Your donors are willing to give you more than they gave you last December.

How you ask decides whether they do.

Now through December 31st, we're on your team.

This year Chris Davenport and Josh Alcorn will work on your year-end campaign with you, so more of your donors give, and the ones who give, give more.

So here's what we're offering.

We sit at the table with you while your year-end campaign comes together, all the way through December.

We're Chris Davenport and Josh Alcorn. Chris founded the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference and has spent 19 years helping organizations raise more money. Josh co-produces the conference and hosts Tactical Thursdays, so you may have already spent a Thursday or two with him.

Working side by side with fundraisers like this is something we already do every week inside Nonprofit Storytelling Pro. Fundraisers get on Zoom with us, work on what they're about to send, ask questions as they come up, and get our help making their fundraising and donor communications stronger.

Year-End, Handled gives you that same kind of help, focused on getting your year-end fundraising built and out the door.

Your seat is open from the day you join through December 31. In that time, we’ll help you find the story, write your fundraising letters and emails, strengthen your donation page, and figure out which major donors to contact, what to ask them for, and how to approach them.

Come with a draft, a rough idea, or nothing but a date on the calendar. We’ll meet you where you are and work alongside you from there.

By the end of the year, your campaign will be finished, your donors will have heard from you and given, and you'll know you sent the strongest campaign you could.

"We followed Chris and Josh's advice and met our goal. In fact, we more than tripled, if not quadrupled, what the same campaign did last year."
~ Jenny Darlington-Person, Executive Director, Arts Council of Placer County

Bring us onto your year-end fundraising team.

Year-End, Handled

$3,800 or 4 payments of $995

Have a question or want to talk with us first?  Let's talk.

Six decisions that decide how much you raise

Most year-end campaigns are won or lost in a handful of decisions. These are the ones we help you get right.

The letter sounds fine.
There's nothing obviously wrong with it, and that's the problem. It sounds like an organization explaining its work instead of one person asking another person for help. A donor can agree with every word and still set it down. We find where your letter went flat and fix it.

Your donors understand. They don't care yet.
Understanding a need isn't the same as being moved to donate towards it. Most letters explain the problem well and then ask for a gift before the donor has a reason to care. Your loyal donors will give anyway. The gifts you're missing are from the people who needed to feel something first, and the bigger gifts your loyal donors might have made. We help you get more people to care and care deeper.

You wrote it to be read. Donors will scan it.
Donors see a headline, a few bold words, the first sentence, and maybe the P.S. What they read during those first seconds decides whether they read the rest and reach for their checkbook. We look at your letter the way a donor would and strengthen the parts that decide whether they keep reading and then give.

The offer is vague.
A donor is ready to give, but “support our year-end campaign” leaves them wondering what their gift will actually do. We help you turn that vague request into something real: Here’s the problem. Here’s what your gift can make possible. Here’s what we’re asking you to help do.

The ask got softened.
You've read your own letter so many times that being direct starts to feel pushy. So the ask gets qualified, moved down the page, wrapped in a sentence about how grateful you'd be. The donor reads it and isn't sure you meant it. We help you ask plainly without feeling rude.

You chose the story your organization loves.
The story you chose might show the size of the problem, or prove how well your programs work, or be the one everyone inside is proudest of. The story that impresses your team isn't always the story that moves a donor. We help you find the one that raises more money.

These are the decisions that shape the campaign. We'll tell you which ones are costing you gifts, and then we'll fix them with you.

"I followed the process, trusted the feedback, and it worked. The appeal had a monumental response. We got more checks, more forms back, gifts from people who hadn't given in years, and increased gifts from current donors."
~ Janet Kleyn, President & CEO, Agape Villages Foster Family Agency

We Get Your Campaign Started With You

On September 8 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific, we'll get together on Zoom for a Year-End Campaign Kickoff.

This is a working session, not another training. We'll help you figure out the story your campaign should be built around, what you're asking donors to help make possible, and how those pieces fit together. You can come with ideas already in place or start from scratch.

The goal is to leave the session knowing what your year-end campaign is about and having the Story and Offer you can use to start building your letter, emails, giving page, and other campaign materials.

And that’s just the start.

From there, we’ll keep working alongside you through the end of the year, helping you write, strengthen, and finish the fundraising your donors will actually see.

We're LIVE four days a week

Tuesdays: Reviews and Strategies

Open sessions with both of us. Whatever's in front of you is what we work on. Your plan, your story, your offer, your letter, your emails, your giving page, your major donor outreach. We talk it through, look at the work, and figure out the next move with you.

Other fundraisers are at the table too, and you can show up and just listen. It's common for somebody else to ask questions you didn't know you had.

Wednesdays: Write-It Wednesdays

Time on your calendar to actually write. You show up, you work, and we're right there when you get stuck. Most fundraising meetings send you home with more notes and less time. You'll leave this one with words on the page.

Thursdays: Tactical Thursdays

Every Thursday, Josh brings in a guest to share what they know and opens the conversation up for questions.

Tactical Thursdays is free. Anyone can join. We’re not pretending it’s an exclusive Pro benefit. We include it here because it adds something valuable to your time with us.

You’ll hear new ideas and perspectives from fundraisers, consultants, and other experts. Then, inside Pro, we can keep the conversation going. We can talk about whether an idea makes sense for your organization, how you might use it, and help you put it into practice.

It’s one more day each week when we’re in a room together, talking about fundraising and helping you do it better.

Fridays: Reviews and Strategies

Same as Tuesdays. Whatever's in front of you is what we work on. Your plan, your story, your offer, your letter, your emails, your giving page, your major donor outreach. We talk it through, look at the work, and figure out the next move with you.

Come to all of them, come to one, or skip a week when you're moving along fine on your own. There's no curriculum here to fall behind on.

Imagine Getting to Year-End With This Already Handled

Your campaign has a clear goal and a plan your board understands. You know what you're asking donors to make possible. You've found the story that makes people care before you ask them to give.

Your appeals are written, reviewed, and ready. Your emails are built around the same message.

Your donation page continues the story instead of sending donors somewhere that feels disconnected.

You know what is going out, when it's going out, and why.

You know which major donors you want to reach before year-end, what you want to talk with them about, and what you’re going to ask them to give.

And before your donors see any of it, you've had experienced fundraisers sitting beside you, helping you make it stronger.

You're not heading into the busiest fundraising season wondering whether you got it right.

You're heading into it with a campaign you've built carefully, people beside you when questions come up, and confidence in what you're sending.

That's what we mean by Year-End, Handled.

"Pro changed the way we approach fundraising. Before, every appeal felt like we were starting from scratch. Now our fundraising is easier, clearer, and more focused. We have a purpose behind what we're doing, a structure we can follow, and much more confidence. We don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we write an appeal."
~ Eric Steigerwald, Senior Director of Marketing & Program Development, Bring Magic to Kids in Hospitals

Story. Offer. Ask.

Everything we build with you runs on three questions.

Story. Why should this donor care?

Offer. What does their gift make possible?

Ask. What do you want them to do?

Campaigns usually skip the part about getting a donor to care.  And then organizations wonder why the Ask didn't work well. During your year end campaign, you'll use Story Offer Ask to write messages more of your donors will respond to.

Year-end won't be the only thing on your desk

Between now and December there'll be thank-you letters, monthly giving messages, major donor notes, event invitations, stewardship emails, landing pages, and a board presentation somebody dropped on you with a week's notice.

None of that gets set aside because we're working on the year-end campaign. If it's in front of you, we work on it with you. If you fundraise with it, we'll help you make it stronger.

Pro has helped us move toward a more donor-focused plan for our fundraising. We’ve improved our appeals and newsletters, added new things like urgent e-appeals and a gift catalog, and raised money in ways we had never tried before.
~ Kimberlee Casavan, Operations & Fundraising Manager, Copper River Watershed Project

Year-End Major Donor Plan

Year-end is also when you reach out personally to the donors who could give more.

We'll help you figure out which major donors to focus on, who should make the call, what the conversation should be about, what to ask for, and how all of it fits with the campaign you're already sending.

What you end up with is a plan your team can actually use in the last months of the year.

Who you're working with

Chris Davenport is the founder of the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference and author of Stories That Raise Money. For 19 years, he has helped nonprofit organizations use storytelling to raise more money and build stronger relationships with donors. He has trained thousands of fundraisers, but much of his work is also done sitting alongside fundraising teams, helping them find the right story, figure out what to ask donors to make possible, and turn those decisions into fundraising that gets sent.

Josh Alcorn has been raising money since his elementary school’s “Tags for Tots Coin Drive” in 1988. Since then, he’s raised money for schools, political campaigns, and charitable causes near and dear to his heart. He now co-produces the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference, hosts Tactical Thursdays, and spends much of his time working alongside nonprofit fundraisers as they figure out what to say, what to ask for, and how to make their fundraising stronger.

We read fundraising letters every week. Most of them break in the same few places, and we can show you where yours does before your donors ever see it.

Every organization at our table runs a year-end campaign, and every fall we work on them one after another. We know what the last eight weeks of the year feel like from the inside.

This is a good fit if

• You're starting your year-end campaign from a blank page
• You already have one and you know it could be better
• You want someone to look at the important pieces before they go out
• You'd rather have help when you need it than a course you have to keep up with
• You want to see how other nonprofits are solving the same problems you are

Your investment

Year-End, Handled. $3,800.
Or four payments of $995.

Chris and Josh are on your team from the day you join through December 31. Enrollment is limited because what you're buying is our time and there's only so much of it.

Not sure yet? If you'd like to talk with Chris or Josh before you decide, tell us a little about your organization and what you're working on. Let's talk.