Year-Round Planning Helps The Canvass Go Smoothly

The annual canvass. Done well it's a thing of beauty and a joy for at least nine months, until the next one rolls around. Done badly it causes massive volunteer burnout, drives the congregation into hiding, and forces budget cuts that set the tone for a parsimonious year.

A good canvass is a year-round effort. That doesn't mean canvassing year-round. That means tending to key parts of the canvass operation on a year-round schedule so that the canvass itself will go smoothly, says Wayne B. Clark, UUA congregational fundraising services director.

Here are the elements of a year-round canvass effort that should happen outside of the "normal" canvass season:

• When the congregation annually elects its board of trustees it should also elect cochairs of the canvass. Clark recommends cochairs who commit to serving for two years so that one person can always be in training.
• The cochairs should sit down and review the canvass just after its completion, making notes that will improve next year's canvass.
• Pledgers should be sent monthly statements. "If they get it with the other bills they're more likely to remember to pay it," says Clark.
• Don't highlight the annual canvass itself for more than a few weeks. 
• New members should be canvassed as soon as they join. New friends should be canvassed as soon as they show a commitment to the congregation. Clark warns that if you don't ask them for money they will think either you don't need the money or their money is not that important. 

Other canvass tips:

• Recruit people to attend a volunteer canvasser orientation. If they agree to do it, give them no more than four people to canvass. "There's something magical about four," says Clark.
• Vary the canvass technique. Do a face-to-face canvass one year, then do a Celebration Sunday, where people bring their pledges to church. (See InterConnections, Vol. II, Issue IV, August 1999, for a discussion of a Celebration Sunday.)
• Instead of doing a line-item budget before the canvass, do a program budget. Ask the congregation and committee chairs to develop a budget based on the programs that would be possible if there were enough money. During the canvass talk about the programs you'd like to initiate or expand.

Resources

The UUA's fund-raising guide, Fundraising with a Vision: A Canvass Guide for Congregations by Ed Landreth, is available from the UUA Bookstore. 128 pp.  $25  (800) 215-9076.

Fund-raising questions may be addressed to Wayne Clark; P.O. Box 378, Cumberland, ME 04021; (207) 829-4550.