In the last eight weeks of the fiscal year, most fundraisers are fixated on a single goal: winnowing down their LYBUNT and SYBUNT lists to zero. In fact, many can tell you precisely how many donors are on their list at any given time ahead of the close of the fiscal year.
For fundraisers, winning the end of the fiscal year is about closing unfulfilled gifts on that list. What is your plan to get to zero?
How Many LYBUNT/SYBUNT Donors Do You Have?
I spoke with a fundraiser the other day who told me she has precisely 58 donors on her list who have yet to fulfill their gifts, worth somewhere just shy of $200,000. As a major gift officer, she was quick to point out that the end of the fiscal year is full of anxiety because whether or not a donor completes their gift on her organization's fiscal year-end is up in the air.
And, she says that no matter how much organization and planning she puts into avoiding this situation, it's unavoidable. Every year, there are hours she considers 'wasted' chasing donors for gifts they verbally agreed to. She has to balance achieving today's goals with the donor's overall relationship. But, she concluded that that's just the way fundraising works.
The same is true for her colleagues in Leadership Annual Giving, who each have even more donors on their LYBUNT/SYBUNT list, as well as those in Annual Giving, who have even more.
Not only is the size of the list a problem, but so too is the probability that these donors will follow through on their gifts before the end of the fiscal year.
Digital Gift Agreements for Fiscal Year-End Fundraising
More than 96% of donors with gift agreements fulfill their gifts on time. This astonishing rate is the closest thing to a sure bet in fundraising. So why is it, then, that very few donors have gift agreements?
The answer is that the typical gift agreement process is reserved for only larger gifts because they require leadership buy-in, financial review, and legal negotiations. But what if that didn't have to be the case?
Digital Gift Agreements empower fundraisers to create and manage their donors' verbal commitments and pledges in seconds. This means that you can get more gift agreements in the hands of more donors for any level of giving.
Where Digital Gift Agreements really help at the end of the fiscal year is that they use automated, donor-centric, and branded nudging to invoice donors when their gifts are due. By using a Digital Gift Agreement for every gift commitment you receive throughout the year, you are able to say with 96% certainty that the gift will come in on time.
Imagine the anxiety you could save yourself. Imagine being able to say that your LYBUNT/SYBUNT list is already in the single digits or zero before the last weeks of the fiscal year.