6 Steps to Build Your Year-End Giving Campaign Now

This post is written in partnership with Donorbox.

Year-end fundraising can be one of the most stressful, high stakes times of the year for nonprofits. Some organizations are trying to meet ambitious goals set by their Boards, others are trying to close a fundraising gap to make their budget for the year, and others skip the year-end rush all together because they think too many organizations are asking for money and that they’ll just add to the noise.

Here’s the thing: roughly 30% of all charitable giving happens in the month of December (Source).

What does that mean? It means that donors are looking for organizations to give to and responding to year-end fundraising appeals.

If your organization isn’t sending out appeals, you’re literally leaving money on the table. 

The organizations that raise the most money during the year-end giving season are the ones that plan ahead, rather than haphazardly put emails together because they should.

This post offers practical steps to get your organization ready for giving season as early as possible. These steps are intentionally focused on digital fundraising. Why? 69% of donors prefer to receive fundraising appeals via email (Source). Your organization can and should use other means of communication (phone calls, direct mail, SMS) but your communication with donors should align with how you’ve communicated with them previously. 

Step 1: Systems Check - Get Your Year-End Giving Systems Ready Before You Need Them

When was the last time you tested the donation form on your website? 

You should go through your own donation checkout process as if you were a donor and document platform fees, processing fees, donor-covered fees, tips, add-ons, etc. Donors should have absolute clarity on how much they’re donating and what that covers before they make their gift. And your donors should be able to make a donation in three clicks or less and the experience should be seamless. 

You should test your donation form on both desktop and mobile to gauge the user-experience from both. 

Did an acknowledgement of the gift come through immediately? Did a genuine thank you note follow? A receipt is not a thank you letter. Acknowledgements are for tax purposes, thank you notes express gratitude. You should have both in place.

Once you’ve tested your donation page, you should check your CRM. Did the donation come through correctly? Was the donor’s information pulled into your database?

If your donation processing platform and CRM aren’t connected, you risk having incomplete information which affects donor stewardship and communications.

I’ve worked with dozens of fundraising platforms throughout my career and one I keep coming back to is Donorbox. Their donation forms are built with the donor in mind, meaning donations are quick and easy. And that makes a big difference come December. 

If you find that your organization needs a new platform, read this to find the best way to compare the pricing and value of different fundraising platforms.

Step 2: Segment Your List for a Stronger End of Year Fundraising Campaign

The most successful year-end fundraising campaign I ever ran raised just shy of $100,000 after sending 17 emails.

Yes, 17.

Nonprofits that hit or exceeded their end-of-year fundraising goals sent more emails than those that didn’t. A study that analyzed year-end fundraising performance found that the top 25% of organizations who raised 96% of their goal or more sent an average of 5 emails.

So, why 17?

You aren’t going to send 17 emails to every donor on your list. That’s where segmentation comes in. You want each donor to receive somewhere between 5 and 7 emails and a segmented list makes sure you’re talking to donors in the right way, and reaching different donor groups at different times.

At minimum, you should have four lists:

• Active donors (donors who have given this year)

• Lapsed donors who haven’t given in 1-3 years

• Major donors (however your organization defines that threshold)

• Prospects (those on your list who have never given)

• Anyone you don’t want receiving mass year-end communications 

Step 3: Start with Donor Stewardship

Now that you have your segmented lists, it’s time to review your recent communications with them. Before you start sending them emails asking for donations, it’s paramount that you’ve communicated with them about what your organization has been doing and the impact of any gifts they’ve made.

This is the plan before the plan. Start reaching out to those donors as soon as possible before November. If your organization sends out a newsletter, make sure it’s going out weekly (or whatever cadence you’ve promised). If it isn’t, start there. 

If you haven’t been in touch with your donors since last year, make a plan to reach out to them. This shouldn’t be an ask, it should be a genuine touch point sharing your work. Postcards, hand-written notes, and phone calls all work really well here

And if you haven’t been in touch with your donors since last year, pull out your calendar and make it a point to connect with each segment in a meaningful way once every quarter.

Step 4: Map Out Your End of Year Fundraising Campaign Schedule

This is where you get to work. First, set your goal. It doesn’t have to be a monetary goal, it could be an increase in donors, or reactivation of a certain number of lapsed donors. 

Now, determine how many emails you’re going to send. It doesn’t have to be 17, especially if you’re a small team or have a small list. Look at your donor segments, and plan to send at least 4 emails to each segment between Giving Tuesday and December 31.

I built a free template to plan your entire year-end email schedule. It has suggested send dates, subjects, and audience targets already filled in.

Once you have your schedule in place, share it with your organization’s Board and leadership. Get everyone on the same page about what the plan is, how many emails you’re sending, why you’re sending them, and what the goal is. This will help avoid any last minute, “Hey, what if we…” ideas. 

A few things I want you to know:

10% of donations are made in the last three days of the year. The template I shared has two emails going out between December 29 and 31. That’s intentional.

I get the same question every year – should we pull donors out of our list if they’ve already donated. My answer? No. Your emails should be segmented and spaced apart enough that no one will get two appeals in say, the same week. But, if someone makes a first-time donation to your organization who hasn’t previously been on your email list, I would exclude them from future appeals. They should get a proper welcome sequence and flow into your general communications.

In 2023, more than 80% of people who made a gift on GivingTuesday made another donation to the same organization by the end of the year.

That’s important information to know. And while I don’t have data on this, I would bet that those donors gave again because they were properly thanked after their gift was made.

Step 5: Draft Your Year-End Giving Nonprofit Appeals, Story First

Start writing your appeals. Don’t get caught up in design, just write. Tell stories about the people your organization serves. Tell your story about why you wanted to work for the organization. Show impact. Use numbers sparingly and strategically. A story evokes a lot more emotion than a data point. 

This is time consuming. You should block out a few days to get through all of your emails. Once you do, put them into your email service provider and schedule them. 

Remember, you’re writing to different audiences, so it’s ok to write different versions of the same email. When I sent 17 emails, most of them were identical except for a few sentences. Why? Because they went to different audiences. 

Step 6: Finalize your Year-End Stewardship Strategy

You’ve written your emails and you’re ready to sit back and watch your campaign kick off. But first, you need a plan to make sure those donors are appropriately thanked and that you reach next August without having been in touch with them at all.

Your donation processor should send an automated acknowledgement. Make sure those are going out. You should also have an automated thank you letter go out as soon as someone makes a donation.

But what happens next?

First-time donors should flow into a welcome sequence that shares more about your organization.

Repeat donors should get a personal, plain-text email from someone on your leadership team, thanking them for their gift within 3 days of making a donation. (Some will say within 24 hours, but I know the reality of that happening, especially on smaller teams). If the gift reaches a certain threshold for your organization, they should get a phone call. A handwritten postcard is also a really nice touch this time of year.

Remember when you segmented your donors and we talked about sending quarterly updates. Those donors should be part of that. 

Why This Works

Year-end fundraising isn’t just about raising money. A strong year-end campaign can set your organization up really well for the next year. 

This plan works because it touches on everything. The donor segments you build in Step 2 streamline your stewardship in Step 3, which makes the campaign schedule you build in Step 4 more manageable. 

When you map things out in this way, you aren’t starting from scratch and, when you focus on stewardship before you actually start asking for money, you’re ensuring that those relationships carry on from year to year. 

If you read this post and feel overwhelmed, let’s work through it together. I offer 90 minute Fundraising Clarity Sessions to help you focus on what’s actually going to move the needle with your organization’s fundraising.