7 Facets of Successful Giving Tuesday & Year-End Nonprofit Fundraising in 2024
Best Practices for Year-end NPO Giving appeals
The fourth quarter of each year is critical to the success and sometimes even the survival of nonprofit organizations (NPOs).
There is a lot at stake - this small window of time needs to generate much of the year’s giving. National Giving Month reports that “31% of annual giving happens in December” with 12% being given in the last three days of the calendar year.
Some nonprofits receive up to half their year’s funds in December!
It’s an important season for sure, but an added challenge is that a cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work. What was implemented last year won’t likely succeed this year or the next. Each annual appeal is different and should be approached with an honest assessment of the current year’s landscape.
There are at least four factors that impact giving behavior, including:
The economy (inflation, unemployment, interest rates, etc.)
Global crises (political unrest, natural disasters, wars - anything that weakens the confidence of potential donors)
Changes within social media platforms:
Positive changes (i.e., a new social media platform skyrockets in popularity, bringing with it new ways to grow your audience)
Negative changes (i.e., an existing social media platform changes the way it works by, A) limiting the percentage of followers who see your organic posts, B) removing audience targeting options that were necessary for identifying and reaching the right people, or C) restricting some NPO’s from running ads about social issues, elections, or politics). By the way, we’ve helped nonprofits work within the constraints of the changes in Facebook advertising. It can be done and you can still receive great results. Here’s a link to an article about this.
Increased competition from other nonprofits: Just like any business sector, when a competitor rises in popularity, it cuts into your market share, and that is true with NPOs. If another nonprofit organization gets a lot of press or publicity, prospective donors might think of them first when they are making their charitable giving decisions at the end of the year (even if that NPO isn’t serving a similar mission as yours - but it is especially true if they share a similar focus).
At Amplify Marketing Services, we specialize in nonprofit marketing, and we’ve helped NPOs of various sizes experience growth by approaching fundraising season with fresh eyes.
This article is a compilation of a few best practices and ideas that we often share with our nonprofit partners. It is structured around the framework of seven facets to successful fundraising. We hope it is useful to you and your nonprofit organization.
Two Disclaimers:
This article is mainly directed toward appeals to mass donors. Although some mass donors can become major donors, legacy donors, or even corporate or foundation donors, there are distinct strategies for those other donor categories, and we will not cover them in this article.
Since Facebook and Instagram have proven to be two of the most effective platforms for mass donor fundraising campaigns, the majority of examples will be for these advertising channels.
Seven Facets of Successful Giving Tuesday and Year-End Fundraising Campaigns
To advance immediately to a section that interests you, click a link in the list below
Facet #1: Timing
The first and possibly the most important facet of successful year-end fundraising is the timing of it. Let’s approach this in two ways - 1) when to plan, and 2) when to promote.
when to plan
When should you start planning your year-end giving appeals? You probably don’t want to hear the answer, but you should’ve started planning at least six months ago.
If the first conversations about Giving Tuesday and December appeals happen in October, September, or even August, there might not be enough time to develop and execute the most effective fundraising strategy.
It’s never too early to start the process, but we typically recommend having the first kickoff meeting in March or early April. That is enough time for many NPOs to plan and run a campaign that is within their budget.
when to promote
The second aspect of timing is when to promote. What percentage of your annual fundraising budget should be invested on Giving Tuesday, the month of December, or during the remainder of the year?
Is this a conversation you are having internally? It’s an important consideration because the difference between growth and decline can hinge on the timing of your campaigns. Even the best strategies will not perform as well if they aren’t executed on the most effective days.
Let’s break out the calendar year, starting with the end and working backward to the beginning of the year.
Peak giving days (late November through December 31)
Giving Tuesday (always the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) and the last three days of the year are peak giving days because more people are in the mindset of giving than at any other time of year.
One reason why Black Friday and Amazon Prime Days are so successful is that the hype around those days puts shoppers in a buying mindset. They’re not browsing casually like they do on normal days; they’re on the hunt for great deals to snatch up before they’re gone (FOMO).
