Following up

After your campaign officially ends, your work is far from over! There are three very important things to do after your official campaign period is over:

• Do your project: Yes, the most obvious thing is now you have to do what you said you were going to do. Projects morph and change, but try to do what you set out to do and tell your supporters if your plans change - people don't like to be surprised!

• Progress updates: Every two weeks, you should send your supporters a brief email update on how you're progressing. Note, you can do this more frequently if you'd like to. These should be like emails you write to your friends, not acquittal reports you would send a philanthropic foundation. You can use the 'Message Supporters' function in your Chuffed.org dashboard to do this easily. You can even add in pictures.

• Deliver your perks: This is really important. Download your donor data from your Chuffed.org dashboard and use it to make sure you deliver the right perks to the right people. This can often take quite a bit of time, but it builds an amazing relationship with your donors. If you aren't able to deliver a perk for whatever reason, make sure you communicate with your supporters about it. People are very understanding if you're willing to be open with them.

Why is following up important?

If you do a good job of sharing your progress with your supporters and letting them watch the process as the project comes to life, they'll transform from supporters to fans, which means that the next time you run a campaign, they'll be the first ones to give.

Your next campaign

Usually campaigners wait 2-3 months before running another campaign, but if you give your supporters a great experience you can run your next campaign in the next month.