6 Tips for Maximizing Year-end Fundraising Success
1) Party time! Host a house party
Before we all hunker down for winter, consider getting a small group together for a house party. It’s easy and fun to deliver meaningful messages in a casual setting among both new and familiar faces.
House parties are hosted by an individual or group of board members or major supporters. A relatively low lift from your organization’s staff, a house party is a great way to improve board engagement and build relationships with both new and existing supporters.
2) Get visual: Create an impact infographic
Pops of color, bold text, and scannable details. An infographic is a great exercise in distilling your impact to the most meaningful, memorable bits and pieces. Plus, you can use it across platforms with ease: send it as a stand-alone email, pop it out to your social media networks, and use it in an appeal letter, postcard, or donor mailing.
3) Story time! Present voices of impact
We’re all human, and nothing resonates like a powerful story. Do you have volunteers, donors, or program participants who are willing to share their experience with your programs? Stories can be personalized or anonymized; either way, the best are told in both words and visuals. Use photos or graphics to add interest and impact to the stories you share.
Participant stories work across platforms, too, and can be modified to fit print and online channels, plus make a perfect plug-and-play social media series during this giving season.
4) Shake it up with segmented lists
A tried-and-true method for fundraising success is segmenting your donor list to ensure recipients are getting a message that’s unique to their giving potential or area of interest. Segmenting your appeal messaging doesn’t have to be a huge lift. After crafting a base message, you can adjust minor sections to accommodate different audiences, like LYBNT donors (“last year but not this year”).
Additionally, research suggests that requesting unusual dollar amounts or using percentage increases is more effective than sticking with the typical options ($50, $100, $500). Bonus if you can attach meaning to the dollar amount (say, $19.55 or $195 if your organization was founded in 1955, or $70 celebrating your 70th anniversary).
5) Your friend is my friend, too! Make peer-to-peer fundraising easy
Engaging a donor or board member to address and sign letters is a strong strategy to up your open rates and make recipients feel they’ve been brought into the fold.
Another approach is to draft an email or letter that board members can copy, paste, and send along to friends or colleagues. Getting an ask endorsed by someone in their network can be a great inroad for new donors to join in.
Younger audiences regularly use social media to update their friends and followers on their philanthropic activity. Keep this in mind when working on brand strategies for year-end fundraising efforts—something memorable and shareable will be more likely to show up on a supporter’s Instagram story or reposted on LinkedIn.
6) Matchy matchy: Coordinate your appeal campaign
Finally, make sure your appeals are coordinated and consistent across channels. Start with a strong theme and a message that works across the board, then invest time in your top-performing channels. At the very least, your website, emails, socials, and print media should look and sound consistent.
Each captures a different audience, but any overlap offers additional touchpoints. The more a potential donor sees your familiar ask, the more likely they are to engage. Make sure your campaign is noticeable and easy to find no matter where someone is looking.