Create Custom Receipt Maker Free for NPOs with Ease

Custom receipt maker free for NPOs

[Music] thank you so much for joining us today for this donorbox Academy webinar my name is Jenna and I am the nonprofit advocate here at donorbox and what that means if you're new to donorbox Academy is that my job is just to share really helpful educational resources and tools with you to empower you to fundraise better and today we also welcome Britain stalker our new f raising strategist here at Donner boox uh so everybody give her a warm welcome and she'll introduce herself later on during the presentation as well and for those of you who are not familiar with donor box we provide nonprofits with simple effective and affordable tools to manage their fundraising activities and connect with supporters on a deeper level to date we have helped over 880,000 organizations from all around the world raise over $2 billion in donations so you can learn more about us at donorbox.org now today I am really excited to talk about how to create a 2024 game plan for your nonprofit uh but before we do that just a couple of housekeeping items for you this session will be about an hour long total and we do have time A lot it at the end for Q&A and yes this webinar is being recorded I promise we will send you the link to the recording and links to the resources we mentioned after the webinar and by the way you guys we have so many resources to share with you today so get ready to click and download throughout this session and please feel free to drop questions in the chat throughout the session and we will be tracking those so that we can go back and answer as many as we can during Q&A so let's take a look at our agenda really quick let's see here so I am so excited to talk about all that's ahead in the next hour and spend this time with you first we're going to wrap up 2023 with those tax receipts and then we'll talk about uh reviewing your previous year of giving and then we will move into 2024 with a walkthr of goal setting and Communications planning and then Britain will tie everything up with a pretty bow with some fundraising trends that you can lean into in 2024 and we've got those practical actions that you can take away and Implement right after you get off the session so without further Ado I'm going to take a sip of water and we'll Dive Right In okay oh okay tax receipts you catch your breath a little right after the Sprint to your year end and before you can even get the hang of writing 2024 on everything instead of 2023 I've done this so many times already it's time to send your tax receipts right and your year end receipt or your donation receipt whatever you call it it's this overall formal acknowledgement of every donation given over the course of the year and there is a legal requirement that 501c3 organizations recognize all donations of more than $250 but we also have a responsibility to our donors to send them acknowledgements for their contributions and I just think that it's good practice to recognize all gift no matter how big or how small um not just over that $250 threshold and this is just a really great opportunity to set the stage for the coming year of gift giving and the receipt can be a mailed letter or an email with a PDF attachment and if you had something like an auction or a big giveaway this year you should disclose any goods or services that were received in exchange for their contribution um and an estimate of their fair market value for for those items right and a tax receipt can be boring for sure I promise I'm gonna try to make this section as exciting as possible uh but since you're putting in the time and effort to create something for your donors you want to take this as an opportunity to make your donor feel your gratitude right it's like saying hey we see you we appreciate you and show them the impact of how their gifts were put to work for the better right but first before we dive in I've got a poll question for all of you that I'm going to launch now so please take a moment to answer that and I'll give you just a few seconds how do you distribute your tax letters mail snail mail both other uh so curious to see if it's other what that is in the chat and it looks like most of you are doing email uh but it's a pretty good split excellent okay thank you so much for those responses now for those of you who are donorbox users and joining us today donorbox has made it really easy for donors to contribute so we've also made it easy for your organization to say thank you and as I said Sending out these year end tax receipts is a really great way to thank your donors and acknowledge how much Their donation means to your organization the impact that they had through their gift and this is also an essential way to wrap up 2023 and a great opportunity to set the stage for the coming year of gift giving so to help your organization be even more involved with its donors and help them with their taxes we created a feature within donor box that allows you to send these year end tax receipts with just a couple of clicks um but before we um actually we already launched the poll question so we are good to go so I want to move into a super quick tutorial for those of you who are donorbox users pay close attention I do have a Blog to share with you as well and for those of you who are not maybe consider joining our platform in the new year so that you can make this process as easy as possible so to edit the template of your year end receipt this is what you're going to do you're going to log into your donorbox account through donorbox.org as you normally do and over head over to the engage tab on the menu bar and then click the tab labeled receipts down there at the bottom so should be readily um available you can see it pretty easily and then from this page you're going to navigate to the yearly receipts Tab and click on the settings gear that you see there and then once you click on that you'll be brought to a page where you'll find the option to edit your fiscal year period so you can select that specific period your year end donor receipt and your year end donor email template so lots of customization here so this is what the full page will look like when you click on those edit settings so you'll see the email settings up at the top and then the PDF receipt settings below that with a preview to the right which you're not seeing on the screen here so