A data-driven look at how 211 nonprofits treat the year-end giving season—with additional insights on how you can improve results this season.
In this benchmark report, we’ll dive into year-end fundraising—the biggest giving season of the year.
You’ll explore how organizations communicate during year-end including overall strategy, email frequency, communication types, and more. Plus, you’ll discover proven tactics that can improve your year-end communication.
You’ll also see how various year-end strategies correlate with overall donor retention performance.
The research sample for this report reflects nonprofits ranging from at least $1 Million in annual revenue to +$100 Million.
Organizations in this study represent each key nonprofit vertical including:
Faith Based • Human Services • International Organizations • Animal, Environment, & Agriculture • Health • Education • Arts, Cultures, & Humanities • Public Policy & Advocacy
Our friends at Virtuous helped create the sample of organizations within this report so that we can compare the donor experience to actual donor retention performance data.
This means that every organization in the research study has access to a modern donor CRM and essential marketing automation tools. One could assume this means that each organization uses sophisticated marketing and development strategies. But read on and you may be surprised at some of the findings.
During the last 45 days of the year, there is a heightened sense of motivation to give to nonprofit organizations.
Organizations across the sector often see anywhere from 20%-50% of revenue being brought in during year end.
Looking at this stat alone, many realize this critical time of fundraising can determine the future of many organizations’ programs in the following year.
Maintaining consistent communication with donors during this season is vital to ensuring their continued support with such critical funding at stake. Effective donor engagement can mean the difference between meeting or falling short of fundraising goals, which in turn can influence an organization’s ability to execute their mission.
When looking at the communication frequency of 211 organizations, we found that 40% of nonprofits did not send a single email to their online donors during the entire year-season (November 15—December 31, 2023).
On top of that, 29% of organizations sent nothing to their donors at all including direct mail!
There could be various reasons for this communication gap—ranging from limited resources to a lack of a communication strategy. But what’s most important is recognizing the value of cultivating relationships with online donors during a season that is extremely competitive in the inbox.
Nonprofits and for-profits alike are competing for the donor’s attention in the inbox nearly every day of the year-end season. If you choose to opt-out of communicating with your donors, you are leaving significant revenue on the table—revenue that can fuel your mission and impact in the next year.
Having an email communication plan in place will set your organization apart from the 40% of organizations that do not communicate with their online donors.
But simply creating a plan is just the tip of the iceberg. Read on to uncover ways to further improve your donor communication plans during the year-end season.
Find out how we can help your nonprofit achieve sustainable growth with your 3-Year Fundraising Roadmap – go from “what now” to “dialed in” in less than 90 days.
Many fundraisers find it to be challenging to stand out from the noise and get their donors’ attention when every other organization is saying all the same things.
Using a multi-channel approach is a primary strategy to stand out in such a crowded and busy season.
Looking at our email inbox and postal mail during the 2023 year end season, we received 2,003 emails and 248 pieces of mail. Most organizations communicated via a single channel (if at all). Only 36% of organizations communicated with their donors in multiple channels during the year end season.
But how much does a multi-channel approach impact results?
31% of the direct mail we received during this research was from organizations we did not give to.
This shows just how competitive the year end season. Organizations are actively buying, selling, and renting lists to give themselves the best chance of being seen during this critical season.
This makes it all the more important for you to ensure you have a well-defined communication plan based on tested and proven principles.
When we compare the retention rates of organizations to their communication strategy, we found the mid and high performing organizations are much more likely to utilize a multi-channel communication strategy.
Additionally, experimentation has proven that a multi-communication strategy often increases campaign performance.
In the experiment below, one organization added a text-message sent in tandem with a year-end email appeal. Adding a text message along with an email appeal increased donations by 27%.
Everyone wants to know what the best time is to send an email. But if everyone sends at the “best” time, then it’s suddenly the most crowded time.
And a crowded inbox makes it hard to stand out, especially when every email subject line says something to the effect of “Time Is Running Out to Give!”
Most marketers will tell you to send some time within this range because it’s a prime time to catch people early in their workday when they are more likely to check their email.
However, this widespread practice creates a crowded inbox during these peak hours.
Fundraisers should think beyond just the “best time of day” in a generalized sense and instead focus on standing out by experimenting with less traditional times.
Our experimentation indicates there is no definitive “best time” to send an email. One a/b test may conclude that afternoons are better. And a different a/b test may conclude that mornings are better.
There are simply too many factors at play to determine a universal, optimal send time.
Instead of fixating on the “best time to send an email”, consider an email strategy that blends emails both at peak times and non-traditional times.
You may have a greater chance of standing out in the inbox by sending on a weekend when recipients may have more time to consider whether to give and how much they can give.
Of the 2,003 emails we analyzed during the year-end season, a substantial 41% were sent either on Giving Tuesday or in the final week of the year. Specifically, we received 404 emails alone during Giving Tuesday week.
This trend suggests that many organizations emphasize Giving Tuesday communication more than reaching donors on December 31st.
Has Giving Tuesday grown so much that it is now more valuable than December 31st?
In the next section, you’ll see exactly how donation revenue on Giving Tuesday and December 31st compares—and how you should prioritize these giving days in your communication plans.
As Giving Tuesday continues to grow in revenue year after year, the natural temptation is to give it more time and attention in our year-end communications.
And our research shows that many fundraisers spend energy on their Giving Tuesday plans than on December 31st. So let’s dive deeper to see exactly how to prioritize these two major giving days.
First, let’s look at how much revenue is at stake.
Even more, the last full week of 2023 brought in an additional 32% of online year-end revenue.
Giving Tuesday, although it is a major day of giving, pales in comparison to the revenue that is at stake during the last week of the year.
This means you should prioritize building communication plans that activate donors leading up to December 31st. If, due to capacity and resource constraints, you can only execute a communication plan around one of these giving days, December 31st is the obvious choice given the potential return on investment.
Despite the clear revenue argument to prioritize December 31st, our research shows that many organizations have the opposite priority in their communications plans.
The chart above shows the number of organizations that emailed donors on each key giving day. Significantly more organizations chose to communicate with donors on Giving Tuesday than on December 31st.
In our research, we identified 41 organizations who emailed donors on either Giving Tuesday or December 31st—but did not email on both days. Interestingly, of these organizations, 88% decided to email donors on Giving Tuesday only, ignoring the higher revenue potential of December 31st entirely.
The most shocking finding is that nearly 2 in 5 organizations sent nothing on either of these key giving days.
There is a lot more to learn about how organizations are communicating during year-end—and how you can improve your results based on proven strategies.
Check back soon for insights on:
October 24th
How does cultivation impact giving?
Key Year-End Performance Metrics
When we look at donor communication, we often divide cultivation into 2 primary categories: passive & active cultivation.
Passive Cultivation is purely informational. This often includes newsletters, organizational updates, even things like stories of impact. There’s value in this type of cultivation, but it’s not always the most engaging content.
Active Cultivation requires the reader to engage in order to receive the value. This often includes offers like eBook downloads, surveys, petitions, online courses, and more. This type of cultivation allows you to create a clear pathway from email engagement to a donation using the “instant donation page” funnel.
During the year-end season, we want to make sure we leverage our cultivation to create clear pathways towards giving—which requires more “active cultivation.”
But when analyzing the communication sent by 200+ nonprofits during year-end 2023, we found that an overwhelming amount of cultivation was purely passive information.
When analyzing organizations by their retention performance, we found that higher retention organizations are the least likely to send Passive Cultivation during the year-end season.
Instead, higher performing organizations tend to send a higher percentage of Active Cultivation to their donors. This suggests that Active Cultivation may be a stronger way to activate and re-activate donors during the year-end season.
Additionally, high retention organizations are more likely to ask their donors to reply to their emails during the year-end season. While asking donors to hit the reply button to share why they give or support the cause may sound scary, it is a primary way to engage the donor on a personal level.
This practice makes donors feel more involved and valued. By inviting responses, these organizations create opportunities for deeper engagement and build stronger relationships with their supporters.
In digital fundraising, there are a seemingly countless number of metrics to measure and optimize. But there are three primary fundraising metrics that can help you simplify understanding where to optimize your fundraising program next:
Website Traffic:
This measures how many people are actually showing up on your website.
Conversion Rate:
This tells you what percentage of your site visitors end up donating.
Average Gift Size:
This is the average size of a donation.
Multiply these three metrics together and you get your online revenue. You can apply this same model to your other channels as well—just swap out “Website Traffic” for things like “Direct Mail File Size” or “Event Attendees.”
Below, we’ll use these three metrics to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of each critical year-end giving window.
But first, let’s look at when online revenue comes in during the year-end season.
Let’s break down online year-end revenue data from 2023.
There is a great deal of enthusiasm around Giving Tuesday. Social media campaigns, email outreach, and news coverage drive significant online engagement. But it’s important to keep in mind that there is much more revenue at stake during the last week of the year.
Looking purely at web traffic, Giving Tuesday and December 31st appear equally significant. However, there is a big difference in the motivation of the users that are visiting your site on these different days.
To understand the level of motivation, we have to look at both conversion rates and average gift size.
Although Giving Tuesday and December 31st experience similar traffic levels, visitors are 60% more likely to donate on December 31st.
Additionally, conversion rates during the year’s final week are comparable to those seen on Giving Tuesday. While Giving Tuesday is an excellent opportunity to launch a year-end campaign, a donor’s motivation to give isn’t necessarily higher on Giving Tuesday than it is on other days towards the end of the year.
The combination of equal traffic, a 60% higher conversion rate, and a 92% increase in average donation size makes December 31st the most critical fundraising day of the year-end season. Beyond that, there are very large gifts being given during the entire last week of the year.
Giving Tuesday has a significant role to play in kicking off the year-end season, but your communications should be crafted with a focus on driving donations and revenue during the final week of the year.
Growing your fundraising is hard. Our 3-Year Fundraising Roadmap makes it easier by bringing clarity and confidence to your program, making things less chaotic, more predictable, and more effective.
