5 Fundraising Tips for Nonprofits to Supercharge The Giving Season

When talking about the end of the year, most people think of holidays, festivals, Christmas, and the New Year. But for a fundraiser, it has a different value.

It’s known as the giving season—the busiest charitable season when nonprofits raise up to 50% of their annual donations. 

That’s why you’ll need solid year end giving strategies and push your fundraising efforts a little extra to supercharge the giving season. Otherwise, you’ll end up losing a great opportunity there.

So, in this article, you’ll find five practical fundraising tips for nonprofits. Whether you raise $5000 or $50,000, these can boost your overall year end giving campaign.

Why is the end of year fundraising campaign important?

The “giving season” generally refers to the time of year when donors are most likely to donate. Basically, it consists of the last quarter of the year, the months of October, November, and December.

The end of year fundraising campaign holds utmost importance for organizations, as it serves as a crucial phase to meet financial goals and ensure sustainability.

To kick off your year end giving campaign, what better than participating in Giving Tuesday?

This global day of generosity is growing bigger and bigger with each passing year.

In 2022, organizations participating in Giving Tuesday raised over $3.1 billion in the United States alone which is increased by 15% compared to Giving Tuesday 2021.

People feel more generous during this period and desire to make a positive impact before the year concludes. Statistics consistently underscore the significance of the end of year fundraising campaign.

But it doesn’t mean the numbers are guaranteed. You’ve got to be diligent and sincere with your year end fundraising campaigns.

The giving season is the backbone for almost one-third of nonprofit organizations. As the season progresses, the number of donations increases. 

Millions of donations flow in the last few days of the year.

“12% of all annual donations come in the last three days of December.”

So, it’s essential to invest time in thoughtful planning and optimizing the giving experience to achieve fundraising success.

5 Tips for fundraisers to maximize the season of giving

There are so many fundraising tips for nonprofits available for a successful giving season. But you can’t rely on or apply all of them together. You’ve got to be choosy somewhere. 

Here I’ve covered the top 5 nonprofit fundraising tips for you. These will not only help you maximize your end of year fundraising campaign but also reduce your workload.

Plan your fundraisers in advance

Nonprofit organizations run multiple campaigns throughout the year to reach their annual donation goal. But they mostly focus on the end of year fundraising campaign, as it’s notably lucrative.

Before getting started, you should go back to the past and run an analysis on your last-year drive. Try it for several years if you have the data. Analyzing data helps you identify what strategies were successful.

Once you identify what worked best for you, you can use the insights to make your year end fundraising campaign goals and the tactics to reach them.

Having an advanced plan and goal will help you in your decision-making. You’ll know what actions you’re taking for which reason. 

For example, if you’re planning to participate in Giving Tuesday, plan your other campaigns accordingly and make sure you’re not hosting any other big campaigns at the same time.

Early planning gives you the advantage of mitigating the adverse impacts of unexpected circumstances. It also provides ample time for team members to understand their roles and responsibilities, fostering better preparedness and efficiency.

Capitalize the power of social media

The impacts of social media on fundraising are beyond our imagination. As donors are more likely to donate online, social media can be a remarkable addition to your end of year fundraising campaign.

As a fundraiser, you can reach anyone from any corner of the world using its limitless reach. There are 4.95 billion social media users worldwide, which is more than 60% of the global population.

It’s pretty easy to reach and engage supporters using social media. Social ads are even better.

You can utilize social media not only for raising donation but also for 

• Reaching more people
• Cost effectiveness
• Engage donors
• Recruiting volunteers

Half of the donors have contributed directly through Facebook Fundraising Tools, and an impressive 82% of them said they are likely to do it again.

So it’s a must doing job to capitalize on multiple social media channels in order to make a successful year end giving campaign.

To make your nonprofit organization more credible, you may add a social media plugin to your WordPress website. For example, WP Social Ninja is one of the best at this job. 

It lets you embed your social feed, social chats, and YouTube videos on your website. Also, you can fetch all the reviews effortlessly. It improves your credibility and makes you more trustworthy to the donor.

Read more: How to Use Social Media for Fundraising

Inspire recurring donation

A recurring donation is an ongoing financial contribution made by an individual or organization to a nonprofit. Instead of making a one-time donation, the donor commits to giving a specified amount of money at regular intervals, such as monthly, quarterly, or weekly.

Donors who donate on a recurring basis are called recurring donors. Having a recurring donor is like having a superhero subscription for kindness.

It’s an automated process. It brings smoothness between you and the donors and keeps both of you free from the hassle of remembering and making donations manually each time.

It transforms a one-time act of generosity into a sustained partnership and creates a strong connection between you and the donors as they become integral contributors to the organization’s mission over time.

Recurring donations give a boost to your year end fundraising campaigns and help you improve your donor retention rate as well.

Try to encourage your donors to donate on a recurring basis. This will give your organization steady and sustainable growth. It also provides a predictable source of income for nonprofits.

There are many recurring donation plugins available for WordPress websites to assist you in this matter.

Harness the power of peer-to-peer fundraising

Another functional fundraising tips for nonprofits is to utilize peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns. It’s one of the great year end giving strategies, where your team members or volunteers will raise funds on behalf of you. 

You can turn your current supporters into wonderful ambassadors during the end of year fundraising campaign. 

Encourage them to be a part of your year end giving campaign so they can raise funds from their personal networks, family, friends, and coworkers.

This way, a peer-to-peer campaign allows you to raise more donations while expanding your networks.

Optimize the donation page

A simple but effective tip for fundraisers is to optimize the donation page properly. Before the campaign launches, find out if the donation page needs any improvement or not.

It’s no secret that your donation page plays a crucial role in making your year end giving campaign successful.

Don’t make it too informational or time-consuming to take action. Otherwise, people might get a bit frustrated seeing it. People love to make easy donations.

“62% of social donors are motivated by easy giving.”

Make sure you’re providing multiple payment gateways for a seamless checkout process. While creating a donation page, ensure its relevance to your campaign purpose.

For instance, you’re running an end of year fundraising campaign for animal welfare and using a feature image of children on the donation page.

Does it make any sense?

Here is a quick guide into how you can optimize your donation page:

• Make it mobile friendly
• Use relevant story
• Offer on page checkout system
• Offer suggested amount
• Keep it less informational
• Offer an option for recurring donations or gifts
• Use a donation progress bar to keep it transparent

Try 10 optimized and ready-to-use donation form templates

Wrapping Up

If you’re a fundraiser and wait until the last moment to boost your annual donations, these year end giving tips will assist you in reaching there.

It’s important to have thoughtful ideas and the right tools to conduct an effective end of year fundraising campaign.

Apart from the five mentioned, there are so many additional giving season fundraising tips for nonprofits to outreach and engage everyone in the campaign.

It’s all good, but the title is Giving Season, it doen’t only have to be restricted to Giving Tuesday. Mention Christmas here and there too. Or new year as well.