If your charity has put fundraising on hold, or if you feel like you have not done enough to reach out to your donors or volunteers, your perfect opportunity is around the corner - Thanksgiving. At a time when it looks like Thanksgiving will not be the usual gathering of family or friends, this is a perfect moment to connect to those who care about your charity.

With Thanksgiving a few weeks away, this is an opportunity to catch-up on donor stewardship, thank volunteers or otherwise be in touch. Also, since times are tough, people are not looking for anything fancy from you, a simple, sincere outreach is enough.

Here is an easy way to do something impactful this fall.

1) Identify the most important strategic goal you need to accomplish between now and December 31. For examples, are you looking to stay in touch with you largest donors? Making sure that your volunteers feel connected to your cause? By connecting your strategy to your Thanksgiving action, you can plan easily.

2) Determine who is the key audience to help you meet this strategic goal. For instance, are you laying the groundwork for a year-end ask? Ensuring that your volunteers will still be with your organization when you move back to in person programming in the future?

3) Determine your definition of success. Is success hearing back from 2 people? Is it simply doing a touchpoint with your top 20 donors?

4) Figure out how much you can reasonably do. If you can only call 5 donors, then don’t set yourself the task of calling 10. If you can only send out 10 cards, pick the 10 that most closely fit your strategy.

5) Get help. This is a great activity to involve your Board members in. It is high impact and easy to do. This is your chance to get your Board to dip a toe into helping you with fundraising by asking them to help you steward donors.

6) Good enough is good enough. Times are stressful. Don’t feel that you need to do it all. Even getting out 5 calls or 5 thank you notes is better than nothing.

Times are hard so this is the perfect time to reach out to donors and volunteers. They will be grateful for your call and you will be cheered by your efforts.

 Ann Rosenfield has been a fan of Thanksgiving for years. She works as a direct fundraiser as well as Editor of Hilborn Charity eNews.

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