Real Deal Fundraising
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Subscribe
  • Products
  • About
    • Services
    • Consulting
    • Connect
    • Testimonials
  • SmartStart

Nonprofit Productivity: Time Management Tips for Fundraisers

1/7/2025

0 Comments

 
Picture

Start-of-Year Advice to Stay Organized and ProductivE

As a fundraiser, I have never felt like there was enough time to get everything done. I’d often start the day with the best of intentions, focused on raising money and cultivating donor relationships—the "main thing" in our work. But then, other tasks would creep in: emails, scheduling, reports, and urgent but less critical projects. Over time, I learned to shift my approach, adopting strategies that helped me stay focused on what truly matters while keeping everything else under control. Here’s what I discovered that transformed my productivity and mindset.

Leveraging Virtual Tools for Engagement

One of the biggest lessons from recent years is how much technology can simplify donor engagement while saving time. Here are my go-to virtual tools and strategies:

Zoom for Donor Meetings
  • Use Zoom (or a similar videoconferencing software) for efficient 1:1 major donor conversations. A video call can create a personal connection without the time and cost of travel. Many donors appreciate this since it is saving the organization money.
  • Coordinate small group meetings with donors and organizational leaders, like the president or executive director. These virtual roundtables help build relationships while respecting everyone's schedules.
​
Blast Emails That Feel Personal
  • Take advantage of bulk email that looks more like a simple Outlook or Gmail email to set up discovery visits or follow-ups. Crafting messages that feel personalized (even in bulk) increases your response rates and saves you hours compared to calling donors individually.

Read More
0 Comments

In-Depth: The 5 pillars of annual giving that should drive your phonathon strategy

6/29/2016

 
In order to have a productive phonathon program, it is necessary to begin by answering the question: “Why is phonathon an important vehicle for fundraising?” Answering this question will provide clearly articulated goals that will help guide and drive fundraising philosophy.  
 
Phonathon is an important vehicle for annual fundraising because it uniquely provides: 
  1. Lead Generation: To feed the major gift pipeline, generating leads and cultivating donors year to year;
  2. Dollars and Donors: To generate dollars for philanthropic needs of your institution and provide the personal touch that goes beyond other vehicles that retains donors from year to year;
  3. Acquisition: To acquire new donors and expand the donor base, increasing participation in the life of your institution;
  4. Data Enrichment: To regularly update demographic information both through research and direct from the prospects over the phone; and
  5. Public Relations: To foster good feelings among your alumni and educate them regularly about philanthropy.
I submit that these five pillars should drive the strategy of any phonathon. However, underlying all of this must be a focus on efficiency and budgetary constraint. Phonathon should be treated as business endeavor. Therefore, it must be profitable. This means utilizing effective and proven strategies to grow fundraising results while still cutting costs.

The five pillars listed above provide a framework for decision-making about all annual giving vehicles and thinking about how your phonathon accomplishing each of these goals will help phonathon managers and annual giving directors to lobby for the phone program, advocating for its many strategic uses throughout the year.

When you are talking with decision makers around campus, make sure you don't just focus on the dollars that you phonathon raises. Make sure you show how many new major gifts that year began as annual fund gifts. Make sure you note how many addresses you updated and emails you acquired. Make you tell how many new donors and alumni you got to make their first gift. And make sure you cite how many conversations happened (whether or not they resulted in a gift). It is almost always true that phonathon talks directly to more constituents of a university than any other single entity on campus. Make you also mention how many student jobs your call center provides. Give a holistic picture of all that a phonathon program adds to the life of your institution.
Picture
    Picture

    Jessica Cloud, CFRE

    I've been called the Tasmanian Devil of fundraising and I'm here to talk shop with you. 

    Subscribe

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016

    Categories

    All
    Advancement Services
    Alumni Relations
    Annual Giving
    Apps
    Asking
    Board Relations
    Books
    Branding
    Budget
    Caller Training
    Career
    Case Building
    CFRE
    Communications
    Contact Rates Series
    Covid19
    Crisis Response
    Dance
    Data Integrity
    Data Research
    Development
    Digital Fundraising
    Direct Mail
    Donor Events
    Donor Relations
    E Books
    E-books
    Email
    Fiscal Year End
    Flash Mob
    Free Resources
    Fundraising
    FUNdraising Friday
    Geekery
    Giving Days
    Giving Societies
    Giving Tuesday
    Graphic Design
    Impact
    In Depth
    In-depth
    Interview
    Irarollovers
    Lobby
    Love Your Career
    Major Gifts
    Management
    Motivation Mondays
    Nonprofit Leadership
    Online
    Phonathon
    Planned Giving
    Productivity
    Public Speaking
    Quizzes
    Recurring Gifts
    Self Care
    Social Media
    Stewardship
    Strategic Planning
    Student Debt
    Team Building
    TED Talks
    Telefund
    Thoughts For Thursday
    Thoughts-for-thursday
    Travel Hacks
    Travel-hacks
    Trip Planning
    Tuesdays Tip
    Tuesdays-tip
    Video
    Work From Home
    Young Alumni

    RSS Feed

What Folks Are Saying

 Jessica has been a wonderful colleague and mentor over the years.  In the beginning of my annual giving career, I found her expertise, experience and willingness to help, invaluable.  Her advice and custom phonathon spreadsheets had a direct impact on our phonathon’s success and my ultimate promotion.  As I progress in my career, I continue to value her insight and professionalism." 

​- Ross Imbler, Director of Annual Giving, Lewis and Clark Law School
 Ross Imbler

Contact Us

Photos from ZERGE_VIOLATOR, FindYourSearch, Teddy Mafia, slightly everything, COD Newsroom, Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis, smoorenburg, derrickbrutel, Matthew Paul Argall, TP studio, craiglea123, wuestenigel, davidmulder61, baranco1, Editor B
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Subscribe
  • Products
  • About
    • Services
    • Consulting
    • Connect
    • Testimonials
  • SmartStart