#FundraisingFriday - Transition Giving Tuesday to End of Year Donations

We hope you’re ready for Giving Tuesday coming right around the corner! If you’re not, stop right now and check out last month’s #FundraisingFriday article on that topic first!

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Ok, now that everyone’s caught up, it’s time to talk about how to transition your Giving Tuesday campaign into a successful digital End of Year Fundraiser. It’s the BIGGEST fundraising season of the year, so you need to be prepared:

• 31% of all donations happen in the month of December
• 12% of all gifts are made December 29-31 (just 3 days!)
• 59% of all organizations reach out to their donors at least twice in the month of December asking for donations
• 700% increase in donations on December 31st compared to average days of giving for most organizations

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With these big stats, come some big stakes. Here are a few ways to ensure that your digital fundraising efforts for the month of December are as successful as possible:

1. Donation transparency - make sure you’re clear where the money will go and what you’ll do with the raised funds.
2. Thank your donors - recognize their generosity online and/or in writing.
3. Mix up the messaging - do some donation asks and some generic posts with thank you posts sprinkled in there to not bore or accidentally disengage your audience from your usual content.
4. Explain the difference - Giving Tuesday was a single day; this campaign is the entire month and the last chance to get those tax write offs before the new year.
5. Real photos - showing real faces of those who either volunteer, donate, or benefit from your organization will subconsciously provide more validity, weight, and importance of your organization’s work with the donors and public
6. K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Silly - messaging, asks, donation process, graphics content, emails, blogs, etc. - keep it honest, simple, and easy to absorb to not lose the donor in the process and to help your goal stick in their mind

These tips will help you, your organization, and your donors have a successful end of the year donation drive. Take a breath, plan your emails and social media posts, and celebrate the success of your organization and its connections with beneficiaries and donors. You’re doing great work out there!

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Next month, we’ll cover how to get people to give more often than not and the psychology behind small donation requests. This is helpful for gathering donations year-round when you don’t necessarily have a fundraiser that you’re pushing.

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Originally from Upstate New York, Gabby Rockwell grew up in Girl Scouts with her troop meeting weekly in a volunteer fire station and giving back to her local volunteer department. From a young age, her passion was her community and the emergency responders that kept her town safe.

In New York, she pursued her Bachelors in International Relations, focusing on the impact that nonprofits have in making positive change on the world. Later moving to California to further her studies in State and Local Policy and Econometrics by getting her Masters in Public Policy, continuing to focus on how nonprofits can make a local difference through a combination of data analytics and marketing partnership opportunities.

She has worked in the community relations world of professional baseball and nonprofits, continuing to give back to emergency responders in local, statewide, and national capacities. From producing events, fundraising, marketing, and analyzing how to implement best strategies for increased donations, Gabby has a broad experience in the fundraising world of supporting emergency responders.

Now based in San Diego, Gabby is the Director of Social Media Marketing at NEP Services. She continues to spend her time giving back to emergency responders - both professionally and in her free time with her son. She's proud to merge her nonprofit and analytics backgrounds into one role to give back to those who give their all for us day in and day out.