Happy Almost-The-Weekend ,
Lower anxiety by a whopping 63% if you just plan ahead, according to a study done by The Journal of Experimental Psychology.....
Cool, if it's that easy lets lower your anxiety by 63%.🤷🏾♂️
Before this email you WERE going to start tackling your Colorado Gives Day work around NOVEMBER. Again.
Not Because you want to, but because you're one of the hardest working people I know. You'll start in November because building the plan is a huge project, and it keeps losing to whatever is on fire today; quitting employees, donor meetings, important board member questions that could be answerd by just looking through your website.😣
So it slips. Every year. And then Thanksgiving hits and ughhh, forgetaboutit. 🤌🏾
Last week we audited last year's campaign to find what was broken. If you missed it, go check it out, because this week builds on it.
December 8th is not the day you raise money. November 1st is. Early giving opens then, and every dollar from November 1 through December 8 counts toward the Incentive Fund and prizes. Organizations that plan for a five week window easily outperforms the ones scrambling at a single Tuesday.
You're seven weeks from that window opening. Not thirteen.
So let's kill the real barrier, which was never effort. It was decisions. Nobody wants to decide what to post, when to email, or when to ask the board. But if someone hands you a calendar, you'll follow it. You always do.
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Actionable Task:
Build your full campaign calendar in 15 minutes.
Step 1: Open your AI tool and paste this:
"You are an experienced nonprofit campaign strategist. I'm the [TITLE] of [NONPROFIT, WEBSITE] in Colorado, with a team of [NUMBER] people and [HOURS] per week realistically available for this campaign.
Build me a week by week Colorado Gives Day campaign calendar working backward from Tuesday, December 8, 2026. Early giving opens November 1, and all gifts from November 1 through December 8 count toward the Incentive Fund.
For each week from now through December 8, tell me:
What to write or prepare that week
What to post and where
When to email, and what each email should accomplish
When to ask the board, and exactly what to ask for
What to prep in advance so the final two weeks aren't chaos
Assume I am busy and understaffed. Cap it at three tasks per week. Put the heaviest lift in September and October, not December. Give me the calendar as a simple table I can print. Keep it plain language and nontechnical."
Step 2: Print it. Physically. Put it where you'll see it.
Step 3: Put every deadline in your calendar right now, in one sitting, before you close the laptop.(If your calendar is connected to AI, just tell your AI to do it for you)
Step 4: Grab the 2026 Colorado Gives Toolkit from the Colorado Gives Foundation site. It drops mid-September and it's free.
Value add is that you're...
• Turning a vague intention into dated, assigned tasks
• Showing your board a real plan at the next meeting
• Giving staff clear ownership instead of vague "help with Gives Day"
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Remember:
Nobody remembers the plans you made. They remember whether you were ready when it counted. Preparation is invisible until the moment it's everything.
Last Chance Colorado EDs:
You really don't want to miss out:
Let me wash your feet for a day (metaphorically of course)... But I want to serve you literally.
Give me two hours, and I’ll hand you back the 10 hours of manual grunt work ahead of you this Colorado Gives, that you can use to spend with your family.
On September 17, I'm giving you something to almost guarantee a record breaking CGD.
Two hours. In person. Free. We'll build your Colorado Gives campaign page with AI, write the emails that actually get opened, and I'll hand you the exact ask that gets your board to finally follow through.
You'll leave with work done, not notes to file.
Plus a room full of mutually minded Colorado EDs just like you, who understand your world and struggles.
Exclusive for EDs and anyone carrying the ED responsibility, whatever your title says.
Break Your Colorado Gives Day Record -Click here for more information
#ExistToServe
P.S. Free Office Hours for EDs
My faith says give ten percent back.
Giving ten percent of your money is hard. Giving ten percent of your time is harder. That's exactly why I HAVE TO GET to do it.
So four hours a week are yours. Tell me the task that's eating you, the question you've been sitting on, or the AI thing you're curious about, but haven't had time to figure out. I solve it on the call. Free.
Not a pitch. Not a demo. Just my tithe.
Regis Arzu (he/him/his)
[email protected]
ETS AI Consulting | CEO
347.748.5078
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Mondays are rough. It's scary times for Nonprofits. Your time is scarce. That’s why I created the Monday Motivational Minute. Each week, I’ll send you one high-impact, actionable idea to help you leverage AI and save time. It will always be a 1-minute-ish read. If it adds value, great. If not, unsubscribe, but I’m betting you’ll want to stay. (Challenge Accepted ☺️)
