Non-profit friends: the struggle is real in January and February. Everyone is picking themselves up from the end-of-the-year-hustle and cautiously but optimistically navigating donors and gifts in the beginning of the new year.  I’ve seen a lot of a new corporate giving trend happening, especially in Upstate NY, and I want to talk about it with hopes of letting my nonprofit friends exhale a bit.

When it comes to building relationships that can result in truly transformational gifts, you cannot do it alone. I know that when you work in the development office, and especially as the leader of that office or as a Gifts Officer, the perception is: "this is your job to do, not mine, right?" But if we've been in this field for a while or have had the chance to close some gifts, we know that our work just can't happen without partners.

There’s a great chance that your highest capacity prospects and donors are solicited every single week by an organization. For many places, development has grown to be made up significantly of mailings and events — it leaves individuals and businesses in a place to be asked all. of. the. time. 

If you're like us, you're wondering today how to spend the last 5 weeks until year-end! Use this time to do a lot of outreach and communicate extremely intentionally to your prospects and donors -- after all, nothing is worse than getting an email from them about meeting before you could send that email yourself. 

We focus most of the work we do on major gifts, so we feel passionate about building relationships and having in-person meetings. Getting meetings always sounds easier than it sometimes is, though, right?

Some organizations are big and some are small; there are some more advanced than others when it comes to development. But despite size and experience, one opportunity for improvement almost always exists: the chance to get seriously organized when it comes to your prospects and data.