Amplify the Ask: 2025 Year-End Campaign Messaging
How can you ensure your supporters feel seen and heard this year? We recommend these messaging strategies when building your year-end fundraising campaign:
Emphasize community
Make sure your supporters know that your success is the direct result of building a strong community around your mission. People feel powerful when they’re part of something bigger. Let them know that their impact is multiplied because of communal commitment to the cause.
Illustrate your impact
It’s easy to say you’ve made an impact this year, but it’s even more important to show it. When you’re using a chart or graphic, make sure it’s answering a specific question. Titles like “Reach” might not stick, but “We provided youth development programming to 750 students this year, up from 2024” says something a whole lot more meaningful.
Unite people on mission
There’s a reason you do what you do. Remind people why your organization captured their interest to begin with. Re-emphasizing your mission, vision, and values, and focusing on the core purpose of your work will help end the year on an authentic, true-to-you note.
Use everyday language
Elite, sector-specific jargon can isolate and deter supporters. You’re in the thick of it writing grants and making your case every day–– your supporters aren’t. When describing your work, use language that makes sense to everybody. At a time of public distrust of institutions, it’s essential that your messaging clarifies your goals, not obscures them with high-falutin language.
Build personal relationships
As always, the work of building and sustaining relationships with supporters is a year-round effort. When you make phone calls, send handwritten cards, and personalize communications throughout the year, you reap the benefits when making year-end asks.
Follow up
Automating thank-you messages simplifies processes, especially when receiving higher volumes of gifts. But make a point of customizing your follow-up communications to match current campaign language and be consistent with the impact you’re projecting. Saying “thank you” is the first step—go the distance and personalize the messages when you can, being sure to highlight donors online, in print, and in annual reports.
Worried about making the ask during hard times?
Everyone is feeling the effects of the uncertain economic and political atmosphere. At a time of tumult, it might feel wrong to ask your supporters to continue, re-start, or increase their giving. However, when the world is in chaos, people like to focus on local connections. Organizations can grow stronger by activating donors who want to make a difference close to home and close to the heart.