

The object here is, once the event is over and we’ve reported our financial results, people who participated will look back fondly on the experience and park a spot in their brain and in their heart for next year’s event.  Which, of course, will be bigger and better than ever!

Last week I wrote about fundamentals for Major Gift success:

• Annual fund donor database with at least 20% renewal rate
• A senior staff member who gets how Development works
• A Development Committee with members who know and are connected to generous donors

If these three pieces are in place, you’re working from a base that can work for you.

And one of the key three is a Development Committee.  And if not that, a core of board members who have connections, who contribute to your annual fund, and advance your brand because they truly get the mission.  It’s entirely possible for a nonprofit to decide in 2012 that it wants to get to a Major Gift level and get very intentional about building resources (see bullets above) that will contribute to your first Major Gift campaign when you’re ready to go.  It might be 2015 or 2016 before you are ready.  But you can get there.  With a strong strategic platform to work from, the world will be your oyster.