Making Year-End Fundraising Decisions with Clarity

In the next few months, your team will send more appeals, more videos, and more mail than at any other point in the year. So will every other organization sitting in your donors’ inboxes and mailboxes. More volume doesn’t win that window. Knowing who to reach, before deciding how, does.

That’s the idea behind this session. The sharpest teams don’t skip straight to the next campaign. They separate who’s actually ready to give again, upgrade, or become a sustainer from who simply looks capable on paper. Then they show up the way that donor actually wants to be reached: a face on screen for the moments that call for warmth, something in the mailbox for the donors who’d rather hold it than open it.

We’re telling this story through the fundraising teams already living it. You’ll hear how sharper prioritization helped one museum grow year-end revenue 94%, how pairing personal video and mail added $80,000 to another team’s campaign, and how one foundation keeps every channel working from the same answer to who, even for supporters scattered across time zones.

What You’ll Walk Away With

• A framework for separating who’s actually ready to give from who simply looks capable on paper
• A read on when a personal video earns its place in a campaign, and when something tangible in the mailbox does the better job
• Real numbers from this year’s fundraising teams already putting these practices to work
• A way to map your own fall calendar so the who decision happens before the channel decision, not after

Who Should Attend

• Fundraising leaders and annual giving officers building their Giving Tuesday or year-end calendar right now
• Prospect researchers and gift officers working in DonorSearch who want a clearer path from score to outreach
• Donor relations and stewardship staff working in ThankView who want to know where mail fits
• Anyone deciding where their team’s limited fall bandwidth should go first