Just like retail, many nonprofit organizations earn a lot of their income in the year-end and holiday season, some as much as 35% or more of the whole year’s fundraising income.  Year-end giving, annual funds, and board appeals a big earners for many NPOs, and year-end giving is popular among donors looking to offset their taxes.  This year a lot of people are nervous about fundraising in a down economy, but this note at philanthropy.org suggests that things have to get a lot worse before giving drops significantly:

But based on IRS tax-return statistics, Mr. Sharpe notes, giving as a percentage of income by most Americans held steady at 1.8 percent throughout the Depression and in some cases even went up slightly.

At Firstgiving, we’re running a sale on our donation processing fees starting tomorrow through the end of the year to help our customers get a little extra out of these year-end giving campaigns.  From 11/21 through 12/31, we’re cutting our fee on direct donation in half, from 5% to 2.5%.  This sale applies to donations through any basic or premium start page, but not to donations through personal fundraising pages.  Credit card fees apply as usual.

The discount will be applied automatically, so all you need to do is start sending out your year-end appeal with a link to your Firstgiving start page, or with a link directly to the donate process - just right-click the “donate” button on your start page, and choose “copy link” or “copy shortcut” to find your direct donate URL.

Consider it our little stimulus package.  As always, drop us a line if you have questions.

Here are three things to keep in mind when doing a year-end appeal:

1. Make it real: Remind donors and prospects about the good you’ve done this year, and ask them for a contribution to help you continue to do good in 2009.  Be concrete about what benefit different donation amounts can deliver.
2. Make it brief: Remember how busy everybody is this time of year.  Be respectful of their time and get to the point.  But don’t be afraid to send a reminder or two.
3. Stress tax-deductibility: Year-end financial planning is more than just budgeting for holiday gifts, it also means looking over the whole year and planning for tax time.  Remind donors that charitable contributions can be tax-advantageous in many cases.  Always refer detailed questions to a tax professional.

Are you a travelblogger?  Or just full of wanderlust?  Need some long underwear for your next travel adventure?  Pam and some of her fellow travelbloggers have put together a travel-inspired initiative to raise money online for Heifer International.  Each 10 dollar donation to their fundraising page enters you into the raffle for one of the fabulous prizes you’ll find here. 

Passports with Purpose is also asking people to help them raise money online for the Heifer Fund, here’s how:

Provide a raffle prize and publicize it on your blog. You’ll do the legwork to provide the prize, either by buying or making it yourself or getting a donation. The goal? Something that’s worth at least 100USD. 

Spread the word! We need link love and publicity to sell as many raffle tickets as possible. Hey, they’re only 10USD, the prizes are great (so far, and they’re still coming in!) and Heifer is a great cause. Write a post about Passports with Purpose. Post our widget (—->). Tell your network. Blog. Tweet. Sing.

Buy a raffle ticket. Did I mention they’re only 10USD? Buy two. Or five. Whatever works for you.  At the end of the month, you could find you’ve won a Fabulous Prize.

 From the Extreme Fundraising Blog:

If you go to a practice of an NBA team like the Boston Celtics, guess what you’ll see these world champions doing? Lay-ups. Free throws. Passing drills.

The very same basketball basics they’ve been doing since elementary school!

It’s the same with raising money: if you’re not practicing the lay-ups, you’ll probably never make any amazing plays.

We couldn’t agree more.  For fundraising success in a tough economic climate, it’s important to keep your eye on the prize and invest deeply in your donors, supporters and fundraisers. 

Need help?  Putting together an event for next year?  Slides and audio from last week’s webinar, “9 things you can do now for 2009 fundraising event success,” are now up.  You can download them, too.  And as always, feel free to drop us a line if you have more questions.  We’d love to see you be a champion for your cause in 2009.

This morning I attended a breakfast hosted by The Children’s Room of Arlington, MA (check out their Firstgiving page).  The Children’s Room provides support for grieving children, teens and families.  Historically, they have funded their operations from a variety of sources, including individual donations and traditional fundraising events such as walkathons and auctions.

