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A Guide to Maximizing Your Year-End Fundraising
As the holiday season approaches, nonprofits prepare for year-end fundraising. In 2022, we witnessed a resurgence of in-person events and donor engagements, strengthening connections. However, the significance of impactful year-end fundraising persists.
With up to 50% of annual donations received during this period, maximizing your efforts is crucial. Explore ongoing trends and strategies to elevate your year-end fundraising campaign.
Why Is Year-End Fundraising So Important?
Nonprofits put a lot of emphasis on GivingTuesday campaigns, but the days that follow each Giving Tuesday are crucial to meeting your annual fundraising goals.
Most donations to nonprofits occur in the last three months of the year, but up to 30% of all annual donations are made in December. What’s more, from the 29th to the 31st of December, nonprofits receive raise more than they do on Giving Tuesday!
These statistics signal the importance of prioritizing your year-end fundraising campaigns and highlight the giving potential of donors during this time of the year. In December, donors are in the giving spirit, thanks to the holiday season. They are more likely to buy gifts for friends and family and support causes they believe in.
In addition to giving brought on by holiday spirit, donors are also motivated by tax receipts! As the year comes to an end, they make last-minute donations; in some cases, these gifts can be significant contributions in order to collect a large value tax receipt. Don't forget to research automated tax receipting options so that you don't have to worry about sending them out while you're enjoying your own holiday activities!
How to Prepare for the Year-End Giving Season
1. Review Past Fundraising Campaigns
Take some time to review donation data and metrics from your past campaigns, and as you plan for your this year, identify KPIs to help your nonprofit team stay on track.
When evaluating your past campaigns, consider the following:
- What worked and what didn’t?
- How much did you raise in total? Was it above or below expectations, and why?
- Which of your channels was the most successful in securing donations? Was it your emails? Social channels? Phone calls?
- What was the theme of your campaign last year? How did people respond to it?
- Which segments of your donor base made the most donations?
- How did you follow up with donors and thank supporters for their contributions?
- What was the average donation amount?
2. Set Goals for Your Year-End Fundraising Campaign
Once you’ve reviewed your metrics, you can look ahead by setting goals and benchmarks. Most importantly, you can identify key campaign metrics and decide how you will measure your progress. Get your team on board and be sure that they understand what each metric means and the role they will play in achieving it!
Some metrics to consider include:
- Fundraising: Campaign ROI, Total Funds Raised, Average Gift Size, Donor Retention Rate, New Donor Acquisition
- Marketing, and Donor Outreach: Email Open Rate, Email Click-Through Rate, Donation Page Conversion Rate, Social Media Traffic.
3. Create a Unique Campaign Theme
Next, as you prepare for your year-end fundraising, develop a theme, unique branding, and messaging that will be used consistently throughout the campaign. Your campaign marketing collaterals, copy, and content must resonate with your ideal donors. So, you should review your ideal donor persona and donor insights and use them as a basis for developing your new campaign.
4. Equip Your Nonprofit Team with a Fundraising CRM
If you’re still using spreadsheets to manage your donors while juggling freemium software to send mass emails, the end of the year is a convenient time to consider investing in digital fundraising tools.
During the busy holiday season, you shouldn’t spend hours sending tax receipts or pulling an updated list of your recurrent donors. The following tools will help you stay focused on your appeal and create a successful year-end fundraising campaign:
- A donor management system to store and analyze donor data,
- An email marketing platform to reach out to your supporters
- A fundraising platform to set up a donation form and automatically send tax receipts
Does it mean you have to buy three different software to implement your year-end fundraising campaign? No! Your secret weapon is housed in three letters: CRM
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a database that holds all your contacts' information in one place. It helps reduce the time spent on manual processes like updating donor information, keeping track of ongoing projects, and creating donation receipts. Most importantly, it gives you a complete understanding of your donors and their needs, helping you tailor your fundraising campaigns. A CRM, like Keela, even goes a step further by recommending how much you should ask for or when is the best time to reach out to your donors. You can consider one of the nonprofit CRM listed here.
See How Nonprofits Use Keela to Collect Online Donations
Get a glimpse of how Keela’s fundraising smart tools help nonprofit organizations strategize, streamline, and automate their fundraising efforts.
Remember, even in unprecedented times, the end of the year can still be an excellent time for your nonprofit to bring in even more revenue. Take advantage of this season and end your year with a bang by running a year-end fundraising campaign. Don’t leave any stone unturned; instead, equip your team with the best strategies and tools to make this charitable season worthwhile for your organization.
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