Likewise, Giving Tuesday has hype from the publicity that comes from participating nonprofits and the Giving Tuesday organization itself. That hype puts more people in a giving mindset.
The last 3 days of the year aren’t as much about hype as they are about pressure. There isn’t much time left to decide where to be charitable in a way that goes toward this year’s tax write-off. So, there is pressure to do some quick research to find a nonprofit organization they can get behind - one whose mission touches them personally.
Is it worth running ads on these four peak days of the year? It is expensive - CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and CPC (cost per click) can be four times what they typically cost. So, should you just ignore these four peak days and invest when the advertising cost is lower? Will your money go further if you avoid the competition and choose off-peak times to advertise?
Although that might sound logical, it’s important to understand that there is another metric that is also much higher on these four days of the year - the conversion rate (CVR). In fact, it is so much better on these four peak days, even with higher CPMs and CPCs, the higher CVR typically brings better return on ad spend (ROAS) and average cost of sale (ACOS) than at any other time of year.
The month of December (December 1-28)
What about the rest of the month of December? How much should be invested then?
Based on our experience, we don’t recommend treating each day in December equally. For example, giving is very low December 23-26 - so low, we recommend investing much less during those 4 days.
People are celebrating the holidays with their families, they are on vacation, and they just spent a fortune on gifts. They’re not available to be reached via marketing and even if they are, they are NOT in a mindset to donate.
Our recommendation is to invest more of the annual fundraising budget December 1-22, slow down or stop between December 23-26, and then pick back up again on December 27, scaling up to some of the highest daily spends on December 29, 30, and 31.
The rest of the year (January 1 - Thanksgiving weekend)
What about the rest of the year? Should your NPO do any fundraising during the other 11 months? If so, how much and when should there be gaps or spikes in fundraising activity?
If the mission of your NPO is closely aligned with a nationally recognized observance of a day or month dedicated to a related cause, it would make sense to treat that period differently than the other seasons of the year.
If it is a widely recognized and publicized observance, since it is on the minds of more people, you’ll have a better conversion rate for securing new donors.
Another exception is when there is a natural disaster, war, or crisis for which your NPO provides aid or relief. That is obviously a time to solicit donations.
Other than those exceptions, how should you treat the rest of the calendar year?
Remember, we’re only talking about marketing related to fundraising. Brand awareness, lead capture, lead nurturing, and other marketing efforts should certainly continue all year long. Without them, when you start your fundraising efforts, the conversion rate will be low because people won’t know who you are. They’ll give to the NPOs they are familiar with.
So, although there is a strong correlation and causation between ongoing marketing and fundraising campaigns, I’d like to stick to fundraising appeals only for the subject of this article.
There are benefits to running three to four appeals during off-peak seasons of the year. Those benefits include the opportunity to:
A/B test your creative and copy
Prove which audiences respond best
Without three or four additional appeals in a given year, you’ll end up “hoping for the best” with your creative, copy, and audience segmentation during peak giving days.
The way that most ad channels work, there is a delay in attribution that can be 2-3 days or longer. We don’t have real-time data like we had just a few years ago. That means optimization and adaptation of campaigns aren’t wise during a one-day campaign like Giving Tuesday or a 3-day appeal like December 29-31.
Proving which copy, creative, and audiences convert best via three to four off-peak campaigns scattered throughout the year will help you make highly informed ad investments during peak days. It is best to place your bets and leave them be during one or four-day ads, but that won’t be as risky if you’ve proven as much as possible during smaller scale, off-peak fundraising appeals.
The bar graph below represents a monthly breakdown of how an NPO could invest its fundraising ad dollars all year long.
Something else that should be done early in the calendar year is pursuing corporate sponsors who will match donor’s gifts. This certainly takes time, but it is worth it, for two reasons.
Increased trust = higher conversion rates: When a known brand is associated with your NPO, it adds credibility and increases conversion rates with donors who have never heard of your mission. They might not know you, but if a corporation that they recognize is associated with you, they’ll at least give you a second look.
Matching gifts = higher conversion rates: When a prospective donor knows that their gift will go twice as far, they are more likely to give and the time-sensitive nature of that matching gift offer even adds a sense of urgency to act while that offer remains.
Facet #2: Messaging
The facet that is second only to timing is messaging. I’m referring to ad headlines, taglines, ad copy, the CTA’s on the homepage, and any other marketing copy that is prominently used during a fundraising campaign.
This facet is key and it warrants significant time and attention from your NPO. Your marketing copy should be wordsmithed until it is compelling, clear, and as concise as possible.
But there is more to successful marketing copy than just being compelling, clear, and concise; these two additional elements are essential for an NPO’s fundraising message:
Quantify the need
Clarify the impact
Quantifying the Need:
Whether you’re speaking to a repeat donor from last year or a new prospect who just learned about your mission, the conversion rate for donations will be higher if you quantify the need and clarify the impact.
Provide numbers (totals, percentages, etc.) that quantify the need in the areas or countries of the world where your NPO operates. Here are three real examples of quantified needs:
There are over 582,000 homeless Americans (according to USAfacts.org)
Over 37 million people actively use illicit substances (according to AddictionHelp.com)
689 million people live on less than $1.90 a day (according to Gates Philanthropy Partners)
You get the point. Find a series of data points that are compelling and include that as a core part of your fundraising message. This will capture attention, tug on heartstrings, and stop people long enough to consider if they could be a part of the solution through your NPO.
Clarify the Impact:
Shortly after the weight of the quantified need sinks in, a prospective donor is going to want to know if they can make a difference by donating. What will my $25, $50, $100, or more do specifically to alleviate this problem, at least in some small way?
That’s where point 2 comes in. Right on the heels of quantifying the need, make sure your fundraising message clarifies what their gift will accomplish. Again, it is good to use specific numbers, such as the three following real NPO examples:
$50 provides “one family of five people with a month’s essentials” (according to Compassion International)
“Your gift of $130 = six months of supplies for a preschool classroom.” (according to United Way of Central Ohio)
“Your gift of $19 a month helps to ensure patients and families never receive a bill.” (St. Jude)
Do prospective and returning donors know the size of the need? If so, do they know how much of a difference their gift will make? If not, consider clarifying your fundraising messaging so that this is communicated early in their journey to explore a relationship with your NPO.
There are many other tips regarding the messaging of fundraising campaigns, but these are the most critical ones for successful year-end fundraising.
Facet #3: Creative
The creative assets used in fundraising campaigns are another facet that impacts the success of a fundraising initiative. This is true in regard to the creative format and to the best practices that need to be applied to each format.
Creative Formats
Remember, we’re discussing mass donor fundraising campaigns, and since the most effective ad channels for acquiring mass donors is Facebook and Instagram (Meta), we will limit our creative best practices conversation to what can be used in these channels.
Email, direct mail, YouTube, Google, and native ads can all be effective, but each of them has very different creative best practices which would require an entire article to unpack. So, let’s stick to Meta ads.
There’s one more thing to remember; we’re discussing fundraising campaigns, not brand awareness, audience-building, lead-gen, or advocacy campaigns. Even within Facebook and Instagram, the creative formats and best practices for those formats change for each of those objectives.
So, to keep this article focused, we’ll stick with creative formats and best practices for Facebook and Instagram ads that have a conversion objective triggered by a completed donation.
In this case, there are two creative formats that outperform the others - static images and videos. Slide shows and carousels don’t perform as well for fundraising, so we recommend focusing your creative team’s attention on being best-in-class with these two formats.
Between the two, static images almost always convert better than videos, but there are rare exceptions. When a video carries an unusually powerful message, it can outperform static images, but typically, static images will beat video 9 out of 10 times.
Best Practices for Creative Assets
Static Image Best Practices
It is good to test a variety of static image approaches, including:
Photos with a text overlay (Especially if you have a matching gift offer. Remember, when they know their gift will be doubled, they will convert at a higher rate.)
Photos without any text
Images with a solid color background (one of your NPO’s brand colors) that has a compelling tagline (test two to three variations of copy with different brand colors behind each adaptation)
Photos of the people you serve
Infographics that quantify the need and clarify the impact
It is important to have three variations of each image, in order to have placement in all of the ad “real estate” in Meta.
Square: 1080 x 1080px
Portrait: 1080 x 1920px
Landscape: 800 x 418 px
When it comes to photography, there are common best practices, but we often see exceptions to the rule, where an image that doesn’t comply with normal standards outperforms others that check all the right boxes.
Typical best practices for photos of people are to have A) a bright image with B) plenty of contrast between the subject and the background, where C) the person is close enough to see clearly.
We recommend all three of those things, but if you come across an image that doesn’t follow the rules but is attention-grabbing, emotional, mysterious, or curious, include them in your A/B test.
Often a darker image where the subject blends in too much with the background, and they are set so far back in the frame, that you can barely make out their face will outperform a bright, high-contrast photo where the subject is properly positioned in the frame. That happens when the rule-breaking example makes you stop in your tracks and take in what is going on.
We don’t recommend exclusively using images that break the rules but test one or two each time, and you might be surprised at the results.
Here are a few things to avoid with static creative:
Staged stock photography: Often, it is necessary to use stock photography in your creative. It can certainly be effective when you find the right examples, but avoid lifestyle shots that were obviously staged. Those are like white noise in a prospective donor’s social feed.
Shiny happy people: It is easy for an NPO marketer to be drawn to images of happy people smiling brightly. But many NPOs are solving the real-world problems of hurting, suffering, vulnerable people. Happy photos might please your nonprofit’s executives, but they won’t be as effective (actually, I can’t think of any instances where these worked well). If the boss wants happy people in your creative, include some, but don’t use them exclusively, and let the data from an A/B test convince your boss otherwise.
Too much text: We marketers always want to say more than we can communicate - hence the length of this article 😆. One of the recommendations that we make most often with our partners is to have fewer competing elements on an image. Text can be effective, but when it is too long or the font is small, it is rarely read. Likewise, when there are too many areas of the image that contain text (some running vertically, some horizontally, and some in different fonts and sizes), the eye doesn’t know where to land. This hurts the ad’s effectiveness as well. Remember, there are three other places in a Meta ad where text can complement the image (primary text, headlines, and descriptions). You don’t need to say all that you want to say within the image itself.
Too many visual elements: Sometimes there are too many logos, CTA’s, callouts, icons, or graphics. A cluttered design will cause people to flip right past it on their smartphone, again because their eye doesn’t know where to land. If your boss requires that you use a cluttered image, comply but ask for permission (or do it anyway and ask for forgiveness later) to test variations with less clutter in an A/B test and let the data speak for itself.
Video Best Practices
Similar to static images, there are a couple of sizes to keep in mind: square and portrait. We don’t recommend using landscape (the videos you use on YouTube and your website) in social ads. They don’t fill the frame as well and are more difficult for people to watch on a phone. If horizontal videos are all that you have, and they are compelling, go ahead and use them, but try to get the creative team on board with designing some square and vertical videos in the future.
Best practices for fundraising video ads in Meta include:
Captions (optimized for muted playback, since that is how most people flip through their social feeds).
A compelling first few frames - wording and visuals that are thumb-stopping. Remember, if you don’t capture their attention quickly, they’ll flip right past it. Don’t do a slow-build like storytellers often love to do in long-form video content; you just don’t have time for it in an ad.
An ending that has a clear and compelling call to action (CTA) about what you want them to do next
Short content that is between 15 and 30 seconds long
A campaign objective that is set to conversion, based on a completed donation. There is an exception though. If you need to build a new audience or warm an existing audience first (because you haven’t been advertising all year long), a ThruPlay campaign could precede a conversion campaign, enabling you to retarget those who watched the video.
Facet #4: Website Layout
In order for a fundraising campaign to succeed, the website and/or donation landing page needs to include a few elements that help prospective donors easily find what they need to make an informed giving decision.
In addition to the marketing messaging discussed in facet #2, best practices for donation pages also include:
A prominent Donate CTA button that is clearly highlighted (via a different color or shaped box) in the navigation bar and repeated in the center of the screen above the fold. It also helps to have a sticky Donate CTA button that follows visitors down the screen as they scroll.
Testimonials, often from multiple perspectives, including those who have benefited from the NPO’s mission, other donors, influencers, volunteers, etc. Most prospective donors would rather hear what others say about your NPO than what you say about yourselves.
A video: A short, introductory explainer video improves conversion rates, average session duration, and engagement rate. It is always a best practice to include a video either above the fold or just beneath it. For more information on this, I highly recommend reading Andy Crestodina’s article about the impact videos have on engagement and SEO.
FAQs: Every prospective donor is going to have questions. Even if they are already familiar with your NPO, they usually want to assure themselves that they’re making the right choice by checking a few things in an FAQ. This is a great time to answer the most common questions and address things they’re not asking, but you wish they would. Use this section to your advantage. Give them enough to make an informed decision. By the way, this shouldn’t create clutter on the page. It should be a collapsed FAQ where all questions can be seen at a glance. That way, they can skim the list and jump directly to expand the questions that matter most to them.
A link to the previous year’s annual report: Transparency with the use of donor funds is key to convincing prospective donors to join your mission. Sharing a few highlights of the previous year’s impact and a link to the annual report might satisfy that last bit of uncertainty keeping a prospective donor from clicking the donate button.
An uncluttered donate form: We’ve tested placing the form above the fold and beneath it and the data was conclusive. We received 85% more donations when the form was above the fold. Don’t make them hunt for it!
Whenever we work with our nonprofit partners on optimizing their donation landing pages, these are the six things we always bring up because they make a substantial difference.
Facet #5: User Experience
Closely related to the donation landing page is the prospective donor’s user experience (UX), which extends beyond just the essential components and layout of the page.
Make it as easy as possible for people to donate. Here are four ways to do that:
Use prefill form fields: At least part of the prospective donor’s personal information is stored in Meta, so enable the built-in prefill functionality when using forms that live on Facebook (learn more here). Give prospective donors as little to manually fill out as possible.
Accept mobile wallet payments: Similar to point #1, when you accept mobile wallet payments (and you highlight that in your marketing), the prospective donor knows that the transaction will be easy to complete, even on a smartphone. The obstacle of wondering if they can trust you with their credit card is removed because they trust the security of their preferred mobile wallet. The most popular examples include PayPal, AmazonPay, ApplePay, GooglePay, Samsung Pay, Venmo, and Zelle. You can and should include their logos in some of your marketing material and on your website. If someone knows early on that it will be simple to give, they will be more likely to donate.
Keep the required fields to a minimum: Yes, email marketing is much more successful when you can segment your list so that each grouping of prospects receives messaging tailored to them. That is why some NPO marketers load up the donation form with at least a few legally unnecessary fields. Include everything that is required by law and internal policies, but be very cautious about adding much more. This leads us to point #4.
Don’t slow a prospective donor down! Steps like
Asking them how they found out about you,
Requiring them to designate their gift to a particular fund,
Offering too many options of giving amounts to decide between, or
Pushing too hard to enlist in a monthly giving program
All of these things can slow people down. But, at this point in the donor journey, it is time to close the transaction. Process that credit card!
They’re completing the donate form because they already know enough to decide to give. Don’t give them a reason to back up and think again.
You’ll have opportunities after the completion of the transaction to ask them to fill out a profile. There are other places in their donor journey where you can give them more details about each program and service your NPO is involved with. But don’t place an extra step that causes a donor to pause while they’re trying to complete their donation.
Facet #6: Advertising
Another essential facet of successful year-end fundraising is to advertise. Unless your NPO is a household name that people think of first when they want to be charitable (I would argue that advertising is even necessary in these cases), you’re going to need to advertise in order to raise awareness of your cause.
NPOs used to be able to rely more on their organic following than they can today. But with nearly every digital platform now being a pay-to-play environment, if you don’t boost your social posts, few of your followers will see it. And if you don’t bid on relevant keywords, few people will find you on Google.
If your NPO has a limited budget, we recommend keeping the ad channels to just one or two. Even with the limitations that Facebook has placed on advertisers in recent years, it is still hands-down the best ad channel for mass donor fundraising.
If you have a mid-sized ad budget to work with, we recommend folding in Google Search and YouTube. For large campaign budgets, you could also leverage Hulu, Spotify, influencer sponsorships, and more. For more details about where to advertise, here’s a link to an article dedicated to the subject.
Advertising is necessary, but it is also complex. Each ad channel is loaded with options, but they can be overwhelming to someone who isn’t in them every day. Since they’re always making changes to their ad platforms (for better and worse), it is difficult for anyone who doesn’t advertise full-time to know which levers to pull to get the best results.
That’s why it is helpful to work with an advertising agency that knows which platforms to leverage, which assets to use, and which settings to select in order to get the best results. Agencies like Amplify do this every day, and the increased donor revenue that comes from working with a quality agency that specializes in nonprofit marketing will more than cover their cost.
Facet #7: Reporting
The last facet of successful year-end nonprofit fundraising is reporting.
Even if all six of the other facets are in place, if you aren’t monitoring, recording, and reporting on the results, you won’t be able to identify which aspects of your campaign worked best and which ones underperformed.
That means you won’t have as much to build upon for the next campaign.
Below are the types of metrics that we use to monitor, track, and report on results by variations of copy and creative, landing pages, form field formats, audience segmentation, and timing.
Facebook data:
Conversions
Conversion rate
Cost per donation
ROAS
CPC
CTR
CPM
Engagement: post saves, shares, reactions, and comments
Cost per engagement: so you can have an accurate comparison between campaigns, regardless of size, and so that you can measure success during a campaign.
Frequency
Google Analytics data:
Sessions and users
New users
Conversions and conversion value
Events
Conversion rate
Engagement rate
Source and medium
Average session duration
Average number of pages per session
Leads captured
One of the most technically challenging aspects of advertising is getting all of the necessary data sources to communicate with each other - your website, donation software, Google Analytics, CRM, and ad platforms.
This is even more difficult than it sounds because many things need to be right for it to work properly and only one small thing has to be wrong for it to break.
When these data sources stop communicating with each other accurately, the ads won’t perform as well, because:
The ad platform won’t get the data it needs to use its powerful machine-learning and algorithms.
The adverting manager won’t have the data they need to make optimization decisions throughout the campaign.
Once you’ve successfully connected all of the data sources, it’s time to decide on a tool that monitors, tracks, and reports on the results throughout the campaign and after it is complete.
At Amplify, we use Google Looker Studio for this. It can connect with most data sources and it has graphs, tables, and charts that visualize the results (see the sample dashboard).
When benchmarks are plugged into the formulas of Google Looker Studio dashboards, it can help you easily identify if something is overperforming or behind schedule.
If the duration of the campaign is long enough, pivots can be made to adjust for better results.
Conclusion
There are many other tips, ideas, best practices, and benchmarks that could have been put into an article about year-end nonprofit fundraising, but these seven facets cover the areas that come up most often in conversations with our nonprofit partners.
I hope you found something useful here that will help your NPO experience the strongest year-end fundraising results ever so that your mission can grow as you enter 2024.
Feedback from Our Clients
“I have had the chance to work with Franklin and the Amplify team on digital advertising for brand awareness, sales, and email growth. The team has exceeded expectations in every category and equipped my team for better engagement online. I have used Amplify for both non-profit and for profit digital marketing and will continue to use them to expand my digital reach.” - Kevin Spratt, North American Mission Board
“Amplify has been instrumental in greatly improving our digital marketing efforts. Their team of experts have assisted us with multi-channel ad management in Facebook, Google display, Pinterest, and native ads. But they don’t just report the latest set of numbers. Amplify deeply analyzes the data and provides strategic input on where we can make improvements and ideas for where we can go next. We have worked with other digital vendors in the past and have never seen results like this. It is true partnership, and we can tell their team really cares about our success!” - Ken Kirkendall, Bethany Christian Services
Click HERE to see Amplify’s reviews on Google