there's a closer look at the email section uh section here the yearend donor email is the message that your donors will get to their inbox right so you want to start by editing the subject line with something really compelling but make it clear they're going to be looking for their year-end tax receipts so you should um mention that in the headline right and then start by editing um the body of the email as well so uh don't forget that this is going to contain your email uh your receipt attached to this so you can customize this message with links with photos even with videos um using the expanded menu uh option so you can see on the screen here there's a plus sign that you can expand and add in all these things so this is a really great opportunity to truly customize your think thank you this acknowledgement do some storytelling tell them how their gift made an impact um you can add in these variable fields to uh address them by name right you don't want to say dear donor da d d d da um your gift help us no how did they impact with their gift right so you can really get creative here and then once you've edited your email you'll have the opportunity to PR preview it um exactly how your donors will be viewing it so um that's right there at the bottom now here's a closer look at your PDF year end donor receipt and the year end receipt is a summary of how much a specific donor has contributed to your organization right within the certain time period so it includes your organizational uh information and a summary of donations so make sure that all of your organization information is accurate and complete since this is going to be autogenerating a PDF receipt for each of your donors and then after editing the receipt you'll be able to download a preview and this will give you some test data um of the receipt that your donors will get so again you can really customize this to whatever your needs are and then once you're satisfied with these settings it should only take a few minutes all you have to do is click that yearly receipts button uh or tab up at the top and it will refresh the page and then you'll just filter for the donors that you wish to send the receipts to and click the corresponding button um at the bottom it may take up to 15 minutes for all of your donors to receive their receipts um but that's not so bad right and that's it it's easy it's customized your yearend donor receipts um will only take a few minutes so hopefully this will help a little bit of your scramble and I do see some questions coming in specifically about the receding section and um we'll do our best to answer those at the end during our Q&A so thanks for hanging in there with with me okay so here I wanted to show a little template again your year on tax receipt is a really great place to combine elements that we talked about so that note of gratitude a story of impact and you can really just go beyond that generic and impersonal uh letter and make it really good and what I'll say here and I don't say this often I've seen some organizations that have had really great success with adding a giving appeal to their tax receipt letter asking previous donors to renew their support in the new year um and it's not often that I say convolute your acknowledge with an ask right I don't usually say ask when you're giving gratitude but I think this is the only instance where oh not the only instance but one of the few instances where it's okay to add an ask in with a note of gratitude so I've got a really great handout with a couple of urine tax receipt templates that I'm going to go ahead and launch now and you'll see that um in the left hand side of your screen or sorry right hand side so moving right along I think this is probably why many of you are here we're going to look into 2024 I cannot believe we're in 2024 that is H just wild um but in order to look ahead we actually have to start by looking back so we often talk Loosely about goals right but where do they fall in your overall plan so here is an illustration to help explain what I'm talking about when we talk about planning we group together so many elements so again look at this illustration your mission informs the goals for the plan specifically what you want to accomplish right and then your tactics include the types of fundraising to be used like peer-to-peer fundraising Direct Mail events corporate giving whatever that may be and then all of these dictate the financial resources so your budget right and a timeline gives you a projection of how long it will take to meet your goals so whether your nonprofit organization is setting far stretched yearly goals or short-term campaign goals setting and meeting goals uh can be complex right so we've got a really great resource for you so let's move into reviewing some goals 2023 was a heck of a year I think for many people maybe you made some really thorough goals and can have something concrete to review or maybe you just threw a bunch of activities and Communications together to see what worked and what didn't and that is okay too um but what you need to do is take some intentional time now with your team to have a year in review meeting um so maybe grab a cup of coffee and sit around a table or meet across your computer screens right uh to talk about what worked and what didn't and if you are a oneperson operation I know many of you may be ask a board member or ask one of your most dedicated volunteers to join you in one of these year and review sessions and what you'll do here is pull your year-over-year data look at where you achieve success and take an honest look at your weaknesses right this is really critical we want to be honest with ourselves here and don't skip over looking at those mistakes because you can forgive yourself and then learn from them so that you're not apt to repeat them later right so what you see on your screen here is a worksheet that can be used to break down each goal specifically and I'm launching a whole bunch of stuff at you today so I'm going to go ahead and Now launch this handout again you'll see that on the right hand side of your screen now now as we walk through this I want you to consider these things did you achieve your goal what was the result of that what went well what could you improve and then how will you adjust this goal for 2024 will you cast it aside all together try something else or will you tweak it a little bit and try again