In this difficult economy, they are continuing to press forward; Executive Director Barbara Clarke has a bold vision that includes increasing the number of fulltime employees and the availability of their services.  She realizes that this vision requires more funding.  Instead of doing the “same old, same old” programs, The Children’s Room decided to try this morning’s fundraising breakfast (a good call as evening events are pretty challenging for me schedule-wise).  Corporate sponsors (special thanks to Millipore, Asera Care Hospice and the Boston Red Sox) covered the cost of the room and food–yes, there is still sponsorship money out there – you need to go get it!

Once in the room, I nibbled on breakfast while they shared their story.  It is simple and compelling: lives are turned upside down when a parent or sibling dies, and The Children’s Room is there to help with counseling.  After a couple of testimonials from parents and kids, they played a super compelling video.  There wasn’t a dry eye among the 200 attendees.  Finally, they shared their reasons for looking for more money and made their ask.  Suddenly my check, which was at the top end of my charitable giving scale, felt really small.  Chances are I’ll get a letter and make another year end donation.

So what did I learn from all of this?

• There is still money out there for corporate sponsorships.
• Person-to-person asks are still a very effective way to find new donors.
• A positive outlook is helpful to thrive in a down economy.

To Barbara, Kim, Mike and everyone at the Children’s Room thank you for asking and keep up the great work.  I am now a supporter for life.

Recently, our friend Michelle contacted us to let us know about a new online Cystic Fibrosis support group:

The support group provides information, resources, and a forum for those affected by the disease.

While our primary focus is fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis research and awareness, we’re glad Michelle gave us the heads-up on this one.  We constantly see community support for people affected by Cystic Fibrosis and other diseases happening in the comments sections of Firstgiving fundraising pages, and we know how important it is.  Thought some of you might be interested!

It’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and you’ve hit the wall: you have a case of writer’s block.  What’s a novelist to do? 

In anticipation of a mid-month lull, NaNoWriMo organizers have created a brilliant mini-event to help their marathon fundraisers push through the effects of writer’s block and on to success.   Tomorrow evening NaNoWriMo sponsors the Night of Writing Dangerously (so popular that registration is now full):

The Night of Writing Dangerously will be held from 6 PM to 11 PM on November 15, 2008. Eat great food. Drink great drinks. Take part in writing challenges and sprints with fellow participants and the NaNoWriMo staff, or just plug in the headphones and lose yourself in noveling abandon for five delicious hours.

The Night of Writing Dangerously is sure to get those brain waves moving again.  And since our last NaNoWriMo posting, Firstgiving fundraisers have been busy raising more money with their personal fundraising pages, bringing their fundraising total to almost $33,000!

Have fundraiser’s block?  Check out our free webinars and the Tips and Tricks section of our blog for ideas and inspiration for fundraising dangerously.

A while back we posted the fundraising success story of our friends over at TUT’s Adventurers Club when they finished a Firstgiving online fundraising campaign for Doctors Without Borders at $20,000. 

thoughts become things. . .

This month the Adventurers have teamed up with Firstgiving again, and November’s “Gifts from the Universe” are going to the National Arbor Day Foundation.  You can read more about TUT’s Adventurers Club and their “Gifts from the Universe” online fundraising projects here and on their fundraising page here.

If one person with one dollar can make a difference, think what 250,000 of us can do, each and every month!

After much brainstorming, tire-kicking, and soul searching we think we’ve got it!!! To celebrate all that we’re blessed with, TUT is launching our ‘Gifts from the Universe’ Project! The idea is to create an avenue for TUT’s Adventurers Club members to speak with one voice, one heart, and one focus by contributing $1 (or more if you can) per month to a designated “cause” in need of our support.

Here’s to another month of fundraising success!  We’re rooting for you,

Firstgiving.com.