In 2025, we aren’t giving in to fundraising anxiety. We’re making a plan.
You don’t need us to tell you how critical the end-of-year fundraising season is—30% of all annual giving takes place in December. Factor in the slashing of federal aid and investments in social impact, plus increasing economic uncertainty, and it’s a recipe for some serious angst. Maybe this is a good time to invest in Tums.
Nope. Scratch that. We aren’t going to give in to our anxiety. We’re going to make a plan.
And to help you get started, we created a free End-of-Year Fundraising Checklist. Click below to get yours and keep reading for our keys to success.
Adjust your timeline and start early. Like, really early.
Yes, summer just started, and yes, it’s time to get to work on your end-of-year fundraising campaign. We’ve heard the mantra in certain fundraising circles that you just “have to keep asking.” Eeeek! Yes, there’s an element of turning on the fire hose come December, but we also know there’s more to it than that. Groundwork must be laid; past and would-be donors must be wooed.
To that end, if you take the approach that audience and donor cultivation is an always-on endeavor, then come end-of-year, you’re ahead of the game.
Let’s get down to brass tacks. Traditionally, we see organizations planning their efforts around Giving Tuesday and the last few weeks of the year. This is when the heaviest concentration of donations occurs, but we recommend a messaging plan that backs all the way into October. We see year-over-year gains among clients who get out ahead of Giving Tuesday and take the time to build and reinforce their case for giving.
Focus your efforts on levers within your control
This can be a tricky one. We know it’s often the case that fundraising teams are given a goal in the form of a very large dollar amount. That’s the nature of the game, but hopefully, there’s an understanding with leadership of what is a stretch and what is realistic.
In terms of marketing’s role, we’re measuring performance against those metrics that will ladder up to your goal.
We have the power to help you move the needle by increasing:
- Total transactions
- Average transaction amount
- New donor conversions
And by optimizing to keep the following as efficient as possible:
- Cost per click
- Cost per lead
- Cost per donation
Non-donation ads pay dividends in the long run
Depending on the size of your organization, we understand you may not have much of an ad budget, if you have one at all, but the old axiom that you have to spend money to make money applies here too.
Most nonprofits spend 10% or less of their digital ad budget on lead generation. For most of our clients, we advise a heavier investment, often just as much, if not more, than on actual donation ads. This is the case with Filling in the Blanks, a local innovator in the hunger space with whom we’ve worked for several years. In our first year working together, their end-of-year fundraising total nearly tripled, the culmination of a yearlong effort to grow and cultivate potential new donors with a multi-channel communication strategy.
According to the latest M+R Benchmarks, nonprofits saw an average cost per lead of $2.09. Their average email-based revenue per subscriber was $2.63, making lead generation a guaranteed winner. Plus, these numbers don’t account for the fact that email subscribers often give through other channels in addition to, or instead of, email. Fundraising success is built on strong relationship marketing, and investing in targeted lead generation gets the engine running.
Build strong relationships, and the donations will follow
Strong fundraising performance is built on long-term relationship-building of all types. Working with influencers isn’t a novel tactic, but when you build an authentic connection that doesn’t simply leverage others as a mouthpiece, that’s when you’ve struck gold.
Acacia Center for Justice came to HelpGood for help recruiting lawyers to represent unaccompanied immigrant children, and working with influencers provided a way to reach their target audiences with voices they already trust. We hand-picked influencers for long-term partnerships, provided them briefs, and let them create content true to themselves.
Lawyer and Content Creator Reb Masel proved a perfect fit. She has an engaged following thanks to a mix of relatable, incisive, and sometimes humorous takes. Reb was more than capable of delivering Acacia’s message to her audience in a truly authentic and thus persuasive manner.
Since launching their recruitment campaign, policies of the current federal administration have increased the need for Acacia’s services while cutting off funding sources. When they launched an emergency fundraiser in early spring, Reb was more than happy to remind her audience of Acacia’s vital work. She didn’t reference or explicitly ask for donations, but additional story posts included a donation link. And brought in “$80,000, nearly overnight.”
Just as longer-term relationship building is an essential tool for priming constituents to become donors, Reb effectively mirrored this strategy with her audience on Accacia’s behalf.
Ask for help
An effective marketing engine is critical to your fundraising success. But for nonprofit organizations steeped in issue area expertise and committed to the work of their mission, that can be difficult to maintain. Our team is an extension of our clients’, providing the know-how, tools, and people power to foster the support they need to thrive.
