December sees nearly 30% of all annual giving – and your year-end appeal can make or break your campaign. Keep reading to learn how to craft a powerful strategy that inspires more donations!
End-of-year appeals can bring in a good chunk of a nonprofit’s annual revenue – approximately 30% of annual giving happens in December! But writing impactful fundraising appeals and choosing the right fundraising tools and tactics (plus the appropriate messaging for each) can seem daunting.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to plan for, write, and send a compelling year-end appeal! We’ll also cover what you can do to evolve your appeals across various channels. Lastly, we’ll share multiple samples to inspire your writing!
Devising a successful end-of-year appeal strategy takes time and effort. There are seven crucial steps nonprofits must take to ensure that their giving season campaign reaches a larger audience and raises more money.
But first, let our nonprofit experts, Jena Lynch and Cara Augspurger, help you with year-end fundraising fundamentals, tips, and tools to execute a successful end-of-year campaign. These will help you hone your skills for crafting the best appeal.
Nonprofit donors have various income levels, interests, and histories with your organization, so why would you send them all the same appeal?
At the start of your campaign plan, you’ll want to segment donors based on their average gift size, campaign interests, fundraising activities, and when they last donated. But you don’t have to create segments for each of these. Instead, find the best way to segment donors based on your organization’s needs.
Add these segments to your donor database to create better reports and automate future donor communication.
Donorbox lets you segment your donors based on a number of advanced filters such as location, donation amount, donation frequency, time frame, number of donations, and more.
We also offer Donor Reporting Templates that help you build five critical reports:
Before you start your end-of-year appeal, you must define your campaign fundraising goals. The best way to do this is to review past years’ campaigns to determine key performance indicators like:
Use these performance results to develop realistic goals for this year’s end-of-year appeal.
Establishing a culture of storytelling is vital to creating impactful donor communications and appeals. To find the best stories, ask board members, staff, and volunteers to connect with beneficiaries and long-time donors who may be willing to share their personal experiences.
People respond best to stories, especially when they’re about other people. A personalized story that speaks to your donors’ passions and interests raises awareness, encourages more donations, and spreads the word about your organization. You should also add real images and videos to digital appeals to boost giving – but they don’t necessarily belong in a mailed appeal letter.
You may want to prepare pledge forms as well as an online donation form before writing your end-of-year appeal. This way, you’re prepared to accept donations as soon as your appeal is sent and your campaign is launched.
Online forms must be mobile-friendly and match your nonprofit’s brand identity. You’ll also want to add donation suggestions according to your segmentation results, concise explanations of the impact different levels of gifts will have, a virtual donor wall to promote social proof, and a donation thermometer to encourage urgency toward reaching your goal.
Check out the Donorbox-powered end-of-year donation page below as a great example. As you can see, the nonprofit – Story for All – added their logo, brand color, and a campaign description for the appeal. Ideally, you’d add a link to such a fundraising page to your appeal emails and social media posts.
Your mailed appeals should also include a link or QR code to your online donation form as well as a printed pledge card – it’s important to offer donors several options when it comes to giving!
Add the pledge card to a self-addressed paid envelope and use the post office’s National Change of Address (NCOA) registry to ensure your database remains updated.
Whether you’re sending out a mailed end-of-year appeal, emailing your appeal to your donors, or some combination of the above (which is what we recommend), make sure your tools are top-notch and ready to go!
There are several email marketing tools available, and some even offer discounts or free plans for nonprofits. Some great choices are Sendinblue, MailChimp, and ActiveCampaign.
With Donorbox, you can integrate with MailChimp and utilize the donor data stored in Donorbox to send out personalized marketing emails. You can also use our Zapier integration to connect with ActiveCampaign and send out your end-of-year appeal emails to your donor lists.
If you’re going for mailed appeal letters, be sure to form relationships with a local printer or use helpful tools like AppealMaker. You can also create handwritten notes using websites like Simply Noted!
Add a special note from your board director or a message from a beneficiary to give your letters a touch of reality and raw emotions.
Watch this webinar, featuring AppealMaker’s Joe Leach, to learn 10 Direct Mail Hacks for Nonprofits.
Now that you have your beneficiary stories, a donation form, and donor segments all in place, writing your year-end appeal letter will be simpler. Be sure to personalize your letters with salutations, ask amounts, and an impactful closing.
Here are some tips:
Bonus resource: In this podcast, Donorbox Senior Content Writer Kara Schmid and Fundraising Coach Cara Augspurger discuss how to write an awesome ask for your year-end campaign:
Donors are used to receiving a lot of year-end appeals, and they likely don’t read them all. They certainly don’t give to each one! You can make your end-of-year appeal stand out by including some fun, unique, and simple giving options like a matching gift program, text-to-give, or recurring donations.
