About a third of all fundraising occurs during December. Plus, around 10% of all fundraising occurs in just the last three days of December. This means that year-end giving is absolutely vital for the majority of nonprofit organizations.
Because so much of your annual fundraising is dependent on year-end giving, your nonprofit should start planning early with proven industry strategies and ideas.
Here at CharityEngine, we’ve helped over 400 organizations (nonprofit and for-profit alike) get set up with the CRM, marketing, fundraising, and other tools they need to build relationships with supporters and customers. From this ample experience, we’ve compiled our top strategies for year-end giving. In this guide, we’ll cover:
- Importance of Year-End Giving
- Year-End Giving Planning Process
- Marketing for Year-End Giving
- Best Practices for End-of-Year Giving
- After Your Year-End Giving Campaign
With the right strategies for year-end giving and the best software in your toolbox, you’ll be well set up to tackle the end of this chaotic year. Let’s get started.
1. Importance of Year-End Giving
Staying motivated throughout a campaign can be challenging. This is especially true when the campaign falls during a time of year when the majority of people are spending more time with their families and less time at the office. However, one way to stay motivated throughout any campaign is to understand why it’s such an important campaign for your mission.
It’s easy to get off track and distracted by other matters if you don’t have a concrete understanding of why your actions are so important. That’s why you should keep in mind (and remind other members of your team) the impact that your year-end giving campaign has on your overall fundraising strategy.
Here are some of the key statistics that exemplify the importance of your year-end giving campaign:
- 30% of all fundraising occurs in December. (source)
- 10% of fundraising occurs in the last three days of the year. (source)
- Consumers donate an average of $48 billion in November and December. (source)
- Over half of nonprofits start planning their year-end campaign in October. (source)
- The majority of nonprofits begin their outreach for year-end gifts in November. (source)
Understanding how much fundraising occurs in the final months of the year and how early other organizations start planning for this campaign shows its vital importance to nonprofits’ overall fundraising efforts.
Be sure to also pull your own metrics showing the importance of year-end giving for your specific nonprofit. Seeing how successful your year-end giving strategies have been in the past can provide both motivation for your team and direction as you get started with the planning process.
2. Year-End Giving Planning Process
As mentioned in the last section, most nonprofits begin their planning processes for year-end giving in the month of October. If you haven’t yet planned your campaign, it’s time to get started! Meanwhile, if you have already started your planning process, keep in mind that even the best plans may be subject to change as circumstances adjust. In the chaotic year of 2020, you have to stay on your toes!
Here at CharityEngine, we recommend the Plan, Run, Care process for fundraising campaigns. Planning is the essential first step to building effective campaigns; then you have to run with the plan you created; and, finally, you care for the relationships you’ve started with effective stewardship strategies.
The first step is, of course, effective planning. It’s important to make sure your planning process is well-crafted to lead your campaign in the right direction. And in order to create effective plans, you need to analyze data to find your starting point.
Analyze your past fundraising metrics and craft goals.
The first step to creating an effective campaign is to analyze your previous fundraising metrics. By analyzing your historic fundraising data, you can accurately predict your revenue for this year.
While we have had a difficult year and have experienced many hardships, including an economic downturn, many nonprofits have actually experienced an increase in their fundraising revenue. Use historic data to determine fundraising estimates for this year. You should consider metrics like:
- Your year-end fundraising from last year
- How your other fundraising campaigns have performed this year compared to previous years.
- Platforms where donors have historically contributed to your organization.
Analyze this information and use it to estimate the amount of funding you can expect from your year-end giving campaign this year. From there, you can create realistic goals for your team members to reach for.
When you create these goals, be sure they follow the SMART guidelines (meaning they’re specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely). Luckily, year-end giving goals can pretty easily fit into these categories. Consider each guideline separately:
- Specific: Try narrowing down and creating separate goals through each fundraising channel during your year-end giving campaign. For instance, you might earn more through your online donation page than through direct mail contributions. Creating separate goals ensures you know specifically how much to expect from each revenue stream.
