Year-End Giving
You never hear people say, “I know when I am.” But it’s often useful to know where you stand in a temporal sense. From a fundraiser’s point of view, it’s important to know where you are timewise when we approach the end of the year. One of out of every three dollars contributed to nonprofit organizations is donated in the month of December alone!
U.S. charitable giving increased significantly in Q2 2022, but gains were accompanied by a continuing steep decline in donor acquisition and retention, particularly among new and newly retained donors, according to the Fundraising Effectiveness Project’s (FEP) Second Quarter Fundraising Report. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) is a collaboration among fundraising data providers, researchers, analysts, associations, and consultants to empower the sector to track and evaluate trends in giving. The project offers one of the only views of the current year’s fundraising data in aggregate to provide the most recent trends for guiding nonprofit fundraising and donor engagement. The FEP releases
Your year-end fundraising strategy must pay special attention to the last four days of the year. December is the most lucrative giving month of the year, and especially so for online giving. Approximately one out of every three dollars in annual giving is donated in December. In fact, 28% of nonprofits raise between 26% and 50% of their annual funds from their year-end drive. An additional 36% of nonprofits raise nearly 10% of their annual funds from their year-end ask. For online giving, the figure is even higher, with 12% of all annual online giving coming in the last four days. (Statistics
Can you imagine how many nonprofit appeal letters I receive after 40 years in fundraising? And yet I still open each one, relish most of them, and occasionally grimace. Here are advanced tips for crafting your year-end appeals that will help you raise more revenue. 1. Is direct mail dead? It most certainly is not. Direct mail is still the workhorse of fundraising. You’ll want to collaborate closely not just with your printer and mail house, but everyone on your team—including your copy editor and graphic designer. What’s a good response rate for direct-mail fundraising? A recent Direct Marketing
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” ~Meister Eckhart, (1260 – 1328) Your Thanksgiving Thank-A-Thon is critical to your year-end fundraising drive; but it’s also the penultimate moment for you to express unabashed gratitude to your donors and funders. My blog posts this month have been all about boosting your year-end giving. I’ve already described what’s ahead for year-end giving in 2022; you can read about that here. Last week, I wrote about empowering your board members to take leadership roles in year-end fundraising and recommended that you create
Year-end giving is on all fundraisers’ minds right now—we all want to have the best returns possible. Last week, we described what’s ahead for year-end giving in 2022; you can read about that here. Over the next few weeks, I’ll examine various aspects of year-end giving, including the Thanksgiving Thank-A-Thon, year-end appeal letters, and the crucial last four days of the year. Stay tuned. Today, let’s look at some tips for inviting your board to play a leadership role in your year-end drive. It’s our job as fundraisers to make it easy for board members to participate in fundraising,
By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Sending annual giving statements to your donors and funders is a fundraising best practice — and an amazing opportunity to show love to your donors. An annual giving statement is also an opportunity to inform your donors about what makes your nonprofit unique. Donors tell me that they look more favorably at nonprofits that provide gift statements. These documents signal that the nonprofit is thoughtful and organized — and it gives many donors timely and highly useful information as they prepare their income tax returns. Here’s a sample gift statement that I like a lot.
By Ryan Carpenter November and December are a prime time for philanthropy, with 31% of donations occurring in December alone. But if you aren’t prepared to ride the coming wave of support, you could be leaving dollars behind. One of the best strategies to make the most of the giving season is to develop segmented messages for various donor groups. Given that donors have been shown to give 10% to 25% more when messages are personalized, you must not ignore the power of customized messages. Any fundraiser can apply the following segmentation best practices to #GivingTuesday and year-end campaigns. The
By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA Your year-end drive likely features written and email appeals delivered between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. That’s good … but … Before you make your appeals, you have an important opportunity to say “thank you” — and to do so in a way that is fresh and vibrant. Thanksgiving offers you a perfect hook for kicking off your year-end drive through a Thank-A-Thon — a “Thanks Bonanza” that you can start preparing for now. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of thanking donors and doing so in ways that do not come attached
By Laurence A. Pagnoni, MPA As Giving Tuesday comes around on November 30, I am asking you to think deeply before you commit to promoting it. My annual struggle over whether to include Giving Tuesday (GT) in my year-end fundraising plan is in full swing. This year, I am distracted by the gargantuan untapped revenue that you can access from those donors with Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) — upwards of $140 billion. I am asking myself if instead of focusing on Giving Tuesday, would it be more lucrative for me to focus on cultivating and soliciting those donors with Donor Advised Funds? Your
