Year-Round & Year-End Fundraising

If only fundraising was as easy as 'just' asking for money, right? But, it's not always that easy. As we enter the final weeks of the year - during which most donations are made - let's dive into ways to ensure you are maximizing your fundraising efforts.

First, let's look at some important statistics about recent donation trends to help inform how and when you should make your ask. Double the Donation's Fundraising Statistics blog shares many interesting - and informative - statistics that all nonprofits should use to shape their year-round and end of year fundraising strategies.

Did you know that 30% of annual giving happens in December alone? Even more, 10% of all annual donations are made in the last three days of the year!* This proves that while your team might be exhausted after a full year of fundraising, it is imperative to make the final push during the last few weeks of the year.

But, you can't make a successful effort if you haven't put in the work developing donor relations over the course of the entire year. As we know now, the remaining 70% of annual giving occurs January through early-November.* So, let's talk about the importance of the donor relationship, what you can do to improve it, and how to act on it in the next weeks.

The Importance of the Donor Relationship

It's imperative that you regularly communicate with your potential donor audience. But, you also need to understand that your audience shouldn't be treated the same. It's more effective to separate your audience into three categories: new donors, active donors, and potential donors. Each segment requires different communication to develop your relationship.

To help form the beginning of your organization's relationship with a new donor, you need to show appreciation as soon as possible after they've made their donation. This shows that you value every single donor, no matter how big, small, old, or new. You can send a personalized email, a handwritten note, or even make a phone call! Invite them to attend a new donor event to meet your staff and other donors. This will help them feel as though being a donor of your organization is like being a part of a community. Additionally, encourage new donors to stay engaged by signing up for your email newsletter, following you on social media, volunteering, and attending your community events or fundraisers.

You probably already regularly communicate with your current donors through email campaigns, social media, events, and phone calls already, so think about invite donors to volunteer with you or attend an event so they can see your work firsthand!

BUT! Regular communication doesn't mean you can spam your donors with donation asks! Your communication should be a mix of updates about what your organization is doing so they regularly see your success.

Now, to expand your donor base, you need to think about how to attract potential donors. It's best to break this audience down into smaller segments based on who and how you want to target them - for example, people who haven't heard of your organization. Education is crucial for these new donor segments. You need to educate potential donors about the problem that your organization's work helps solve, how you do it, and how their support will help you solve that problem. Once potential donors are educated about who you are, you can then invite them to join your email newsletters and follow your social media accounts. This allows you to continue communications with them, without making an official ask yet. As they naturally become a part of your community, it will be easy to build your relationship. Once you build the foundation, then, and only then, ask them to increase their involvement volunteering or making a donation.

Your Organization's Impact & How to Share It

Your impact directly relates to your mission and vision statements. If you're unsure how to define your organizations impact, try answering these questions: What challenge or problem is your organization solving? How is it working to solve it? What does it look like if you are successful?

Now that you've defined your impact, it's time to measure it. Measuring impact is important internally for your organization, but it will also help you create marketing campaigns to share with your supporters and potential supporters. So, how do you measure impact? The Theory of Change model is a great place to start. This model will help you connect what your organization does with your desired goals (your vision). Once you define your inputs and activities, then begin to collect data and stories about your outputs and outcomes.

Show off the data that proves your organization is effectively making an impact! Use the data and success stories you've collected in email newsletters, social media campaigns, grant applications, and annual reports. Your current donors will appreciate seeing that their support is resulting in actual change, and this reporting will also give potential donors confidence that your organization is worthy of their support!

Build Up to The Ask

Now that we've reviewed how to build relationships with your donors and how to talk about your organization's impact, it's time to get to the nitty gritty of asking for donations! Whether you're looking to capture the 30% of year-end donations or thinking about your full year strategy, you need to be strategic about your communications. Not all communication needs to, or should, include an ask. Your donors shouldn't only hear from your when you want something. 

Instead, build up to an ask by providing information that will support your eventual ask. Share your impact reports on a regular basis to prove transparency and give donors a tangible result of how their donations are being used. In doing this, you are building good faith with your audience. This helps to create strong donor relationships because it leaves your audience with positive feelings about your organization. Once you have done this, you can make your ask.

Additionally, don't forget to include other ways that people can support your organization! Offer volunteer opportunities, sell merchandise, host raffles, and encourage your audience to share your organization with their friends and family to increase your audience size.

Make The Donation Process Easy!

The easier it is to donate to your organization, the more likely you'll successfully capture the donation. You want to "capitalize" in the potential donor's attention and ensure your donation process is easy, quick, and even fun! With Kind Kiosk, we guarantee the donation process is just that!

With 81% of donors attending nonprofit fundraising events, we know that collecting donations at your events is incredibly important all year long. Our Event Kiosk solution offers an innovative way for attendees to make donations with just a tap or swipe of their credit card - or smartphone. And while accepting one time donations is great, it's even better to get your donors to sign up for recurring giving programs! Instead of accepting their event donation and having to follow up later about enrolling, donors can choose to make their donations monthly right on the Kiosk! As Double the Donation reports, 57% of donors are enrolled in a recurring giving program, but maybe you can increase that percentage with Kind Kiosk's solution!

Ready to implement Kind Kiosk into your fundraising strategy? Email us to get started!