will you build on it in some way and um this is really critical right and then something that wanted to add in here is I say this a lot I say this so much I am a person first and I am a professional second so you can absolutely use this for your personal goals as well I know I'll be doing that okay so now as you consider what you'll do differently this year also consider how you will measure it it is always really great to practice keeping things smart so this is specific measurable actionable realistic and time bound and we're going to talk talk through a little example here okay so let's start with this goal uh several donor box customers um have shared with us that they want to improve their donor relations so I'm going to put that goal here I want to improve donor relations right simple but we need to make it a smart goal so rather than saying I just want to improve donor relations you could say I want to personally call all firsttime donors who give $100 or more every single Friday in 2024 and you'll notice that the first statement that I shared is overall it's vague right it's pretty vague it it's not working for us um and it's diff difficult um to track it consistently because there's not a set goal timeline as well right but this one on the screen here is smart it's very specific it's measurable you can pull a quick report to see who falls within that $100 more gift range it's actionable you can check it off your to-do list every single Friday what a nice way to spend your Friday I think and then it's realistic it's not going to really um Tap Out Your Capacity and it's time Bal so you're doing this every Friday all year long and what I'll say here is that the best plans are always organized they are actionable and they're easy to monitor so this is an example of a smart goal okay and as we think about 2024 I want to move on to the next template but before we do that I know I'm moving pretty quickly let's do a little temperature check give me a thumbs up in the chat excellent thanks all and make sure you keep these questions coming we are marking them as we go along um awesome all right so let's move into 2024 again I cannot uh just wrap my head around the fact that we are here in this year um but we're doing our best to plan for it right so I am going to launch yet another resource for you this is our 2024 goal planner so I'm sharing that now on the right hand side of your screen you'll see a tab that says handouts and you'll see all these great resources that you can click and download if for some reason you can't access them I'll make sure that we include these um in our follow-up email to you all right so I've created some space for you here to brainstorm and our content team really knocked these uh resources out of the park so uh major kudos to them so feel free to break out of this document though and build out the space you need elsewhere you can use self spreadsheet or I always have a notepad with me or if you're doing this with a group you can put something up on a nasel um whatever works for you um for each category so I want to go ahead and um walk through an example of this so we're planning for 2024 here first we're going to tackle a big one dollars dollars this is all we're thinking about right you'll need your data to help you go deeper here for sure so in the space you want to consider how much did you raise last year how do you want to adjust that to this year's goal and then you want to compare your giving totals to last year to the previous maybe two or three fiscal years ask yourself what do your month-to-month giving totals look like year toe what was your average size gift last year what's your predictable monthly income from your recurring donors or your members uh do you accept pledges analyze your pledge amounts and how many of those pledges were completed or are P due so this is a sample here so let's just say that we want to increase overall doar raised um by 20% this year I think that's pretty realistic and again this is uh you can tellor this to whatever makes sense while you're looking at your data and then we want to increase our average gift from $100 to $150 now onto donors you need to ask this what is your current donor retention rate how many no new donors did you gain last year who are your most loyal donors what inspired them to give maybe you need to send out a donor survey to figure that out um was there a particular appeal that performed really well maybe it was your year-end appeal if you attended our uh donorbox Academy course last year or maybe it was a specific fundraising campaign or a special peer-to-peer challenge that you launched so take a look at those um and see what performed well there and then you can look deeper into the data too so did last year's firsttime donors choose uh well I guess the previous year's donors choose to give again in 2023 right um so this data is really really important in the planning process so in this example we'll say that we want to increase donor retention from 25% to 40% and then we will increase the number of monthly donors from 15 to 40% or sorry 15 to 40 and then we want to acquire 10 new donors per month and then remember though that these are goals you want to identify some tactics to make this happen right um all right so now as we move on to budget you might want to consider these things do you have the staff that you need the support that you need um what tools do you need to help you do your job better accomplish this better uh where did you spun money last year and do you need to realloc allocate some of that money moving forward so you'll plan to do this with each of these sections right um so we provided just a few to get you started a little brainstorm but you'll have areas that are specific to your organization so take some time uh to think through that do you need to change your processes is there something that you'd like to change with your board um this really can be far stretched um and run the gamut right so get creative um think through the number of volunteers or peer-to-peer fundraisers you mobilized last year or even how many social media shares you had and um think out of the box a little as you build this out and what I mentioned earlier is um you need to get Buy in from your staff and you're Bor on these goals too right you don't have to do this alone uh so once you've built them out hold yourself accountable post them report on them monthly