Ok team—calendar check.
Today is October 14. Which means it is officially time for Q4 to be (heavily) on your brain. If you’ve been reading with us for a while, you know what happens during the last three months of the year: we go full cheerleading mode over here. Because we get it. We’ve been in your shoes. And we know exactly how much of a joy (hot mess?) this season can be.
The most wonderful time of the year and all that, right?
To kick off the fun, we’ve pulled together two lists for you. (Side note: who doesn’t love a good list?! And second side note: listicles make great landing pages. Just saying.)
First, our “oh-crap-did-I-forget-to-do-that-super-important-thing” list.
These are the questions you should be considering right now in order to be prepared for a successful end-of-year fundraising season:
- Do we have a Giving Tuesday plan?
- When is our direct mail dropping? (Better yet: have we planned for our direct mail appeal?)
- Did someone check the links in that email?
- Did we write a second email to send on 12/31 to remind any last minute donors that the year is ending? (We love the one-two punch of AM and PM sends on the last day of the year. This works well on Giving Tuesday, too!)
- Have we updated our receipt language?
- What does our current thank you email say? (What? Happy Valentine’s Day?! Yikes! Fix it now and thank us later.)
- Do we know what we’ll be A/B testing? (Need help on this? Reply to this email and let us know!)
- Has everyone agreed on the segments you’ll be using for communications? And do you know how to accurately and easily pull these segments?
Don’t put these off. Avoid a fire drill and set yourself up for success by dealing with these questions now.
And now for our second list.
This is the “keep-yourself-sane” list. It’s the reminders we post above our computers to maintain our humanity in the midst of our work. (We’d love to know what you would add!)
- Eat lunch. Every day. (Put it on your calendar if you need to.)
- Get up. I’ve been looking at my screen for way too long.
- Coffee is my friend, but I promise to stop drinking it before 4:00 p.m. because…sleep.
- No, it is not normal for your fingers to hurt. Step away from the keyboard.
- Someone else’s emergency is not my emergency.
- Turn off your camera. You need a break from unending eye contact and soft smiles.
- Cancel that meeting.
This list is WAY more important than the first one. Because even in Q4 (especially in Q4), you a person first and an employee second. Even if your work is super important (especially if your work is super important), you need to take care of yourself.
So here we go, friends. It’s go time. And we are here to cheer you on.
