Here is our 10-step guide with strategies and tactics to shatter your nonprofit’s year-end fundraising goals. Get ready to welcome January 1st with excitement for an impactful year ahead!

At the start of a new year, it’s not uncommon to come up with a list of things you intend to change or do differently. When you’re given a clean slate, it triggers a reflective pause: What do I want my life to look like at the end of this year? What do I need to keep doing? What do I need to stop doing?

About two years into my tenure at a nonprofit publisher, I realized that while we were really good at creating content we weren’t that good at selling it. Our size had something to do with it.

As someone who has experienced seasons of bone-deep fatigue in the past, I’m writing from a place of profound empathy for leaders who are at their breaking points. Burnout is a terrible price to pay for neglecting what your body and soul are telling you: If you don’t slow down with intention and find ways to rest deeply, you will not make it.

For an organization to know where it’s going it has to know where it came from. And from our perspective, being able to grasp a client’s story—to listen intently as it’s told and retold—is such an advantage.

Whether we intended to or not, we opened the door for artificial intelligence to become part of our daily lives. The meteoric rise of ChatGPT told OpenAI and their competitors what to do: take their foot off the brake; go all in. With the gas pedal to the floor, some are urging caution, while others race towards their A.I. payday, their eyes firmly fixed on the prize.

As a nonprofit leader, fundraising is a crucial aspect of the important work you do. And doing it well is no small feat. The headwinds can be fierce and the unpredictability, daunting.