- Measurable: This is an inherently easy guideline to reach when you create your year-end giving goals. For fundraising, it’ll simply be the amount that you’d like to raise. However, if you have additional goals in mind, like donor retention, acquisition, or others, be sure to assign a measurable metric that can be applied to the goal. For instance, you may want to “retain 50% of your donors from last year’s year-end giving campaign.”
- Attainable: This is why it’s so important to base your goals on historic metrics. If you set the goal too high, your fundraisers might become discouraged during your year-end giving campaign. However, if you set your goals too low, you’ll likely miss out on some potential (and likely sizable) revenue opportunities. In perfect Goldilocks style, you need to make sure your goals are just right.
- Relevant: Make sure you align your goals for your year-end giving campaign to your goals as an organization. This will be important as you communicate the impact to your supporters. You’ll want to show them exactly how their contributions impacted your mission. For instance, when someone contributes $100 to your campaign, you should be able to send an email to that donor saying, “Your gift of $100 helped to accomplish X, which goes a long way toward our mission, Y.”
- Timely: Again, this is a shoo-in for your year-end giving campaign. As a part of your year-end strategy, the timeline for your campaign should end on December 31st. However, keep in mind that this doesn’t end all of your efforts. In January, you’ll still need to follow up with your supporters and show appreciation for their hard work and contributions.
Creating concrete fundraising goals will help motivate your organization’s fundraisers as well as your supporters. They’ll feel driven to reach those goals and help you succeed in your mission.
Create your fundraising calendar.
After you understand your goals for your year-end giving campaign, you can start crafting a calendar for every step of the way. This calendar should outline your timeline for your marketing initiatives, your year-end events (likely occurring virtually this year), and your expected revenue during fundraising pushes.
Consider, for instance, the December calendar below:
This calendar is a great example of what nonprofits should put together to plan out their year-end giving campaigns because it includes pertinent details such as:
- Dates for each of your social media pushes
- Dates for emails to be sent to groups of clients
- Direct mail sendoffs
- Giving-specific holidays like Giving Tuesday
- The holiday vacation days for your staff members
- Notable campaign events
When you craft your calendar leading up to the end of the year, you should be sure to customize your appeals that you plan to send based on the segments in your donor database. For instance, you may create a donor segment of first-time supporters (who have only given once in the past), another for those who are eligible for matching gifts, and still another for your supporters who have given major or substantial contributions in the past.
Then, you can schedule the appeals for each of these groups of individuals to be sent at specific times on your calendar. Be sure not to send too many emails in a row to overlapping groups to avoid becoming repetitive with certain supporters.
Make sure you have the tools you need.
During your year-end giving campaign, you’ll need to leverage various tools and solutions to be sure that you’re taking advantage of every opportunity to raise funds. Remember, this is the last chance you’ll have to do so this year!
As you construct your calendar and plan for the campaign, be sure to consider how you’ll leverage resources such as your:
- Donor database. As the central hub for data and donor information, your donor database will be key for your year-end giving campaign. This is where you’ll look to craft your donor segments before you reach out to supporters, where you’ll store fundraising data from the supporters who give to your campaign, and where you’ll likely track the success of your campaign. Before diving into your year-end giving campaign, be sure to clean up your database and ensure good data hygiene so that everything is organized and ready to go.
- Event solution. Try anchoring your year-end giving campaign with an event. A kick-off event is a great way to engage your audience and get them excited about the opportunity to make a difference through your organization. For example, you might host a holiday-themed virtual gala to steward donors toward contributing this year.
- Fundraising software. Fundraising solutions allow your nonprofit to collect donations online. Consider and analyze your campaign plans to choose the type of fundraising software you’ll be using for your campaigns. For instance, you might choose to invest in an online donation tool, a peer-to-peer fundraising platform, an online e-commerce store, and more.
