ARTICLE
Mastering Your End-of-Year Fundraising Plan: Calendar + Checklist
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Updated - 11/20/2024
Many organizations raise 30%, sometimes as much as 50%, of their individual giving in December. End of year is the most lucrative, high-stakes fundraising there is. Asking yourself how on earth you’ll do it all? Feeling stressed and overwhelmed? A solid year-end fundraising plan can help!
I’m here with an end-of-year timeline and fundraising communications calendar to make end-of-year fundraising as easy as pie. There’s so much you can do now to plan winning strategies for GivingTuesday and end of year.
Just follow my timeline below to create your year-end fundraising plan!
September
- Create a campaign theme and offer, logo, and tagline.
- Recruit a match from a single donor or group of donors.
- Collect data (ideally the last two years, but at a minimum for the previous year)
- How much did we raise at end of year? Filter by date.
- What number of donors gave at end of year?
- What was our average gift amount?
- What was our retention rate year over year?
- How many new first-time donors did we have at end of year?
- How much did you raise for GivingTuesday?
- Set campaign goals.
- Line up any volunteers or campaign leaders.
- Schedule in-person ask visits with donors.
October
- Collect testimonials, impact stories, videos, and pictures and use them to write ‘reporting back’ stewardship emails, postcards, texts, thank-a-thon phone scripts, or letters. Include a short story celebrating the donor and their impact on your mission.
- Design and test your year-end donation page and web overlay for the homepage to spotlight the campaign, incorporating year-end fundraising for nonprofits. Test all buttons, links, post-gift email auto-responders, and landing pages on desktop and mobile devices.
- Write, design, proof, test, and schedule all direct mail appeals, email appeals, and social media ads and posts (all must match). Coordinate with your direct mail drop, use segments and personalization appropriately, and split A/B test your subject lines.
- Test your appeal for free with this appeal writing checklist.
- At the same time as you write your appeal, write your thank-you email autoresponders, landing page, thank-you letters and/or cards, and your ‘reporting back’ letter where you tell the donor a story of how their recent gift made an impact.
- Ensure online donors and new first-time donors are put into a special segmented donor stewardship series after making their gifts (instead of continuing to get each appeal in your appeal series).
- Perform any necessary list cleaning on your direct mail and email lists.
November
November 1-10
- Host a “Thanks for giving” thank-a-thon where board members call donors to thank them and share a win the donor made possible. Give board members a thank-you script and a few discovery questions in case the donor answers. Record relevant feedback/notes.
- Start your social media campaign with weekly 2-5 year-end posts or ads after the direct mail drop.
- Follow up with a stewardship email blast thanking donors and spotlighting their accomplishments with an impact story to launch your email appeals.
November 11-20
- Train all staff to handle last-minute donor requests, like processing gifts online or accepting stock gifts.
- Craft a personal out-of-office message that spotlights your campaign and includes your mobile number so donors can reach you.
- Ensure you have adequate resources to properly thank and steward incoming gifts from donors with email, video email, thank-you cards, and thank-you calls.
November 21-December 3 (GivingTuesday)
- One week before Thanksgiving:
- Send handwritten notes, cards, postcards, letters, emails, video emails, or texts to your top donors to arrive before the holiday with a win they made possible.
- Send thank-you emails to volunteers, board members, and community partners to express appreciation and wish them a happy Thanksgiving.
- A few days before Thanksgiving: Share a “thank you” or “thankful” post on social media.
- The day after Thanksgiving: Launch a GivingTuesday banner on your homepage and add it to your online giving page. Post a “save the date” for GivingTuesday on social media.
- Sunday after Thanksgiving: Send a GivingTuesday email blast and social media post.
- The day before Giving Tuesday: Do a pre-launch email and go live with the GivingTuesday web overlay on your homepage.
- On GivingTuesday:
- Send 3-5 properly segmented email appeals throughout the day with updates on your progress towards your goal.
- Post impact stories, donor thanks, asks, and updates on social media.
- Pick up the phone to personally thank any new first-time donors on Giving Tuesday.
- The day after GivingTuesday: Replace your web overlay with a thank-you banner on your website and social media posts for received gifts and to celebrate hitting or exceeding your goal.
- Two days after Giving Tuesday: Remove any references to it from your website.
