Reinventing “Annual” Giving

While overseeing annual giving at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business I came to the realization of how exhausting and demoralizing it was to start each new fiscal year at zero, nada, rien, $0.

This is when it dawned on me…imagine if you could kick off each fiscal year already 20% or 30% towards your annual goal!? How much better would that feel? How much happier would your Dean and CFO be knowing that they could already count on a 20% or 30% renewal of last year’s financial commitments to your annual fund? How much easier would it be for your school’s leadership to commit greater and more long-term investments towards new or expanded student programs?

This is when I realized that annual giving does not literally need to be annual, and that we could redefine “annual” giving to include multi-year commitments by creating a special campaign that recognizes donors who were willing to commit to three+ year commitments. Furthermore, since 80% of your revenue comes from the 15% of your donors that contribute $1,000+, why not make this special multi-year campaign all about increased leadership society level commitment!?

This was the launch of a new campaign concept, The Foundation for Excellence Campaign, which sets out to recognize donors for making three-year leadership-level commitments to our annual fund(s). We developed new materials. We secured a challenge match that would match dollar-for-dollar the first year’s donation towards any three-year leadership-level commitment to the Haas Fund. And we empowered our leadership and major giving officers with talking points to educate our donors why it was so much more powerful to our school’s ongoing excellence to start each fiscal year with the security of multi-year leadership-level commitments already secured, aka a more solid foundation on which to further build and support our excellence!

The Foundation for Excellence Campaign, along with the outstanding leadership donor pipeline program we developed at Berkeley-Haas, helped elevate our annual fund to the next level, while freeing up valuable frontline fundraiser time to focus on identifying and cultivating new relationships and potential gifts. It was so successful, I took this same concept to the College of Chemistry (see sample materials below).

Do you want to start your next fiscal year at $0, or would you rather start the next fiscal year at 20% to 30% towards your annual goal?

I imagine you’d prefer the latter, so it’s time for you to consider launching your own Foundation for Excellence Campaign at your institution!