[A Plan You Can Defend] Episode 3: Make It Balance, Then Make It Official
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A fundraising plan has to balance on three things: dollars, hours, and dates.
Read more[A Plan You Can Defend] Episode 2: The Plan Has to Fit the People
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Riverbend's first draft plan looked great on paper. Then Dana counted the hours and put every ask on one calendar.
Read more[A Plan You Can Defend] Episode 1: Start With What Actually Happened
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Most fundraising plans are last year's calendar plus hope. In the first episode of A Plan You Can Defend, a three-part series on building next year's fundraising plan, we follow Dana and Joanne at Riverbend Community Food Pantry into their planning day.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 7: Keep the Donors You Just Found
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It's the first Monday in January. The pantry is quiet, and Dana is looking at a printout of about two hundred new donors with two feelings at once: gratitude that they showed up, and a little dread, because she knows how often first-time donors never give again.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 6: The Last 72 Hours
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It's December 15, a little after four in the afternoon. Dana clicks schedule on the last of her final-week emails and heads out for the holidays.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 5: Giving Tuesday Without the Noise
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It's the Monday before Thanksgiving, and Dana has eleven emails in her inbox with Giving Tuesday in the subject line. None of them are from donors.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 4: Your Year-End Email Calendar
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Last year, Dana was at her kitchen table at 9:30 on the night of December 18, writing an email that had to go out at eight the next morning. This year she's writing that email in the first week of November, when she's rested and has time to think.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 3: One Person, One Problem, One Gift
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Dana's first draft of the year-end letter opened with "Riverbend Community Food Pantry is pleased to share" and a number about pounds of food. It was accurate, and it wasn't going to move anyone sitting at a kitchen table with a stack of mail.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 2: Build an Offer Donors Can Finish
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Dana laid last year's year-end letter on Marcus's desk. Across the top it said, "Help us fight hunger in our community." She asked him one question: "If you got this in the mail, how much would you give?" He honestly didn't know.
Read more[Year-end] Episode 1: Start with the Math
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It's the first week of October, and Dana at Riverbend Community Food Pantry has last year's $210,000 total on one side of her screen and a blank year-end calendar on the other.
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