Is your nonprofit looking for a fundraising edge as we head into year-end giving? If so, you’re not alone. Nonprofits raise a significant percentage of their total funds from October to December, and there are a lot of charities vying for year-end dollars. What’s the best strategy for success?
In our world, the answer to many problems begins by looking at data. And we love our pals at NextAfter because they feed us a steady diet of excellent, accurate, and unbiased nonprofit data that helps us advise our clients. When we received the latest year-end benchmark report, we dove right in to see if any of the insights could help us share some strategies.
The answer was, of course, yes. In this article, we will review a few key findings from the report and offer thoughts on how that data can impact any nonprofit. We would urge everyone to read the whole report, as the extensive information provides tremendous value.
NextAfter found that 40% of the nonprofits surveyed (more than 200 nonprofits asked about their activity at the end of last year) reported not sending any emails to new online donors last year.
One of the most fundamental pillars of donor management is to make your donors feel appreciated and recognized. This turns a donation into a relationship, and loyal donors become monthly givers and sometimes even tip into major gift prospects. Thanking your donors almost instantly is critical to growing your nonprofit.
To make this easy and hands-off, use automations in your CRM to send a thank-you email as soon as that donation is received. You can automate just about any communication or routine task, meaning that you can thank your donor and acknowledge their gift, send nurturing emails leading up to the next ask, and even send them to your donor portal to download tax forms…without crafting and sending individual emails.
Another interesting finding about the lack of communications is that 29% of organizations didn’t send anything to donors at year-end, even direct mail. This is such a missed opportunity! If you craft an automated campaign in which you thank a donor, nurture a donor, and then appeal for another gift before the campaign ends, you could double your fundraising. And you don’t have to stick to only email because…
Another NextAfter stat: Only 36% of organizations used a multichannel approach last giving season. Furthermore, they share:
This is another tenant of smart fundraising. Craft a compelling multichannel campaign for the most effective campaigns! CharityEngine offers all core fundraising tools in one system (think email, contact records for phone and mail outreach, P2P, events, text-to-give, automation, and more), meaning all your data is in one place, in real time. This makes creating and executing multichannel campaigns easy, but it also makes the data actionable. If, for example, you note that adding a text to an email campaign works well but phone outreach isn’t getting the results you want, you can simply replace the calls with another channel.
If you’re looking for a how-to guide or some ideas, we’d be happy to share ideas with you.
The report states that 52% of year-end emails are sent between 8 a.m. and noon.
Which is prime time, any marketer will tell you, for many communications (social media posts, emails, phone calls). Wait until after someone’s day has started or get them before they get wrapped up in work, but shoot for early in the day for the best results.
And this works. But at year-end, every nonprofit running campaigns takes this same advice, and inboxes get crowded. It’s hard to stand out.
While NextAfter recommends trying a strategy that switches things up to see what works. Send some emails in that morning window and some in the afternoon or evening. Try a weekend, when most of us are more relaxed and have time to think about what we would give.
And here’s where the CRM pitch comes in. Use your technology to measure all of these efforts! Whether it’s clicks and conversions or opens or visits to your website, your CRM can record tremendous amounts of data, and you can run reports specific to your constituents. In doing this, you’ll learn the best time of day to send different communications to your audience, and you’ll be able to create campaigns optimized for success.
We talk so much about GivingTuesday because it’s the start of the season, and you have time to analyze data, replace strategies, and pivot in almost any way to resurrect flagging fundraising. But don’t assume that’s your only chance.
Last year, December 31 tripled the revenue brought in on GivingTuesday. Tripled!
In a perfect world, you have time and resources to launch a multichannel campaign for GivingTuesday, analyze data and tweak it over the next weeks, and have a final, exciting push for December 31. But if you’re limited on time and/or resources, perhaps focusing on December 31 is advisable.
Here are some surprising statistics:
So here you have it: To increase fundraising, send emails on Giving Tuesday and December 31. The data doesn’t lie!
Thanks to NextAfter for the informative data! It’s our intent that both the report and this article help nonprofits maximize their year-end giving campaigns and amp up their results.
Key takeaways include the importance of consistent donor communication, adopting a multichannel approach, carefully timing email sends, and not overlooking December 31st's significant fundraising potential. By applying these data-driven strategies, nonprofits can position themselves for greater year-end success and build stronger donor relationships that carry into the new year.
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