Many companies have matching gift deadlines that end in December or January. You’ll create a sense of urgency by reminding donors about this deadline.
Donorbox partners with Double the Donation to give nonprofits a donation matching widget that can be added to the Donorbox donation form or embedded in their websites to help donors increase the impact of their donations with the help of their employers.
As you can see in the example above, offering recurring donation options is also a great way for you to get your donors to give again. There’s no harm in including this option and seeing how many one-time donors you’re able to convert to recurring donors! However, be mindful of creating a special strategy to engage and retain these donors.
Your year-end appeal shouldn’t stop at a mailed letter or an email. There are several ways to increase your outreach, engage and involve donors, and raise more money.
Crowdfunding campaigns have been a must for many nonprofits for a long time. These campaigns use the power of storytelling, urgency, and social proof to bring in new donors and boost fundraising efforts.
Instead of just creating a basic year-end donation form for your appeals, consider starting a crowdfunding campaign. These campaigns enable you to share heartwarming impact stories, fundraising updates, and more.
Donorbox Crowdfunding lets you create crowdfunding pages with a detailed – yet easy-to-use – donation form, an updates tab, a virtual donor wall, social media sharing buttons, and a subscription option for visitors. You can even email campaign updates to your donors and subscribers right from the page!
Here’s an example of a powerful year-end crowdfunding campaign powered by Donorbox:
A lot of supporters from your existing donor base would love to be more involved in your cause. Peer-to-peer fundraising enables you to turn these supporters into advocates for your mission! With peer-to-peer, supporters simply create a fundraising page and raise money through their networks.
Donorbox Peer-to-Peer makes the process a breeze for you. All you have to do is create a peer-to-peer campaign on Donorbox and invite supporters who agree to fundraise! Then, it’s easy for them to create and customize their fundraising pages to share with their families and friends.
Check out this guide for more peer-to-peer fundraising advice!
Video appeals are another way to catch your donors’ eyes and reach new people! You can use a video to tell your beneficiaries’ stories, interview nonprofit leaders, and use creative storytelling to share the impact your organization has on the world.
Share these videos on your website, in your email appeals, and on your social media accounts. Just be sure to keep your video short – usually under three minutes long – to keep viewers engaged!
If you’re sending cards, postcards, emails, or posting on social media, you’ll want to add a dedicated year-end giving page to your website. Add compelling images, your beneficiary story, and a donation form to your webpage to encourage people to give.
You’ll also want to place a call-to-action button on your homepage with a link to your end-of-year giving page. Make sure your button is easy to see and use!
If you don’t want to create a new page, that’s fine – simply add a button to your homepage and link it to a pop-up year-end donation form. Donorbox makes it easy to add a pop-up donation form that’s simple and quick for your donors to use.
Phone calls will give your end-of-year appeal another level of personalized communication. They’re also the best way to connect with major donors.
As you start prospecting for major donors, find reasons to reach out and discuss their interests and impact on the organization. Remember not to ask for a significant gift until you’ve built a solid relationship! It’s also best for a board member or executive director to ask for that donation.
Besides major donors, a phone-a-thon can be a fun and creative way to reach out to donors. Ask volunteers to join you for an evening. You can make it a party, order some food, divide your donor list, hand out a script, and make calls asking for donations.
Looking for inspiration? Check out this series of mailed, email, and social media appeals that combine to form a cohesive and impactful end-of-year fundraising campaign.
First, we recommend sending your mailed year-end appeal letter, like this one:
Then, launch your email campaign with an email appeal. Notice in this sample that we’ve adapted the messaging from the mailed appeal letter – no need to start from scratch!
Be sure to follow up your first email appeal with a second that increases the sense of urgency as your campaign winds down, like this one:
Throughout your campaign, take your appeal to social media by breaking up your beneficiary’s story across several posts. This keeps your audience engaged and coming back for more – plus, it makes donors feel as if they are helping a beneficiary in real time. Be sure to add a campaign-specific hashtag to tie them all together!
Here’s a close-up of a social media appeal:
And here is a sample of what a series of social posts could look like as part of your year-end fundraising campaign!
Finally, you should always thank your donors throughout and following every campaign! Here’s an example of a thank-you email:
Your end-of-year appeals are some of the most vital you will send all year. Nonprofits that create a plan and choose a realistic fundraising goal often see success. Plus, you can raise more money by segmenting donors, personalizing appeal letters, and including a matching gift option.
Organizations can also use campaign-specific hashtags, a website landing page, crowdfunding campaigns, and videos to create more excitement and inspire more gifts.
For more insights and tips on year-end giving, check out the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the best Donorbox resources in your inbox every month.
You’ve seen a number of examples of how nonprofits are using Donorbox to level up their year-end appeals and campaigns. To further explore the features and learn more about how we help nonprofits help others, click here.
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor