Atlanta Stepping Back JAT Nov 2025 | Alexander Haas

November 4, 2025

from the desk of
Jaci A. Thiede
Partner

Stepping Back to Move Forward Strategically

The holidays are coming—and they admittedly often add to your personal and professional “to-do” lists. But November and December also tend to bring a natural slowdown in donor visits and travel for fundraisers. Take advantage of that lull! It’s one of the best times to take a step back and create a plan for how you will move forward in the new year.

Why Carve Out Time to Plan?
Having an annual plan with clear goals, metrics, and review checkpoints keeps your fundraising program focused, accountable, and adaptable. Too often, fundraisers are pulled in dozens of directions—events, stewardship, campaigns, reports, etc. There always seems to be too much on your plate and never enough time. Without a structured, written plan, even the best intentions can morph into reactive busyness. It’s an easy trap to fall into, and yet it is never the most productive use of your time.

Below is a true story that illustrates how having a plan can help you and your team stay on track:

Several years ago, my Alumni Relations Director and I were having a regular one-on-one meeting. Turns out he was feeling completely overwhelmed by everything that was coming at him and told me he didn’t think he was doing anything very well. That was not at all how I thought he and his team were performing, so I suggested we review the list of fiscal-year goals we’d created for them.

We walked through each goal and discussed his plan, progress, and timing. Our review showed him he was on schedule with almost all the goals we’d established for the fiscal year. There were a few things he hadn’t started working on yet, but based on the timing we’d laid out, he wasn’t expected to have started working on those yet. At the end of the conversation, his relief was palpable. He looked at me (with a big smile) and said, “I’m actually doing great, aren’t I?”

My answer was an emphatic YES!

The lesson here is that he had shifted his focus to reactive busyness and taken his eye off his goals. The busyness made him feel like he wasn’t moving forward, but once we refocused on his goals and what was most important, he felt empowered to set aside what wasn’t strategic.

Keep it Simple
Your yearly plan doesn’t have to be fancy. What’s important is setting clear goals with specific deadlines. Include:

Specific Goals: What results do you want to accomplish this year? (e.g., increase donor retention by 10%, secure ten new major gifts, grow the annual fund by 15%).
Key strategies: How will you get there? Think donor engagement, stewardship, and outreach approaches.
Metrics and milestones: Define how you’ll measure success—both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Timelines: Map out major activities by month or quarter and include start and completion dates.
Check-ins: Schedule regular reviews—monthly or quarterly—to evaluate progress and adjust as needed. Add your review meetings to everyone’s calendars now. If it’s not scheduled, it probably won’t happen.

The process of developing a strong annual plan helps you:

Set priorities. Identify what’s most important for your mission and your donors.
Align your team. Everyone—from development staff to board members—understands what success looks like.
Track progress. You can see what’s working and where adjustments are needed before it’s too late.
Stay accountable. Writing down goals helps you stay focused and allows you to celebrate your wins.
Stay grounded. As mentioned earlier, written goals help you regain focus when you get caught up in reactive busyness.

Bottom Line
A well-crafted annual plan isn’t just paperwork—it’s a roadmap to success. Use the quieter moments this holiday season to set your direction. Ending the year by recognizing your team’s wins and establishing clear goals for the upcoming year will help your team feel organized and hopeful about what’s ahead. When January comes, you and your team will be proud of the time you spent on planning and will be prepared to work strategically, track your progress, and celebrate your achievements.

Happy planning (and Holidays)!

P.S. If your fiscal year starts July 1 (or some other date), don’t skip this step! The midpoint of your year is a smart time to:

Review progress toward fiscal-year goals.
Reassess donor pipelines and cultivation plans.

Adjust targets or strategies for the next six months.

Blank Foundation Makes Historic $50 Million to Atlanta HBCUs

Jaci Thiede speaks from the heart about this gift.

“I recently met with two non-profit leaders who asked me why I got into the ‘fundraising business.’ My answer has been the same for 31 years: my college experience completely changed my life, and I decided I wanted to help anyone else who wanted to go to college have a chance to do so. The Blank Family Foundation’s gifts will change SO many lives… I applaud its vision and generosity!”

Four of Atlanta’s Historically Black Colleges & Universities are receiving a $50 million boost from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. It is the largest gift Blank has made to higher education in Atlanta.

The 10-year scholarship investment will support students who need “gap” funding to graduate from Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Spelman College* and Morris Brown College.

