What we're asking the board to set
Year-end giving campaign
Last December we ran an off-the-cuff ask with almost no materials and raised roughly $8,000. The donor base is substantially larger now, the film will have been in front of festival audiences for two months, and we have 1,485 warm leads we have never asked for anything. This is the most obviously unclaimed money in the organization.
The target
December 2025, unstructured
~$8k
2026 draft target
$35k
Warm leads never asked
1,485
Recurring donors today
~0
The $35k is a drafted target. It assumes four waves, real materials, and every director participating — remove any of those and it comes down.
Four waves
| Wave | When | Who it goes to | The ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Quiet lead-in | Nov 10 | Top 20 lapsed lifetime donors, Ashley Ryden, TEW, major-gift prospects | Personal, from Sunny or a director. No mass email. |
| 2 · Giving Tuesday | Dec 1 | Full list, 1,485 warm leads, film traffic | Matched gift if we can secure a match — see below. |
| 3 · The story push | Dec 15 | Full list plus calendar buyers and First 50k's 251 donors | Recipient stories. Recurring monthly ask, not one-time. |
| 4 · Final 48 hours | Dec 29–31 | Everyone who opened and did not give | Deadline urgency, small-dollar. |
Secure a match for wave 2. A $10–15k match commitment from one of the large unrestricted gifts, or from a director, roughly doubles Giving Tuesday performance for most organizations our size. This is the single highest-leverage thing a board member could do for this campaign, and it needs to be committed in the next three weeks to be usable in the materials.
Tiers and what each one buys
Concrete equivalences convert better than general appeals, and we have the unit economics to state them honestly.
| Tier | What it does | Target segment |
|---|---|---|
| $25/mo | Recurring. The rung that does not currently exist between a newsletter signup and a $1,000 Trailblazer. | Warm leads, film audience |
| $100 | Gear and permits for one scholarship recipient's expedition | Calendar buyers, First 50k donors |
| $500 | A meaningful share of a scholarship | Lapsed donors, ambassadors |
| $1,500 | A full tiered award under the Summit Scholarship structure | Major-gift prospects |
| $5,000+ | A named scholarship, with the recipient's story reported back | Ashley Ryden tier, board networks |
Board What each director is being asked for
The June analysis was blunt about this: no director has a written commitment, and boards that are not asked drift. The ask for December is deliberately small and specific — give personally at whatever level is right for you, and make five personal asks from your own network. Five asks per director at a five-director board is twenty-five warm conversations we would not otherwise have. Alison is collecting these on Saturday, in writing.
Before Saturday
Sunny
Ashley Ryden packet. A personalized, handcrafted packet ahead of the meeting, to keep momentum on a $25k two-year relationship rather than letting it go quiet until next November.
Sunny
Top-20 lapsed re-ask list. Committed in June, status unconfirmed. Wave 1 does not work without it.
Alison
Fall dinner with Marcia (TEW). Set a date and a guest list — this is the cultivation event that makes the grant renewal a conversation rather than an application.
Eight thousand dollars was what December looked like without a plan. The gap between that and $35k is not donor generosity — it is four emails, a match, and twenty-five phone calls.