You see deadlines all the time in fundraising appeals. But are they helping or hurting response? It depends. There are roughly three kinds of fundraising deadlines:
- Real deadlines, like year end, fiscal year end, Christmas, and others.
- Reasonable deadlines, like those for fund drives, matching grants, and things like National Doctors’ Day and Giving Tuesday.
- Arbitrary deadlines. These are just made up and slapped onto an appeal. They can be trouble.
See more about this in my guest post at Future Fundraising Now. Some deadlines will almost immediately set off donors’ BS alarms, possibly causing them to toss the appeal. There are better ways to heighten the urgency in fundraising. See more here.
Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic 