Year-End Fundraising Checklist
The last few months of the calendar year are often labeled as “the giving season” in the nonprofit industry. This is because people and families are willing and eager to give, give, give!
The giving season can be a chaotic time of year for nonprofit leaders and teams as they try to gather as many donations as possible. To help manage that chaos, Cogeo has put together this year-end fundraising checklist so you can stay organized and take advantage of all possible donations and fundraising opportunities.
☐ Send an annual appeal
A consistently successful year-end tactic is the Annual Appeal or an Annual Appeal Campaign.
This is a mass-outreach approach requesting gifts from the majority of your community. The end of year appeal provides an update about the organization, and asks for a donation, often in support of a specific program or project. It should be sent to community members who have not yet donated or have not offered a major gift.
Your Annual Appeal will reach these community members in an exciting, creative, data-driven way that showcases the work that your organization has done over the past 12 months. It will have a strong call-to-action to bring in a large number of donations and give your team a chance to gather additional information about your donors and community.
Get creative! This time of year, donors receive requests from many organizations, so think of ways you can really make your message stand out. Cogeo has seen clients use video, social media, crowdfunding platforms, and podcasts as a way to get their donors’ attention.
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☐ Participate in Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday is a highly recognized way to celebrate nonprofits and raise funds during the giving season. However, many organizations make the mistake of making Giving Tuesday their only year-end effort. While Giving Tuesday is a wonderful addition to your year-end strategy, it should not be the only focus.
That being said, Giving Tuesday is a particularly good opportunity to reach new donors. Create easily shareable links and clean crowdfunding pages, then use digital platforms like social media and email to encourage existing donors to introduce your organization to new donors. Don’t forget to track new donor data!
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Classy.org
Explore Classy’s Giving Tuesday page full of guides, blogs, case studies, webinars and more. Get the advice you need to ensure your Giving Tuesday is a success. Visit this page »
☐ Ask for major gifts
Go after those high-dollar donations during this time of year. If you haven’t already launched a major gift program for your high-net-worth community members and donors, do it now! This is a fundraising tactic that has the highest return on investment by far.
At Cogeo, a major gift is any donation that exceeds .1% of your annual budget (for example: if your budget is $500,000/year, then a major gift would be $500 or more). You can identify these donors or prospective donors through past donations, by conducting a wealth-screening, through an introduction or triangulation, or by having general awareness of your community. These individuals should be excluded from any appeals or crowdfunding campaigns. Instead, you should invite them for a one-on-one meeting.
Reach out to these high-net-worth individuals with plenty of time before the year ends. This is a busy time of year for everyone, so make sure you get meetings scheduled accordingly. Make your major gift asks and don’t hesitate to make them big! Reminder: No philanthropist gets offended when asked for a donation.
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☐ Track and manage donor data
Get organized! As new donations and new donors roll in, make sure you are tracking everything and anything.
Cogeo highly recommends setting up a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to properly manage donor data and set follow-up tasks. Specifically, the Salesforce Nonprofit CRM is free for 501c3s and has the features and tools needed to stay organized and pull robust reports.
Tracking this data will allow you to be even more efficient in the following years and continually raise more.
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☐ Steward donors
One of the most crucial pieces of advice that Cogeo can give -- thank your donors. No matter how small, make sure that your donors know how much you and your team appreciate their support.
For major gifts, be sure to immediately offer an in-person thank you, highly engaged email, or a handwritten letter. Make it personal and sincere. Then, create tasks in your database or CRM to follow up with them on a quarterly basis, providing updates, and requesting an in-person meeting in 12 months.
For those donations brought in by mass communication or crowdfunding campaigns, you will need to send your thanks, but at a less personalized level. You can likely create an automated notification or email letting the donor know that you have received and appreciate their donation and attach a receipt. Take note of any donations on the brink of being considered a major gift, then track all others to check in next year.
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☐ Report your results
Of course, you’ll need to share and analyze the results of your year-end efforts. There are two groups you should keep in mind as your data analysis winds down -- your Board of Directors and your community.
Using your database or CRM and any other reporting platforms you may prefer, you should share the following data-points:
Total amount raised
Number of donations
Donors to recognize
Average donation size
Projects that will be funded
Your Board will need to be in the know, but including your community will help each member feel involved, engaged, and will keep the donations coming year over year.
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We hope you find this checklist helpful for your year-end fundraising efforts. This is a crucial time of year for nonprofit organizations, so we wish you the best. If you’d like to talk with Cogeo about your strategy or ask us questions about fundraising, don’t hesitate to contact the Cogeo team.