December
December 4-10
- Test your online donation process by donating to your nonprofit online from your desktop and mobile device to ensure all links, communications, and landing pages are optimized.
- Launch your mail drop or scheduled end-of-year email appeals. Use segments and personalization appropriately, and split A/B test your subject lines.
- Place online donors and new first-time donors into a special segmented donor stewardship series after making their gifts (as opposed to continuing to get each appeal in your appeal series).
- Run social ads/posts weekly through December 31, spotlighting the need with an invitation to give as part of your December donor engagement calendar.
- Fundraising staff or board members call lapsed major donors to thank them for their prior support and encourage them to give before year end.
- Send multiple email appeals throughout the month with as many as 2-3 on the last day, December 31, including sending to donors who gave on GivingTuesday (remove donor giving after GivingTuesday donors from remaining appeals).
- Consider a lightbox (also known as a web overlay or homepage hijack on your homepage to promote your end-of-year campaign and direct donors to your donation form) for GivingTuesday (only), and consider doing it for the last week of December.
December 11-20
- Continue your end-of-year email appeals. Call and personally thank new first-time donors and appropriately tag donors so they don’t continue to receive your email appeals.
- Make sure your end-of-year donors get meaningful stewardship thanks, texts, emails, cards, postcards, or letters. For example, “You gave one (day, week, or month) ago, and already you’ve [insert accomplishment here]…”
- If you’re leaving the office for the holidays, set a heartfelt out-of-office message mentioning your campaign and including your mobile number.
December 21-31
- Ramp up your emails and social media. Try using FOMO (fear of missing out) and expiring matches to drive responses.
- Make the most of Dec 31 by reusing the same email. December 31st is the most lucrative fundraising day of the year in online fundraising. Steven Screen from Better Fundraising has an outline for a simple email appeal to write and send three times, on December 29, 30th, and 31st. Each time you resend the email. Remove a section to shorten it. Or conversely, you could send all three messages on December 31 with a 2-3 hour gap between each one.
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- Use a personal salutation: “Dear Julie.”
- Ask with a deadline. “I’m writing you today in the hope that you will send a special year-end gift before midnight on December 31st.”
- Share the outcome of the gift: This is what will happen in the world as a result of the gift. Note that this is not a description of your program. “Because of your gift today, junior high school students will be better at math.” Remove this portion in the third appeal.
- List the reasons to give now. It could be a match deadline, or ‘this is the last day to get a tax deduction for your gift,’ or you can say why the gift is necessary now: “The kids will be back in class on January 10, and we need your help now to ensure they’ll have the tutoring they need when they return.”
- Provide a shared value: “Julie, I know from your previous gifts that you care about kids learning math.“ Remove this part in the third appeal.
- Make ANOTHER ask with a deadline.
- Use a personal signature
- Add a P.S. with another ask with a deadline.
January
January 1-5
- Report back to donors in a letter thanking them for meeting the need and telling them how their gift made an impact.
- Make sure anyone giving those last few days of the year receives thank-you letters, cards, texts, postcards, video emails, or personal emails thanking them.
- Consider crafting a donor survey to learn more about your donors.
- Consider putting donors who upgraded at end-of-year into a mid-level or major gift portfolio.
- Assess your performance to your goals: recruiting new donors, upgrades, average gift size, and total gifts.
- Review the results of the campaign and prepare your board report. What went well? What could we have done better?
- Prepare annual tax statements to be mailed or emailed before Feb. 1.
- Start on the Annual Report.
- Prepare your 2025 year-end fundraising plan.
Year-end is not “the end”
As you wrap up your year-end campaigns and reflect on the whirlwind of activity, it may be tempting to focus on the numbers—the donations, the new donors, the last big push on December 31st. But what if you could take a moment to celebrate something beyond the financial results? Your timeline is more than a list of tasks; it’s a reflection of your mission’s broader impact on your community. In managing these communications with intention, you’re not only asking for support; you’re also building relationships that last beyond December 31st. The end-of-year crunch might feel like a sprint, but it’s really a marathon—one that sets the stage for your organization’s long-term growth, deepens donor loyalty, and ultimately amplifies your mission. So, as you count up the gifts, don’t forget to count the connections you’ve made and the future you’re helping shape.
What tips would you add to this year-end fundraising plan list? Let us know in the comments.
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