If you’re raising funds on behalf of one of the many organizations rounding the corner into the public phase of a transformative campaign this year, congrats! Before you know it, you’ll be sprinting toward the finish line. And if you squint, you can even see the starting line for your next campaign barely visible on the horizon. (Take a deep breath. This is a good thing, trust us.)
Chances are good that a major donor to this campaign will be a lead donor to your next campaign. And many who are giving for the first time to this one will have the capacity to be major donors at some point in your next one. How are you optimizing public-phase tactics to do more than solicit your supporters? How do you delight, inspire, and celebrate every one of them?
We gathered a short list of some terrific tactics we’ve seen used toward this goal in recent campaigns (some are even tactics we created with our clients!) Take a look:
- Lehigh University’s Go Getters podcast, providing 30-minute donor-friendly deep dives into the innovations, creative work, and expertise embodied by Lehigh faculty, leaders, and students
- Northeastern University’s interactive and searchable mosaic of crowdsourced photos—released simultaneously with the campaign’s 48-hour, four-city global campaign launch
- Yale’s virtual campaign launch in 2021, extraordinarily inclusive of alumni taking part from their homes all over the world as well as faculty and students representing remarkable work—and accessible to everyone
- University of the Pacific’s campaign-themed alumni magazine, complete with an invitation to all alums to make (and share digitally) a bold statement about their purpose (See page 18!)
- Caltech’s digital campaign magazine, comprised of easy-to-use content modules that empowered innovation leaders and scientists to flex their storytelling muscles and share their enthusiasm—and their breakthroughs—with the world
What have you seen—or what are you working on—that deserves to be on a list like this? Reach out and let us know through our contact form. We’d love to talk shop with you!
Build for speed
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Why is speed important? Let’s get this out of the way: website page speed—having your web pages load quickly—is probably …
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