Nonprofit Communications Plan: How To Determine Communication Objectives

As a fundraising consultant, I spend a lot of time talking with nonprofit board members about major gift fundraising. One of the questions I get most often is a variation of: “When do I ask?”

This question actually contains a lot of complexity. It implies questions like:

• When in the calendar year is the best time to ask?
• When in the donor relationship is the right time to ask?
• When in the cultivation process am I ready to ask?

Let me address all three.

When in the calendar year is the best time to ask?

Most nonprofits are heavily year-end focused in their major gift fundraising. The last quarter of the calendar year — October, November, and December — tends to be the peak time for nonprofit fundraising, in part because of holiday giving traditions and in part because of year-end tax considerations.

This makes sense as a fundraising strategy, and there’s nothing wrong with focusing efforts during that time. But I’d encourage you not to be exclusively year-end focused. There are good reasons to make major gift asks throughout the year:

• Your major donors are likely fielding many more appeals in the fourth quarter than at other times of the year. Standing out in that crowded field can be challenging.
• A donor who gives in response to a year-end appeal may not be as deeply connected to your mission as one you’ve cultivated throughout the year and who gives as a reflection of their deepening relationship with your organization.
• Spreading your asks throughout the year gives you a more predictable and reliable fundraising pipeline.

As a general rule, I suggest thinking about your major gift asks in terms of the donor’s readiness, rather than the calendar. Which brings me to my second question.

When in the donor relationship is the right time to ask?

This question is really about the donor’s relationship with your organization. In general, the right time to make a major gift ask is when the donor:

• Has demonstrated a genuine connection to your mission and its impact
• Has a track record of giving to your organization (they’ve already said yes before)
• Has a sense of the scale of the need you’re trying to address
• Has had the opportunity to see your work in action (e.g., through a site visit, a conversation with a program beneficiary, etc.)

This is what I call donor readiness: the set of conditions that indicate that a donor is genuinely prepared to say yes to a major gift. In the absence of donor readiness, making a major gift ask is likely to result in a smaller gift than you might hope for, or a declined ask.

When in the cultivation process am I ready to ask?

This is the question of your own readiness as a solicitor. To be ready to make a major gift ask, you should:

• Know the donor’s connection to your mission and what has drawn them to give to you
• Have a specific project or program in mind that you want to ask them to support
• Know the amount you’re going to ask for (and why that amount makes sense given the donor’s capacity and history)
• Have rehearsed the ask (and the responses to anticipated objections)
• Have established that the donor is interested in a conversation about a major gift (via a “permission to ask” conversation)

One of the most common mistakes I see in major gift fundraising is making the ask before you’re ready — before you have all of the above elements in place. The result is typically an ask that feels awkward or premature to the donor, and a smaller gift (or no gift) as a result.

The bottom line on timing: think less about the calendar and more about the donor’s readiness and your own readiness. When both of those factors are in place, the timing is right.