bring them to your meetings bring them to the Forefront of your work and check in on them um to make sure that you're really hitting the Mark um as you go along throughout the year okay and I'm just scanning through um making sure that we've got some all of our questions are coming in so now before we move into our next section I'm going to launch one more poll question here this will give us a second to reflect a little bit so in what area would you like your nonprofit to grow uh stewardship showing impact engaging supporters asking for donations other or all the above let me know um in the chat if it's something else and by the way um we also have Cara with a K and Lindsay in the chat today from the donor box team um dropping some helpful resources um so um thanks for being there all right let's see answers are coming in biggest percentage say you want uh about 48% saying you'd like to improve asking for donations ask yeah that's a big one um after that engaging supporters showing impact stewardship thanks all excellent all right now we're going to move on to our next question here so we often um sorry next section here we often get questions about planning a Communications calendar for organizations and I thought we'd take a few minutes to talk through an easy idea to get started mapping out your course of action so uh for those of you who have joined us many times before for donorbox Academy courses or webinars you may be very familiar with this um but for those of you who are not um we'll talk through it now so um I want to start at the very beginning um so I think that many of you have heard about the cycle of fundraising right I imagine most of you have so the fundraising cycle is made up of these steps that can impact your success in terms of fundraising right and those steps um traditionally include identification cult ation solicitation and recognition right but we've created our own version here at donorbox um called the five a of awesome fundraising that way it's a little bit more easy to remember so um we're going to go ahead and walk through those here and we can definitely go deep here we could have a whole course on this but for the sake of time we won't um but I'll introduce you um to a few of these and if you want to learn more about this drop us a comment in the chat and that will help guide our conversations throughout the year so first you want to attract new donors to your organization and then you're going to ask them to come alongside you by giving right that big ask and then you will promptly promptly is a key here acknowledge their contributions account for your donations and you'll do it again and again and again right because it's a cycle so commonly I think that people think that fundraising is isolated to just asking for money um the actual ask only takes about 10 or 15% or less of overall fundraising time I think and what actually takes the most time is thanking communicating with um reporting to and acknowledging donors right most of the effort um happens before and after we ask for money at least um that is our experience here um so so many organizations don't consistently communicate with donors um many lack the schedule for emails or phone calls or social media updates that's a full-time job it can be right and these are the key to building these strong relationships with your donors so um organizations who do this well will really truly stand out um so it should really be a big part of your Communications plan so I want to introduce you to a another resource keeping um with the five A's in our minds this is our touch Point timeline and I'll go ahead and launch that now so you'll see that again on the right hand side of your screen under the handouts tab so I've used this method pretty frequently as my own Communications plan it's a good exercise but it's also easy to keep posted somewhere to see what's ahead um so so go ahead and download this and we're going to go ahead and just walk through a really easy sample of this touch Point timeline together so first let's describe the activity that you need to accomplish in this case I think we'll plan for some ongoing donor phone calls right and then the cycle stage for this will be um acknowledge right because we want to say thank you we're acknowledging their gifts and our audience is going to be firsttime donors we want to make sure that we're thanking our firsttime donors and then we'll add in our laps donors who renew this year um and then we don't want to forget our big donors so maybe um Gifts of above $500 or above a thousand more or less whatever is big for your organization and then in this scenario we'll also call our donors who just started a recurring monthly gift right right so kind of covering all of our bases here in this Cas our dates are ongoing since we'll be tackling this through out the year so um no set or end dates we're going to be doing it um throughout the entire year and then obviously for phone calls you've got to use the phone so that's the channel that we're using uh most likely we'll be leaving a lot of voicemails uh but that is okay too so make sure you have a script for that phone call and for that voicemail so that you're not caught off guard now we are going to uh add another task maybe we want to create a donor survey right because we want to bring in all this information we want to understand our donors more we want to understand what compels them to give what inspires them what their communication preferences are so that's what we're going to do next um so for this the cycle stages attract um as it means to capture you know the attention and interest of both your existing donors or potential new supporters um by involving them in your organization's activities and maybe maybe even the decisionmaking processes um so here again ask them why they gave this shows them that you were interested in hearing what they have to say and it will also help you shape ongoing strategies for the year so in this case we're going to send these um to last year's donors these would include those onetime and monthly donors right and then we're going to send it to our laps donor so maybe donors who gave two or three years ago but didn't give last year and then we're going to start this project um well on February 15th that's coming up pretty quick and we'll close it on February 28th so that gives us about two weeks um to have this survey open for our donors