Your turkey is a pro at online fundraising

Happy Thanksgiving! We’re grateful to all of our subscribers and wish you a very happy Thanksgiving holiday.

A few weeks ago, I made my first turkey from scratch after spending the last two years heating up a turducken (chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey).

There are four basic steps in cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving, which applies directly to online fundraising.

Planning.

The first part of cooking a turkey is figuring out how many people you’re cooking for. The goal here is to calculate how big of a turkey you need. You’d want to allocate about 1 lb per person.

Nothing spells disaster as fast as running out of food at your festive holiday party. That’s why planning is important.

When you’re sending an email blast or launching an a social fundraising campaign, you’d need to plan the same way.

Three things to think about when planning are:

1. Setting goals – How much do you want to raise within how long? Where will the funding go to? Make sure your goals are SMART.

2. Segmenting your support base – Which group of your support base would respond the most to your fundraising appeal? Not all supporters and donors are created the same. You’ll want to have a specific person in mind as you are writing up and crafting your fundraising efforts.

3. Determining level of effort – How much time will this take? Who do you need to get involved? Figure out the resources and budget you need in order to execute successfully within the timeframe that you have.

Brining.

After you find the right turkey at the store, you can just throw it in the oven, but it’s not going to taste or look good if you just do that. The secret is brining. To make a delicious and moist turkey, you’ll immerse your raw turkey in a brining solution.

Brining makes the turkey meat juicy by hydrating it before cooking, via the process of osmosis. You’d let your turkey sit in a brining solution for about 8 to 16 hours. Yes, a long time, but it takes time for the process to work. Patience is key.

Brining is just like cultivating donors.

When you acquire a new contact on your mailing list or from a Board member, you have to take time to educate the lead about your cause and build a relationship before making an ask or expecting them to give.

The key is engage them, one story at a time, until they’re a plump juicy donor, ready to give. It just takes time.

Roasting.

After you’ve brined your turkey, you’ll stuff it with herbs and other aromatics to give it a bump of flavor while it’s roasting. Then you throw it in the fire for a couple of hours until it’s ready. This is all about equipping your bird so it can turn into a delicious, mouth-water piece of art (sorry vegetarians!).

If you’re running a social fundraising campaign, you have to equip your fundraisers so they can take action. The three things they need are:

• Campaign toolkit – videos, photos, and fundraising guides
• Template fundraising appeal – a basic appeal they can customize and send out
• Point of contact for help – the email address of someone they can talk to for help

Now it’s time for some rest.

Resting.

After your turkey hits 161 degrees, you take it out of the oven and let it rest for about 15 to 20 minutes. This resting period actually increases the internal temperature of the turkey by about 10 degrees — cooking it to perfection.

Treat your donors the same way by giving them a time of rest between asks and campaigns. Without a steady fundraising rhythm, you risk burning your supporters out through donor fatigue.

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Who knew there cooking a turkey had so many fundraising applications? I know that for a lot of you, the next month and a half is going to be an intense surge for fundraising. Use these lessons as we sprint towards December 31st!