December is the undisputed champ of the fundraising year. The warm and fuzzy feeling of the holiday season combined with the stone-cold reality of the close of the tax year offer compelling incentives for people to open their wallets before Baby New Year arrives. No wonder nearly ⅓ of annual giving is done in that single month with a whopping 11% in just the last three days alone.1
But December is over. The ball has dropped. The confetti swept. And, while the 2016 fundraising season is behind us, you still need to raise money to fund your mission, regardless of what month it says on your calendar. But how do you tackle the donation doldrums of January and beyond, and make any day a good day to donate to your organization?
Here are five key tips for successful year-round fundraising that you can act on now:
1. Plan a fundraising calendar and communications schedule
Many things about the end-of-year giving season are unique. This is not: it is time-bound. Everyone knows their giving needs to be done before the clock chimes on New Year’s Eve, and that elicits an urgency of action. Build a fundraising calendar now for 2017 that schedules your own time-bound campaigns to rally and grow supporters, injecting various deadlines and goals throughout the year that create that same urgency. Marshal your communications messaging to support those campaigns, drawing attention to relevant themes and driving home the ask.
Your campaigns can be tied to common events that motivate your supporters. Can anyone say “Presidential inauguration”? Or a given holiday or day of observance like Earth Day. Or maybe the back to school season is more your scene. They might also be tied to your programmatic calendar to rally support around a given mission outcome. Target what makes most sense for your organization and build your campaigns around those.
If you’d like some help and inspiration for your fundraising calendar and communications schedule, attend our upcoming free webinar.
2. Turn your supporters into fundraisers with peer-to-peer campaigns
Father Time makes a great advocate for end-of-year fundraising campaigns, reminding folks of the urgency of the now. With him on holiday for the rest of the year, you can turn to your own supporters to become advocates for you. Peer-to-peer fundraising has proven to be massively successful and an excellent year-round strategy. It’s also a great way to cultivate new supporters.
There are many great peer-to-peer fundraising tools out there - like this one! Research and decide which works best for your organization, and watch for February’s newsletter for an upcoming webinar that dives into great detail.
3. Build your mailing list
Email metrics for mass emailings across the nonprofit sector have been suffering of late. Open rates are down. Click-through rates are slumping. Response rates are falling. So, you should abandon the whole effort to list build and mass email, right?
Nope! Even with these individual metrics faltering, funding raised from emails is growing. As noted by M+R in its Benchmarks X study evaluating metrics across the sector, “email revenue grew by 25% in 2015, faster than the 19% rate of online revenue growth overall.“ Specifically, M+R found that “nonprofits received $44 in donations for every 1,000 fundraising messages sent.”
Email signups is a low effort ask of would-be supporters and easily done year-round. Building that mailing list of yours should be a key strategy that bolsters campaigns you roll out throughout the year and into the heart of giving season as well. That email subscriber you score in late January could become the donor that pushes you over your annual goal eleven months later at year-end.
4. Experiment and test - then experiment some more
To borrow a sports analogy, think of the giving season as the playoffs and the period from January until that time as the regular season. Notice, there is no off-season. Just ask your accounts payable department.
Most winning teams use the regular season to experiment. They shuffle lineups. They alter plays. They tweak mechanics. During your regular season, you should be doing exactly the same. Experiment with email subject lines. Tweak suggested donation amounts. Alter appeal text. And test everything. Then experiment again and refine, refine, refine.
If you can target learning at least one new thing about your fundraising appeals with each campaign throughout the regular season, you’ll be well-equipped to bring your A-game when the playoffs arrive.
For some pointers on testing, check this blog post out.
5. Fundraise without fundraising
There are more ways to receive funds from supporters than just a donation page. Gala events can focus attention around a given date and theme while raising money through ticket sales. Ecommerce strategies can capture revenue through swag or subscriptions, widgets or wares. Both can be effective independent of the giving season.
For more on ecommerce strategies for effective year-round fundraising, check out this upcoming free webinar.
What other strategies do you use for year-round fundraising? Let me know, and tell me if you’d like yours to be shared in an upcoming webinar, blog post, or newsletter!
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