Year-end fundraising can be the most important time of the year for many nonprofits and planning ahead is critical. December is undeniably the most important fundraising month and all nonprofits should be prepared to make the most of it with a solid marketing communication strategy.
As the 2015 Network for Good Digital Giving Index notes, nearly 30% of annual giving occurs in December with 11% happening in the last three days of the year.
The confluence of the holiday giving spirit and the rush to take advantage of philanthropy’s tax benefits means you could be leaving donations on the table if you’re not planning a communication strategy today for the upcoming holiday season. So let’s get your nonprofit prepared!
Don’t stop direct mail solicitations just yet
The growth in popularity of online giving over the past few years has been astonishing. According to the Blackbaud Index, since early 2011, there has never been a month in which the growth of overall giving has outpaced the growth of online giving. In fact, most months see online giving growth outpacing overall giving growth by large margins. September 2015 saw an impressive 10.2% increase in online giving compared to a 1.7% decline in overall giving.
While this blog primarily focuses on digital marketing strategies to boost your online giving for year-end fundraising, we are not implying backing off traditional fundraising practices such as direct mail. Rather, an integrated digital and traditional fundraising strategy is vital to successful fundraising all year long.
Integration is essential
Advertisers call it “effective frequency,” marketers call it “the rule of seven” but the concept is the same. It takes numerous communication touches from a brand to move a consumer or donor to action. While the actual number of touches is debated (three, five, seven, etc.) the core principle is insightful. You must communicate regularly before your audience will act on your message.
This is why integrating all your nonprofit’s marketing messages and timing is essential. From direct mail to telemarketing (yes, it still works), to your website, social media and email, the messaging must all be aligned to be effective. If you’re not optimizing your year-end marketing around integrated messaging, you will be leaving donations on the table.
Online giving user experience is critical
Your goal for developing a successful online giving user experience is to develop the smoothest path through your donation system with the fewest possible roadblocks. Do not assume your donation path is intuitive and optimized. I have seen too many nonprofit websites with a confusing and complex online donation process that only create user frustration and lead to donation abandonment. Put simply, don’t make it hard for your donors to give online.
Leverage analytics data like Google Analytics’ flow visualization reports that can show you where your website visitors are dropping off your site. These reports can illuminate user behavior on your website that may surprise you and cause you to rethink how you construct your online donation process. It is important to check in on your optimization efforts regularly by reviewing this data. Continually improving your online donation process is critical to not only your year-end fundraising efforts, it’s critical to your year-round online fundraising success.
In addition, donation form branding is critical. Ensuring the user experience between your site and donation portal is as visually seamless as possible can result in an increase in donations. Donors give an average of 43% more on branded giving pages than generic giving pages and are also 31% more likely to begin a monthly recurring gift on a branded giving page.
The importance of recurring giving
I can’t stress the importance of a recurring giving strategy for the future of nonprofits. If your nonprofit needs a strategy to increase retention and reduce donor attrition, put this solution at the top of your strategy list. Recurring donors are more loyal than one-time donors. Retention rates for new donors generally hover below 23% but average retention rates for first-year monthly donors is an astounding 80% and increases to 95% after five years. Also, on average, monthly donors give an average of 42% more in one year than donors who give one-time gifts.
If your nonprofit doesn’t support monthly, quarterly or annual recurring gift processing, look into an online donation systems that offers this feature such as Blackbaud’s Luminate Online or NetCommunity.
If your nonprofit already offers this convenience, make sure it’s a central part of your marketing messaging and consider a dedicated recurring giving marketing campaign.
For year-end, you can tailor your campaign messaging to your recurring donors. For example, motivate your monthly donors with a 13th gift campaign at the end of December. Many monthly donors will view this ask as a special exception to their regular giving and will be willing to give your nonprofit an additional year-end gift as a result.
Timing is key
There are a number of optimal points throughout the holiday season to anchor your digital marketing plan. At these points, remember to integrate your messaging across all your digital platforms; website, social media, email, paid social, and paid search advertising. If you don’t have marketing budget devoted to paid advertising, especially at this time of year, consider adding it to next year’s budget. Even if it’s simply devoting a little budget to promote or sponsor your Facebook posts during the holiday season, the message exposure from paid is valuable.
As you can see, holiday and year-end giving produce the highest average gift size of the year, a full-court marketing press is essential to ensure you’re getting the word out.
Let’s look into the various touch points during the year-end giving season that – from personal experience – I advise nonprofits to target their communication around.
Thanksgiving
First up, the Thanksgiving holiday. This is a perfect moment to reconnect with your audience and remind them you are thankful for their support and why. There is no need for a hard ask in this touch point unless you have a unique hook for your nonprofit during this time.
#GivingTuesday
Next is #GivingTuesday which lands on November 29, 2016. #GivingTuesday, the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, was created as a global day of giving powered by social media and the collaboration of nonprofits around the world. In its fourth year, #GivingTuesday is a movement all nonprofits can embrace and rally their supporters behind to give to their cause. The #GivingTuesday website also provides tools and resources to help your nonprofit join the movement and rally your donors to give to your cause.
December holidays
Your holiday giving solicitation is next but the exact timing, near the Christmas holiday, is always a tough decision to make and should be tested each year. Avoid soliciting on Christmas day and Christmas Eve as it’s likely a good portion of your audience won’t be paying attention to their digital devices. When you add consideration for donors traveling to visit loved ones, the timing becomes tricky.
I advise nonprofits to test their timing each year to find the exact day their holiday giving solicitation will work best for their unique audience. A good starting point for your testing would be to target between December 21st and 23rd as the below giving graph shows a bump giving during that time. Perhaps even test a post-Christmas appeal on the 26th though keep in mind you’ll be pushing hard with your communication in the coming days.
End of December
As the chart above shows, the most important touch points for the entire year come in the last three days. While some nonprofits raise a third of their annual donations in December, 20% of those gifts come in on the 31st alone. The optimal time of day for solicitations is valuable to note as well as highlighted by the graph below.
Are you positioned well to take advantage of the year-end rush to give? These last few days of the year should see a full-court press of communication integrated across all available channels. Keep your messaging short and to the point. People are prepared to open their hearts and their wallets, you want to make sure your messaging is in front of them when they sit down at their computer to donate. Emphasizing urgency, tax savings deadlines and impact of their giving are often effective messaging angles for year-end giving reminder messages.
Early January
At the end of pushes such as year-end fundraising, it’s important to circle back and thank your donors for all they do for your organization. Donors who are regularly thanked become more loyal donors.
At a minimum, send an email during the first week of January after vacations are over. Thank them and perhaps provide some details or statistics on what their support has done in the past year and key them up for a fantastic year to come.
To up the ante on your year-end stewardship, consider a mailed appreciation post card or even a thank you phone-a-thon. Your investment in thanking your donors will reap many returns in the New Year.
Here goes!
As with any campaign, testing in key. If your nonprofit hasn’t developed an extensive year-end fundraising strategy as outlined in this blog, this is a great year to start collecting data on what works for your audience by trying it out. Armed with this year’s lessons, you will set yourself up for even greater fundraising success in the years to come.
Mambo Media wishes all our nonprofit followers a successful year-end fundraising season. Let us help you develop a comprehensive digital fundraising campaign for your nonprofit’s continued success.
All graphics credited to Network for Good’s Digital Giving Index and 2015 Online Giving Trends
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