As organizations wind down one fiscal year and begin another, there are important steps they can take to position themselves for success. Many organizations operating on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year find that during the summer months the pace slows down, gift volume is low, and it becomes a great time to review and address critical areas that otherwise may be ignored or forgotten. In the past year, has your team experienced last-minute scrambling, missed opportunities, and a growing list of cleanup work that never really gets addressed? This increases stress and burnout for your team that could be avoided.  

Investing time at the start of the new fiscal year will set your operations and your development team up for success. My previous article on policy and development operations covered the practical steps organizations can take to prepare. The start of a new fiscal year is the perfect time to revisit these efforts. If you are new to fundraising, overwhelmed by a growing to do list, or are looking for a structured starting point, here are a few key areas to focus on as you get started. 

Review Your Project Calendar 

The budget for the new fiscal year has been set, but have you accounted for any new campaigns launching this year? Is there an initiative you may be pausing this year? Are you adding a new event? Work through the schedule with your team. Planning now and mapping out every deadline and step of the process on your calendar will help prepare your team for those potential bottleneck moments. If your team is balancing multiple priorities, outline the plan now so, as the time approaches, you and your team are ready. Include key dates and deadlines for each area—solicitations, events, communication, and engagement.  Don’t forget to build in time for data-related tasks including data quality assurance checks, data reports, and mailing lists. The more you can plan now, the more prepared your team will be later. 

Review Campaign, Fund & Appeal Codes in Your Database 

Prepare your database now to support efficient gift processing throughout the year. Consider how your organization can streamline its gift management structure. It’s best practice to have evergreen campaign and fund codes that help categorize gifts and support reporting. Annual campaigns require a high level of maintenance year to year and can duplicate efforts when reports can be run by gift date. Review your current campaigns and funds to ensure they are aligned with the new budget. Do you anticipate the creation of new funds? If so, what is your internal process for creating a new fund? Do you have a fund policy in place? Are you launching a new campaign? Think through your reporting needs for the campaign and map out how you want gifts coded in your database.   

What appeal and package codes do you need? While some evergreen appeal codes are good to have year after year, appeal codes in general are driven by fiscal year solicitations. Updating the codes now, before the gifts start coming in, prevents a backlog of gift entry during busy periods. Don’t forget to mark any campaign, fund, or appeal codes that are no longer going to be used as inactive. This step will prevent a code from being used inadvertently and that gift from being missed in reporting.  

Do you have a recurring gifts program? Depending on your CRM, you may need to manually update the campaign, fund, and appeal codes for these gifts. Review your online giving pages and update the gift codes so gifts coming in have the new appeals.  

Review Acknowledgement Language for Compliance 

The days of using a blanket tax disclaimer are gone. Due to changes to tax laws that went into effect this year, it is not recommended to use a default tax statement that a gift is 100% tax deductible on your acknowledgement letters and tax receipts. It is recommended that each gift type have an acknowledgement template with a disclaimer that is specific to that gift type. Review all your acknowledgement templates to refresh messaging and update the tax disclaimer to reflect the requirements of the current tax year. Consult with your legal counsel to ensure compliance. 

Review Policies, Procedures, and Protocols

Documentation of your policies and procedures is essential for consistency, compliance, and staff management. These documents are organic and most effective when they are reviewed each year. Development operations are changing fast, and you need to be ready to respond. It is much easier to already have documentation in place that can be updated and adjusted year to year. However, if you find yourself in a situation where there is no documentation and you are starting from scratch, it can be overwhelming. Start with a few key areas and go from there. You will build up your documentation over time. For an established operation, audit your procedures and workflows to determine if you have any gaps.

Consider documenting procedures to support consistent data and gift entry. Do you have required fields so lists and reports can be generated efficiently? Create a policy for each gift type and include procedures for managing pledges and writing off pledges. Document your organization’s reconciliation process with finance. Capture protocols that are specific and unique to your organization.    

Ready to start the new fiscal year with stronger systems, cleaner data, and clearer development operations? Contact us to learn how we can help.