and this will be completed digitally using a form Creator like uh Google or jot form or Survey Monkey um so we'll distribute that via emails okay I filled out a whole another example for you all this time we will create an ask for a Communications plan so we have a spring peer-to-peer campaign coming up um so obviously the cycle stage is ask here and we'll reach out to our board members and our key volunteers people that we know are really invested and already rallying behind our cause and this will run from April April 15th to May 15th and this will all be done using donor boxes peerto fundraising feature or whatever that means for you and then um we will equip our askers with some ideas on how to reach their own networks and some sample text to use to make sure that they're really well equipped for this peer-to-peer campaign um and then we'll be sure to follow up with a very prompt note of gratitude for anyone who donates so there's an example of our touchpoint timeline again um endlessly customizable it just provides you with a little bit of a prompt as you're planning your communication ations um okay oh I lied one more example for you uh so we might fill in the remainder of this chart with an impact report so the cycle stage here is a count right um so then after that maybe we'll be communicating with um them about special activities volunteer activities so again we're attracting them before we're asking them again um and then you'll keep the cycle going again and again and again all right so did I launch this already I think I did this is a really simple tool I did this is a really simple tool and you can certainly make this more complex um in a spreadsheet or whatever works best for you and you can add in details like budget or the actual cost or return on investment um whenever you build it out um but whatever you use this is super super important um keep it in front of you just like the other planning uh worksheets as well you want to share it with others you want to keep this in front of you so that you're holding yourself accountable so make it a standing agenda item um at your regular meetings to check off where you are in this touchpoint timeline and keep these at the Forefront of your daily and weekly plans and again these are just examples that you can customize um just ing to what your goals are um oh and then I almost forgot we actually have a uh awesome weekly planner that I personally have used for a long time so I hope you find it helpful I'm going to go ahead and launch that now um and just another little resource to keep you organized and before we move on I'm going to um check that where questions are coming in all right now I'm going to pass it over to Brit um to wrap up our session with some fundraising trends that you should be considering in 2024 so Brett I'll let you take it away awesome thanks Jenna that was great that was super thanks everyone for joining I'm Brittain I'm joining right here from Seattle you might have heard my rescue pup um barking in the background I am a mom of two kids I ever since serving from the Air Force 16 years ago it's been such a long time I've been in your shoes I've worked at a number of nonprofits most of these have been startup and emerging nonprofits and just really extremely grateful to be here with you all I'm I've been in your shoes I know what it's like to navigate the challenges and I'm here to be of a support whether that's a sounding board one of your personal coaches or just having conversations like these so super excited today it's a New Year how's everyone feeling drop an emoji um to just Express the vibe you're you're going with today but super excited to talk about what are some of the hottest trends that are going to help you raise more fun money in the New Year all right so first up is this renewed emphasis on building trust with our donors and creating some really Unforgettable experiences for them now you might think well hey Brett we're already doing this this is not necessarily a groundbreaking Trend right but I wanted to pull out I I read an AFP report I think from Q four of last year that shows some staggering statistics this is really problematic 81% of new donors don't give again after their first donation and only 43% remain loyal right we have a problem on our hands what are we going to do and so if there's an ethos to take for the new year it's really embracing this more humanistic touch to fundraising what that looks like is we really need to see our supporters as not just people who dish out money right they're not just transactions these are valuable Partners they're along for the ride they're just as deeply committed as we are in our missions so how are we going to achieve this well throwing out three simple best practices none of these are rocket science one get to know your donors right get to know them like your friends like your family I want to ask you let me know in the in the thread right right here how many of you have CRM Tools in place asking a little bit further are you using them right so you're going to want to go go in log into that baby and pull those reports to understand what makes your donors tick what are their giving Trends and then you're going to CRA create messages that really feel like you're talking to them number two you know it's all about authenticity in 2024 you know we live in a world of Perfection of curated content we have all the filters people are seeing through it they're really yearning for those real raw and genuine connections so be genuine and in every interaction that you have with your donors keep that at the Forefront and three keep the conversation going you know as fundraisers I've been in this cycle we're on the hunt for the next donation right and what completely gets lost is all of the things that happen in between fundraising is is more than just the ask it's really those sharing of those heartwarming Stories the winds the Milestones those are going to be the real ass that you're going for Jenna next slide all right so unpacking the next coolest trend for 2024 artificial intelligence or as we know it AI um drop a thread I want I'm curious how many 80s children are there out there in this audience I know I'm one of them we you know thinking back AI used to be something of sci-fi movies right well it's here it's now it's a Hot Topic in 2024 it's going to allow fundraisers to really step up their game and I look back you