December

Last Minute Strategic Year-End Email Appeal Tips

DecemberStudies show one-fifth of all charitable giving happens in December. For some organizations (maybe yours?), it’s as much as one-third. Year-end fundraising is not chopped chicken liver!

While you absolutely should be using multiple fundraising channels to get best results, right now whatever you’ve got planned for offline is pretty much cooked. So your best bet for boosting year-end results is digital.

What do you have planned online between now and December 31st?

Did you know more than 20% of all online giving for the entire year occurs on the last two days of the calendar year? Among digital strategies, email rules. According to M+R’s Benchmarks Study, email was responsible for 15% of all online revenue for nonprofits.  For over a decade, the last week of the year – and particularly the last day of the year– have been huge for online fundraising.

To boost your year-end fundraising success, you need to craft an email offer your donor can’t refuse.

How will you best convey your offer?

In a nutshell, you need three things for any fundraising offer:

  1. Problem you’re addressing — made real and relevant to the prospective donor.
  2. Solution you’re proposing to address the problem – with your donor’s help.
  3. Ask showing how the donor can help– the specific purpose and amount of the gift you’re requesting.

It’s really that simple, but let’s get a little more into the weeds so you’ve a better idea how to execute these three offer components.

1. How to describe the problem.

Details