- Marketing tools. Effectively marketing your nonprofit’s year-end giving campaign is necessary for your organization to get the word out to both your current and potential supporters about the opportunity. Make sure you have effective marketing tools such as an email marketing solution, software to automate social media posting, and ways to get in contact with your supporters about the giving opportunity.
- Payment processing solution. When you accept donations online, you’ll need to safely and securely accept these payments. This means you need a secure payment processing solution. Look for PCI-certified software to be sure that the information you receive from donors is processed correctly and securely. After all, a data breach will hurt your reputation and relationships with supporters.
Keep in mind that many aspects of your year-end giving this year will likely be virtual. This means you might need to change up your toolbox to invest in solutions that can handle the additional virtual elements of the campaign. For example, you might need to host your kick-off event online, meaning you’ll need an event solution with video conferencing features.
The best way to make sure you have everything you need is to invest in an all-in-one platform like CharityEngine. CharityEngine offers all of the solutions you need to reach new donors, develop relationships with past donors, process payments safely, and manage your entire year-end giving campaign (even if it has to take place online).
3. Marketing for Year-End Giving
As you launch your year-end giving campaign, you’ll need to leverage your marketing solutions to be sure that your message will reach and resonate with your supporters. In order to effectively promote your campaign, you’ll need to personalize your messages and make sure everything specifically targets your audience.
Let’s cover the most popular outreach platforms and some marketing strategies to promote your year-end giving campaign.
Email Marketing
When you send emails, make sure each one is as personal as possible by leveraging segmentation strategies. Use the information in your donor database to create separate groups of supporters who have similar interests and qualities. For instance, you might create segments based on:
- Fundraising level
- Donors who have given already this year
- Donors who have not yet given this year
- Length of relationship with your organization
In addition to grouping supporters by similarities, you should take the extra step to personalize the emails by including the donor’s name in the introduction and including other personal details in the message. For instance, an animal shelter might include a supporter’s name and the name of their pet if available.
Social Media
Social media allows your organization to communicate with a massive number of people, especially your younger audience. Make sure that you’re posting regularly throughout the campaign, particularly during the last three days of the year when giving is typically most concentrated.
If you’re worried about taking time out of your busy day every day (or even every couple of hours), schedule your posts ahead of time. You can craft them all at once, then schedule them to go live at specific and strategic times during your campaign. Keep in mind that some days and times will receive more viewership. This chart from Sprout Social shows the most popular days and times for viewership to see social media posts:
Direct Mail
Direct mail isn’t dead! Actually, it’s the most popular medium for year-end giving outreach. This is because direct mail has several notable advantages. On average, for every 36 emails someone gets in their mailbox, they receive a single piece of physical mail. This makes that messaging stand out and draws their attention.
This doesn’t mean it’s the most popular donation channel, though. Direct mail is best used in conjunction with your digital strategies to capture your supporters’ attention. According to Nonprofit Source, when direct mail and digital ads are combined into a single strategy, the conversion rate tends to increase by 28%.
Therefore, when you send direct mail for your year-end giving campaign, be sure to also send emails and post to social sites. Then, in your direct mail itself, provide the information a supporter needs to give online and a return envelope for a physical donation.
Your Website
Your website is what grounds the rest of your nonprofit’s marketing efforts. When supporters receive your email and are interested in your year-end giving opportunities, they’ll likely visit your website to learn more. The same situation occurs for both social media and direct mail. Therefore, you need to make sure your website is well maintained and includes specific information about your campaign.
We recommend ensuring your year-end giving information is front-and-center on your website. Try designing a new banner for the home page that encourages supporters to click on it to learn more about year-end giving. Or, include a call-to-action button that individuals can click on to direct them to your donation page for the campaign.
4. Best Practices for End-of-Year Giving
The end of the year is a very lucrative time for nonprofits. Yet, many organizations don’t realize some of the best practices that they can implement in order to make the most of this valuable time frame. Below are the tips and tricks that can help you maximize your year-end giving campaign this year:
- Reach out to your volunteers. Your nonprofit’s volunteers are twice as likely to give to your nonprofit than non-volunteers. Create a separate supporter segment to address your organization’s volunteers and promote the campaign opportunities to them in order to get the best response rate.