know I was an executive director and a development director of a regional diaper Bank in Seattle I spent countless hours I can't even tell you trying to discern who should I reach out to what ashon I make these are tools that we have today they are a privilege they're going to save our teams time and help us generate new ideas I think if there's anything to share about AI here is again keeping with that word of auth authenticity people see through the BS really keeping that uh peace of mind when you're creating your fundraising materials next up Jenna next slide please so next up is cashless giving I'm a working mom I don't know how many others are working parents here I will tell you in my house the mornings are chaotic I'm getting the kids out to school and what often happens is I forget my wallet does that sound familiar to any of you well thank goodness for digital wallets you know there's Apple pay there's venmo Google pay donor box even has a cool feature called ultr Swift pay and what these tools do for us is they make the purchasing process the donation experience super easy peasy what that looks like for your donors is it really kind of eliminates that hassle of your donors having to re-enter their information over and over again another area that I'm seeing cashless giving taking a big just it's a big bang is I'm thinking of back to all of the Galas and the live auctions I've attended I don't know about you but having to scramble for cash and try to figure out where my checkbook is then squeeze them into those donation slips that can be completely tedious right and so gone or those days now we have some really cool tools like live kiosk um please comment if you're using live kiosk and we would also love to know how you're using it and if you're happy with it but live kiosk with a card reader and tablet puts the autonomy back to your guests so that they can donate whenever they want whether it be grabbing a drink at the bar or after the event super convenient experience Jenna moving on all right so diving into the fourth Trend alternative currencies what what's this looking like well cash is going to be on its way out we don't yet know when that might happen but what that's doing is it's freeing up time for these alternative currencies like crypto or stock to shine in 2024 when it comes to giving stock or crypto there are some really serious benefits right for our Don our donors and for your nonprofits donors get to double down on the tax benefits they avoid capital gains and they gain pretty much a deduction on their annual taxes and for nonprofits what that really looks like for you is you there is a good chance you're going to be potentially receiving larger gifts because donors may have fewer liquid assets to give so that's a very cool Trend in 2024 and wrapping up for the final trend of the new year is experience-based fundraising you know gone longone our traditional Gallas and auctions people in all sectors they're looking for companies they're they're looking even for nonprofits that deliver these fabulous immersive experiences and you know donors are no longer just wanting to be asked for money they're wanting you to get creative with your events and so if if I can think back to nonprofits really doing some amazing immersive things I would share one nonprofit called charity water let me know how many are familiar with Charity Water charity water has really tapped into modern-day Technologies to really make their attendees not just hear about the mission but live and feel it you know at one fundraiser event charity water they gave out VR goggles attendees could virtually walk with the young girl in the village every step of the way I think charity water even added mist and heat in a a nearby water station and I just thought that was a really cool way to kind of deliver this multi- sensory experience to to again deepen those relationships with your donors two other trends that we're seeing keep keep up with those fundraising competitions you know people I liking it to playing Mario Kart with my son that adrenaline coming into the Victory lap think income fostering engagement through friendly competition Implement prizes for top your top fundraisers use those peer-to-peer fundraising for every campaign that you create and those leadership boards and coming in hot as the third type of experience-based idea are those membership programs that you have what better experiences for your donors to join an enriching membership program than what we offer in donor box I know in 2024 these membership programs should really offer you some perks and exclusive access and yeah so that's it and you know as a former Ed and development director we Face challenges right there's some serious budget constraints there's inflation there's escalating cost but these hurdles are really these opportunities these beautiful opportunities in Disguise so just encouraging you think outside the box innovate and be more intentional in the interactions you have with your donors Jenna do you want to take take it on the next slide got it absolutely thank you so much for sharing those Trends Brit I think those are pretty spoton and actually um we have a Blog that dives deeper into all these Trends uh so I'm going to go ahead and launch that now you'll actually see that on the bottom corner of your screen uh this is a great article that Lindsay who's in the chat uh just published here and um you can read a little bit more about each of these now okay before we leave here um we have some practical actions we also have a really special offer for you guys so please hang on until the very end um we don't want to uh leave you with all this information without practical ways to implement this at your organization so here you go uh simple and easy first I'm really encouraging you guys to carve out time to review your 2023 I know that 2024 at least for me took off at light speed oh my gosh but uh there are so many Lessons Learned From the Past 12 months that will really help direct your steps that are yet to come so just take an hour or two and uh make it fun right it doesn't have to be serious business it can be really cool and collaborative um and next make your smart goals we shared that downloadable and again that's in the handouts tab on the right side uh part of your screen um and just take a look through this create your smart goals um work through this it might take a little