So you’ve joined The 1 Campaign for 1 million cats and you’re excited to start sharing the message, but who do you tell first?!  Where do you start?  Well, after many successful, and not-so-successful campaigns, the folks at StayClassy.org have some great tips.

By putting their insights together, they came up with a strategy for success:

Step 1: Reach Out to Family and Very Close Friends

• Start with the people you know will make a donation.  The hardest time to bring donations in is when you’ve made zero progress towards your goal, so start out with the sure-things!

• Send out individual e-mails to these folks so you can begin collecting donations without driving other people to your page before you’re ready for them.

STEP 2: Reach Out to People Impacted by the Cause

• Identify any of your contacts that have a personal connection to the cause you are fundraising for and reach out to them with short personal e-mails.  Have you helped a neighbor trap cats in their yard?  Did one of your coworkers adopt a feral kitten you rescued?

• The initial progress you’ve made, combined with the personal connection these people have to the cause, should lead most of them to contribute.

STEP 3: Reach Out to Close Friends

• Now send a group e-mail to your close friends. These should be people you think are more likely than not to make a donation.

• With solid progress already established, you’ll really be able to start leveraging the “group-effect” at this point.

STEP 4: Make Your General Appeals

• Now that you’ve built a good base of support, it’s time to send out general e-mail appeals to other friends, coworkers, extended family and the rest of your contacts.
• As you send out your general appeals, make sure you also start making full use of social media by posting calls to action on Facebook and Twitter.  Consider adding a custom timeline image to show your support!  Click here to download.

By phasing your communications this way, you’ll be able to leverage the natural increase in donations that happens as you move towards your goal. When you contact people most likely to support your cause at the beginning (when it’s hardest to get donations) and the least likely supporters later, (when it’s easiest to get donations) you can maximize your chances of success!