- Look for the “free” revenue opportunities. Matched gifts and volunteer grants are a part of many corporate philanthropy programs that provide essentially free funding for your organization. Explain what these opportunities are to your supporters because many are simply unaware of their eligibility. If supporters are aware that they’re eligible for a matched gift, they’re 84% more likely to donate to your nonprofit.
- Emphasize supporter impact. Supporters don’t give to nonprofits simply because they enjoy ridding themselves of money. They give to support your mission. Emphasize the impact that your nonprofit’s supporters can have on your organization’s mission by contributing to your year-end giving campaign. Try to pull at their heartstrings and make sure they understand the importance of their gift.
- Discuss tax deduction opportunities. This year, in particular, tax deductions are a major driving force for donations. Supporters can receive an above-the-line tax deduction for a value up to $300 if they take the standard tax deduction in accordance with the CARES Act. Because almost 90% of individuals take the standard deduction, this means that the majority of your supporters will be able to benefit from the opportunity.
Taking advantage of these opportunities may require some additional effort from your team. However, when you’re able to implement the best practices, you’ll increase your revenue for this very important campaign.
5. After Your Year-End Giving Campaign
On January first, you’re likely to breathe a sigh of relief (and not just because 2020 has finally ended). Your year-end giving campaign will be drawing to a close. However, this doesn’t mean that your work is over!
Post-campaign is when you’ll put in a lot of additional work to steward your supporters and continue developing relationships with them. Remember how we mentioned the “Plan, Run, Care” model before? The execution of the campaign was the “Run” stage, but now that it’s over, you’ve arrived at the “Care” step.
After the campaign is over, you’ll want to reach back out to everyone who contributed. Be sure to:
- Thank them profusely for their contributions to the campaign. This is in addition to the receipt they received from your organization directly after their donation. You can send an email to say “thank you,” or pick up the phone and give them a call for a personal touch.
- Discuss how their contributions help your mission. Impact statements are helpful to persuade donors to contribute and to show your appreciation after the campaign. Tell them exactly what their donation will help you do for the mission. For instance, you might say, “Sally, your donation of $100 helped purchase backpacks for 20 children to go back to school in the spring.”
- Provide an annual giving report summarizing the year’s efforts. This annual report is designed to celebrate the successes and discuss the projects of the entire year. Remember that this has been a weird year for everyone. For 2020, be sure to mention how the pandemic has impacted your mission and share your plans to move forward given everything you learned this year.
Enjoy your initial sigh of relief on the first day of the new year, but don’t relax completely just yet! You still have work to do to keep the donor journey going for your supporters. By continuing your communication, you can wrap up the year-end giving campaign on a high note and start preparing for your new campaigns in 2021.
The end of the year is an incredibly lucrative opportunity for nonprofits to take advantage of. When you have an effective strategy to plan the campaign, run it smoothly, and care for your supporters, you’ll maximize your efforts.
As you close out 2020, keep in mind the tips and strategies in this article. Make the most of your campaign and keep a positive outlook for the future!
If you’re looking for additional opportunities to enhance your fundraising strategies for your year-end giving campaign, check out these additional resources:
- Multi-Channel Fundraising: What Your Nonprofit Needs to Know. Leverage all of the tools and resources available to you for a multi-channel fundraising campaign using the strategies in this helpful guide.
- How the “Plan, Run, Care” Model Can Boost Your Nonprofit This Year. Learn more about the “Plan, Run, Care” model and how you can use it to enhance your organization’s fundraising campaigns.
- Virtual Fundraising Events: A How-To Guide (And 15 Ideas!). Kick off your year-end giving campaign with a well-designed virtual fundraising event. Learn more about how to host these events virtually with this how-to guide.