extra work but it's definitely worth it you want to make sure that they are very specific um and not vague goals right and then keep these goals right in front of you all year long hold yourself accountable hold your team accountable find someone or others to hold you accountable too right this is a group effort and then lastly what I'll say here is do not be intimidated by communicating yes it can feel a lot like a lot of work it's ongoing right and it's really important but you really want to use um technology to personalize and automate so that you can stale scale effective donor Communications um anytime a donor gives through donor box you get an automatic thank you and receipt you can personalize those with a great video or images and really make your Communications feel special so again work through that Communications um the touch Point timeline that we shared with you again in that handouts Tab and um just make a plan because without a plan it can be hard to maintain right and Brian you are a rockstar thank you for sharing all those in the chat yes you're hired perfect now before we jump into Q&A I have a special offer for all of you as you set your sites on achieving big goals in 2024 we are here to introduce two powerful Solutions that will really help supercharge your fundraising efforts this year so that is donorbox pro and donorbox premium So donorbox Pro really just empowers you with really seamless coste effective because you have a reduced platform rate uh and Powerful features and then premium takes it a step further offering a really personalized touch with an assign assigned account manager guided onboarding priority tech support and one-on-one fundraising coaching with Britain here uh and top tier integration so with donorbox premium we are really here to walk alongside you in your fundraising journey in 20124 uh so here's an exclusive deal for you just because you attended this webinar today when you book our meeting with one of our fundraising advisors you will unlock significant package discounts uh I do not want you to miss out on this chance to supercharge your strategy and Conquer your 2024 goals so I'm going to go ahead and launch our link now if you would like to learn more about what donorbox Pro and premium can offer you what that premium support and coaching looks like you can go ahead and schedule a demo call now and um one of our awesome fundraising advisor advisors will help you through that okay I'm GNA give you all just a beat so that I can scroll through and make sure we've got all of our questions marked and as we're working our way through them um feel free to drop more in the chat and we'll track those as we go along I know that uh several of your questions have already been answered in the chat so that is fantastic thank you Lindsay and Carrie car Cara uh for sharing those resources here and and I'm happy to address the first question which was when should we send year in tax receipts and and and what methods right and in terms of when and how it doesn't really matter if you send it through email or mail I think the biggest thing is being timely and responsive and you're going to want to send those out by January 31st of the following year that that basically allows donors to you know have those on record in in time for the tax season so I hope that answered your question awesome thank you so much for that Jenna we get we're getting a lot of questions that are asking will this webinar be recorded yes yes absolutely this webinar will be recorded and we will send you an email with recording and links to these resources um and I see a a question from ly saying can we make this more accessible through we will be putting this recording on YouTube and it will have captions for you to read through so thank you so much for your patience as we're working through a more accessible technology but with that recording you will have those captions included on that video so thank you thank you for um bringing that to our attention excellent now T asked if a donor gave through donor box or outside of donor box is there a way to add the outside donation to donor box um to create a full receipt yes you can add in offline donations in donor box all you uh have have to do is go to your donations Tab and there's a section that says add in offline donation you can add in their you know their name their detail you can add in some notes about their Communications the gift if it was cash or check or whatever that may be and you can um pull all that in your reports and streamline it just as you would if someone gave through the platform and if you need more support with that you can reach out to us at support at donorbox.org and they'd be happy to show um share some step-by-step guides with you and Jenna Tiffany U this is a question Tiffany asked what was number two again um sorry I missed it just number two of you do you want to do it Jenna or I'm happy well so uh yeah number two is um leveraging AI for um fundraising so that can look like a lot of different things as Britt shared most important lesson here is to be authentic you don't want to use AI to write your entire fundraising appeal right but it can be really helpful with the right promps so we're seeing that more and more um an AI can help you with prospecting and streamlining processes too there are a lot of ways to use it and I think that Lindsay shared a really great blog um that um donorbox um wrote on AI and different ways to utilize it see and let's see here we're working our way through um so Lauren ask what are the benefits of adding offline donations so same thing it's just so you can streamline your reporting right you want want to have a clear view of all the donations that came in across time so if you're using donor box for your regular campaigns but you had an inperson event and you didn't use donor box for some reason you just have a whole bunch of cash and checks uh and you know who gave what and where um it just streamlines when you pull those reports when you want to send those receipts um it just helps so you don't have a spreadsheet here and your donor box information here um just makes your life a little bit easier right um now Erica asked and I love this question what would be some good goals for a new nonprofit implementing fundraising for the first time um so yes it's not a one size fits all um you know you could start with mobilizing volunteers so starting by