“Atlanta holds a special place in my heart and will always be an integral part of our family foundation’s giving,” said Blank, founder and chair of the Blank Foundation. “We know Spelman, Morris Brown, Morehouse and Clark Atlanta are vital to Atlanta’s future, and we are deeply committed to supporting the students who will carry that legacy forward.”

*Alumni Client Partner

Legacy Societies Deepen Donor Ties

David King and the importance of engagement.

“Stewardship of planned gift donors — especially if the gift is a bequest — has to go beyond just listing their name in some legacy society. There has to be ongoing relationship building, contact, and engagement. Remember, a planned gift is really a major gift with (typically) a longer pledge period, so you need to steward them as you would a major gift donor. It is very easy to change a will if they don’t feel appreciated.”

Want to keep legacy donors engaged — and giving? Here’s some ways to stay close to supporters who’ve included your charity in their estate plans.

Build community around your cause.
The best legacy societies are built on more than recognition. They should focus on making members feel connected to one another and to your nonprofit. Prioritize benefits that advance these goals.

Be generous with your attention and appreciation.
If you’re offering a webinar, thank legacy-society members as part of your welcome. This is also a way to introduce the idea of planned giving to donors who might not have considered it yet.

Give members the VIP treatment.
Treat your legacy-society members the same as major donors. Just like big donors, send them invitations to special events.

Keep cultivating members who stop giving.
When planned-giving donors make their final estate plans, they think about those charities they’ve heard from most recently and feel closest to. Stay in their orbit, keep sending these individuals cultivation materials such as annual reports and newsletters, even if they’ve stopped giving.

Don’t require gift documentation to join.
If someone tells you they’ve included your organization in their will, take their word for it and include them in your legacy society, even if they don’t want to sign a gift agreement or share details of the pledge.

Don’t separate legacy-society members from other loyal donors.
Maybe expand your legacy society and pipeline of prospects by engaging these supporters as part of a larger community of deeply committed donors.

Share stories of living donors.
Use donor testimonials to show members that other people they can relate to are also making planned gifts and getting outcomes that they, too, would like to have.

Be authentic.
No matter which member benefits you decide on, make sure they have an authentic connection to your mission and mesh with how donors view your organization’s identity. COP, 10-10

How to Tap Americans’ Love Affair With Phones

David King says text is the way to engage younger donors.

“I hear a lot of people lamenting the difficulty of attracting younger donors to their organization. If you want to attract younger donors—millennials and younger—you must have text-to-give capability. These are the “instant” generations, and they expect to do everything now. Force them to go to a website, or lord forbid, have to get to a computer, and you will not engage them.”

So many communications channels, so little time. That is the quandary fundraisers face when deciding if they should send text messages to potential donors. But there are many reasons to text.

Ninety-eight percent of Americans have a cellphone, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. Another recent survey found Americans check their phones 205 times a day. Seventy-four percent of people read every text they get, one report found, and the “open rate” for texts is consistently well over 90%.

Adoption of text messaging in fundraising campaigns is at a much, much steadier pace now than it was two or three years ago.

Whatever your approach, whether it’s cultivation and stewardship, then graduating to direct acts, it’s important to treat text as a new communications channel, not just a different place to ask for gifts.

Texts in multi-channel campaigns can support other communication modes. Send “watch your mailbox” texts, for example, to support direct mail, with messaging along the lines of “Expect an important letter soon from our CEO. Please take a look at it, and we’re hoping you can participate.”

In testing, people who have gotten such texts are more likely to give and make higher gifts than those who don’t get the texts.

Texts’ major advantage is low cost, with a range of 10 cents to 30 cents per text. And when it comes to return on investment, data give ranges of four dollars to fifteen dollars back for every marketing dollar spent.

Prospective donors may text back with questions, so answers should be prepared similar to those in the “frequently asked question” format of websites. When a question comes that doesn’t have a ready answer, someone should be responsible for getting a speedy answer out.

More here.

We Know Atlanta Nonprofits

For more than 35 years, Alexander Haas has been a fixture in the Atlanta nonprofit community. We are honored to have worked with some of the largest, and some of the smallest, organizations that help make Atlanta a better place to live.

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Whether your need is in Capital Campaign, Annual Fund Campaign, Major Gifts, Leadership Annual Giving, Planned Giving or all of the above, we take a fresh approach to nonprofit fundraising.