Sample donor engagement calendar
For inspiration, here’s a sample calendar to help guide your planned giving communications with donors throughout the year.
Best practices
Before you dig in, consider three best practices.
Email newsletters
Implement a steady stream of email communications. Ideally, donors will hear from you at least 10 times per year. Mix it up, though, so you don’t get predictable. For example, instead of sending out a “Monthly Newsletter,” consider varying the frequency (sometimes just a couple of weeks between communications and other times a couple of months. Title the newsletters so that the material signals timely relevance (e.g., “Three tips for making a difference right now”).
Social media
Your social media posts don’t have to be detailed. Focus on great photos and posting a couple times a week on each channel (X, LinkedIn, Facebook). You can use the same post content across all channels.
Advisors
Consider adding attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors to your general distribution list so they see the news, too. You can forward your newsletters to specific advisors—even just a few each month—to point out articles featuring tax tips or other content that will be useful to their clients.
Sample donor engagement calendar
January
You’ve likely already reviewed your year-end activity to determine which donors were most active at year-end, and which of these active donors have already established a planned gift or seem likely to do so.
As you finished up your thank-you notes, you very likely ran across at least a handful of donors who seemed ready for deeper engagement. Let’s carry that momentum forward!
Make sure to update your email distribution list, if you haven’t done so already.
February
Reach out to the donors you noted in January as potentially ready for deeper engagement, one by one. Messages along the lines of planning for the year ahead and taking advantage of QCDs early in the year will resonate well.
Begin planning outreach to donors for the upcoming tax season. This is an excellent time to plant seeds with donors because they will be reviewing last year’s financial and tax matters with their advisors.
Also consider deploying content that focuses on involving family in supporting your organization, loosely aligned with Valentine’s Day. You can also showcase heartwarming stories of impact.
March
Continue your tax-time outreach noted above.
Be sure to include reminders about the benefits of giving appreciated stock and the charitable deduction in general. This is important because, as your donors review their tax returns, they may notice instances where they could (should!) have given appreciated stock instead of cash. They might also realize that they should have given more to charity than they did. This can help you generate gifts to your annual fund and beyond.
April
Continue tax time reminders in all of your one-on-one communications. If you’ve promoted tax messages as noted above for March, you can get even more mileage out of the content by forwarding your March communications to donors in real time as you are on the phone with them. Sometimes people miss things in their email inboxes, but you always get a second chance to send it during a phone call or even in real time during a meeting.
If you send an April communication, consider using “spring cleaning” themes about getting organized and planning charitable gifts for your annual fund and beyond, including establishing a planned gift. This can help increase donor giving during the first half of the year.
May
This is the time of year that donors may be gearing up for some downtime during the summer.
This is an excellent time to lean into conversations about bequests, IRA beneficiary designations, and other types of planned gifts.
June
With tax time behind them, and the year-end rush still months away, donors and their advisors typically have more bandwidth to dig into discussions about including your organization in an estate plan. Just because the pace is slower doesn’t mean the energy takes a hit! This is a great time to catch donors in a more relaxed mode.
Focus your content on mid-year trends and summer reading ideas to learn about charitable giving.
July
This is a good time of year to zero in on legislative and tax law updates. By this time in the year, we have a pretty good idea of legislative agendas. Plus, you want donors to start thinking about you for year-end transactions.
Your local community foundation team is always a sounding board and a resource for staying up to date on tax legislation that could impact your donors’ giving habits.
August
Make A Will Month is a useful time for bequest and estate planning reminders, incorporating charitable planning into a business succession plan, planned giving, and giving while living. Use these themes in your communications.
Content can touch on not only Make a Will Month, but also forecasting the busy third and fourth quarters. Now is the time for donors to discuss annual, major, and planned gifts.
September
This is a really busy time of year, but you should not stop the drumbeat!
Content can include encouraging donors to start looking at how their giving goals are shaping up for the year. If a donor has expressed intent to set up a planned gift or make a Qualified Charitable Distribution, it’s wise to initiate these transactions now to avoid the year-end rush.
October
This is a particularly good time for personal outreach to all donors who have given to your organization in the past or expressed interest in doing so. Work your way through the list, touching base personally with each donor.
Consider planning an outreach campaign to drop off holiday cards, cookies, or other small gifts to your legacy and major donors.
November
Focus your communications on reminders about the wide variety of assets that can be given to support your mission, and year-end deadlines for specific types of gifts such as checks, QCDs, gifts of publicly-traded stock, credit card gifts, etc.
Emphasize the tax benefits of giving highly-appreciated stock, as well as the benefits of naming your organization as the beneficiary of an IRA.
December
Be highly responsive to all donor inquiries; same-day responsiveness is crucial, and ideally, within the first couple of hours.
Focus your marketing content on the importance of giving in general, along with additional year-end tips.