Is your year-end giving campaign ready to send? Be sure to check out these five tips to get the most out of this year’s campaign!
1. Be present. This first tip actually starts in January. In order to encourage year-end gifts, it’s important to remind donors of your presence all year long. Be sure to regularly communicate with donors regarding your mission, your events, your work, and your opportunities for volunteers and donors. If you haven’t been in touch as much as you would have liked over the past year, don’t be discouraged. You can still implement the following four tips to ensure a healthy year-end giving campaign. Come January, remember to continue communicating with your supporters all year long.
2. Be on Mission. Keep your messages centered on your mission. Be sure your plea for donations effectively reiterates your purpose as an organization. Don’t get side-tracked by focusing on desperation or time-is-running-out tactics, but rather, emphasize your mission and how year-end gifts will help you accomplish your goals. Donors who are giving a gift of any size generally want to ensure their money is put to good use. Be sure to communicate both the purpose of your fundraising and how the funds will be used.
3. Ask through a variety of channels. You probably have a preferred method of communication. Maybe you enjoy talking on the phone. Perhaps you’d rather carry on a conversation via text message. Maybe, you don’t regularly check your personal email, but you do regularly peruse social media. Just like you, your donors have preferred methods of communication. So when it’s time to solicit year-end giving, be sure you’re approaching donors through a variety of channels.
Some donors won’t open an email, but those same donors might be drawn in by an intriguing picture and genuine plea on Facebook. For others, the opposite may be true. In order to reach the largest audience, be sure to communicate using a variety of channels. Furthermore, if you have specific donors who regularly give larger gifts, be sure to give them special attention. Let them know how much you appreciate their gifts by taking the time to make a personal phone call.
4. Test it out. Be sure your website asks are current and your donation page is fully operational and easy to use. It’s a good idea to walk through your donation process to be sure it’s simple and intuitive before sending thousands of donors to your giving page.
5. Be creative. One charity that I personally support sends out year-end giving statements at the beginning of December. The first time I received one, I thought, “This must be a mistake. Why would they send this a month before the year is over?” And then I read the accompanying letter. For tax purposes, this organization wanted to remind me of how much I had given to date this year, so as to encourage me to consider increasing my tax-deductible gifts before the year was up. While this route may not be cost effective for all nonprofit organizations, I, as a recipient, found it to be a unique, helpful, and personalized way to solicit an end-of-year gift. What unique methods are you employing to encourage year-end gifts? Let us know in the comments below.