reaching out to your closest friends and family if you're an operation of one um or if you are a full organization that's fully staffed and you have all that support start with smaller goals launching your first campaign right um looking at the communications and the marketing behind that that campaign so maybe your goal is to raise $3,000 for your first fundraising campaign I think that's pretty in reached depending on again what your mission is and who your audience is um or you can even take it back even further you want to understand who your potential donors are right so you want to create a donor Persona so that's your task and you're going to go and you're going to research um who your ideal donors are where do they live how much do they make what kind of jobs do they have what causes are they already supporting right and then from there once you understand that maybe you will send a direct mail piece or um get in front of them in a certain way so um if you want to talk through this more and do some brainstorming you can reach out out to us at Academy at donorbox.org I'd love to continue this conversation and um donorbox premium is a really great place for you to start to as you're on your journey it is such a great place for emerging and startup nonprofits um again with our one-on-one fundraising coaching to really help from that very beginning journey and guide you through as you're trying to make these goals and plans and I think to add Jenna I think you know both those both of us have worked in nonprofits right and when you are the staff and you're reporting to a board boards have the mo momentum they're Visionaries they throw out these beautiful big ideas and I think matter is looking at you have like the people and the money and really most importantly listen to the feedback of those on the ground doing the work to help you and setting those goals so thank you for that yes um okay we have a lot more questions we have about five minutes to truck through these so um if I do not get to your if we do not get to your question um by the top of the hour please know that you can always reach out to us at Academy at donorbox.org for any fundraising or best practice related questions and if you need specific support with our product so donorbox features you can reach out to us at support donorbox.org our support team is amazing they have like a response time of 15 minutes or less and they can really help you out with those types of things too so um we are working our way through here and I know we have some that came in um up at the top so Jody ask if a donor gets an automatic thank you letter that we customize in the campaign in donor box do we need to send an end ofe letter and what I would say here is ideally they're keeping that that uh receipt of Their donation right but it's best practice to send these end ofe tax letters as well um uh you should make this best practice for all your donations again $250 or more uh you know someone's giving $ five do that's up to you again I think it's really important to address and acknowledge all donations no matter what the size is um but yes it is best practice to send these year end tax receipts even if you sent them an automatic receipt um right after they gave um oh go for it Brit no I'm I'm I'm in full agreement with you I'm just perusing through the other questions here wonderful now um Elaine asks any advice on how to prepare a great elevator pitch I love a good elevator pitch um Lindsay or Cara um I feel like we might have an elevator pitch Library resource somewhere I could be mistaken um I know I've got some good stuff so will you please reach out to me because I can't dig it up right now reach out to me at actually I have your chat so I'll reach out to you Academy donorbox.org and I will send you some of my best practices um maybe we should even do like a little 30 minute donor or elevator pitch session one of one of these days um that is a great question and yes I will make sure that you're equipped with some really great resources um so that you can work through that and Jenna there was a question about um what our membership programs do you wanna you want to briefly touch on that oh sure let me see where I can find that thanks Jan for asking that yes um where is that question well so just about our membership um or or membership form so we do have through donor box and it's a great way to delineate your just recurring monthly donors and your members uh so we do have a membership feature in donor box and you'll see that as you log in and you can create uh create a specific membership campaign and what that looks like is say um $50 will give people exclusive access to your newsletter and a special event or discounts on tickets whatever your organization offers all the way up to like $1,000 is premium member and they get all these extra special perks so what's nice about this membership form is that you can customize it with all those different tiers of members and put what it means right there beside the amount so on the form itself it will say $10 means this you are this member This Is What You Get Right $ th000 is this this is what you get and as people are joining your membership program you can see that difference in your donor um uh uh database right so you'll see people who donated people who joined as members so you can pull those reports keep up to th you know keep up on those um every week to make sure that you're giving your members um exactly what they're signed up for I hope that answered your question because I'm not seeing it here in the chat um but all I know there are a few questions still floating around please please please reach out to us at Academy donorbox.org um if you'd like to take this conversation further we would love to and you can also reach out to support at donorbox.org for any of those Tech tool questions that you may have and um I just want to take a moment for um all of you thank you so much for choosing to spend a little bit of your time with us I know that the New Year is off to a very busy start and we're just so appreciative for all that you do to serve others we know that the work that you do is incredibly important and we are really just so proud to offer you the tools and resources um to support you in that mission so thank you all we hope to hear from you soon I will reach out to some of you with some goodies and um have a great week thanks [Music] everyone