The holiday season (October-January 1), is when 30% of all annual donations take place. To ensure that your nonprofit receives as many donations as possible, here is what you need to do.
Step 1: Keep Track of Important Dates
As stated above, the holiday season (October-January 1) is usually when most nonprofit organizations see their largest spike of donations. Why? Mostly for a few reasons, but we’ll mention our top two:
- Large and small corporations often have their own donation goals each year which they (often) wait to complete until the end of the year.
- The holidays are a time for giving!
Depending on the people you serve and your organization’s goals, there might be certain holidays over others that are more important to your target audience. Regardless, this is the time of year that your target audience is already looking to give. Take advantage by planning ahead and create your year-end giving campaign now. Besides the date of actual holidays, there is one more important date you should keep on your radar:
Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday (December 1, 2020), is a nationwide day of giving. Participating in Giving Tuesday is FREE and critical to incorporate into your year-end giving calendar. The Giving Tuesday organization provides fantastic guides on how to promote your organization on Giving Tuesday, creative ideas to promote your participation to your audience, and recommendations on how to set your fundraising goals. We highly recommend you sign up and check it out.
Step 2: Create A Year-End Giving Campaign Plan
A campaign plan will help you set goals and identify a clear, attainable plan of action. There are many different approaches to creating a year-end giving plan, but really all you need is to answer the following questions:
- Where will this campaign take place?
- Will it be on social media or in-person?
- What is your fundraising goal?
- Set a clear goal. Then when you launch your campaign, tell your followers how close you are to reaching it!
- Depending on the location, will you need to hire another team to help you execute?
- This could be an event planner, graphic designer, social media manager, etc.
- How long will it take to complete?
- i.e will you do one big donation day? The whole month? Months? Identify a clear start and end date.
- What other items do you need to be successful?
- This could be a landing page on your website, printed materials, or more.
Step 3: Create a timeline
A timeline should be a part of your campaign plan, but just in case you forgot that part, here is your reminder. Gathering all the materials you need to execute your plan can take time—lots of it! After you’re done reading this post, put some time on your calendar to meet with your team regarding your plan. Especially if you need materials designed, printed, or put up on your website, you don’t want to be caught low on time. To help get your team conversation started, make sure your timeline includes:
- Time for creating/securing necessary materials
- Campaign start and end date
- Post-campaign evaluation and measurement
Step 4: Execute
With your plan created and timeline in place, get to fundraising! Don’t feel discouraged if your campaign launch starts off slow. Keep to your plan and stay consistent. And a word to the wise: nothing is worse than feeling like the only time you hear from an organization is when they want your money. Keeping this in mind, don’t forget to maintain your normal communications while also asking for donations. Good luck!
And, if you need a little help with your campaign plan or creating those materials, holler at us!
