It may not be widely known that the majority of donations including year-end donations are made in December.
The period during which you organize your donation collection directly influences the results of your collection.
- Update the homepage of your website
- Reconnect with your former donors
- Relay information on your social networks
- Highlight the impact of donations
- Highlight the tax benefits of donations
- Offer different donation formulas to donors
- Modernize your donation collection system
- Send a thank you email after collecting donations
# 1 Update the homepage of your website
The website of your nonprofit is a real asset for your communication.
This is where you share all the information about your nonprofit, its members, its activities, etc.
Obviously, if you collect donations, it is essential to indicate it on your website.
This seems obvious, but do not forget to make your giving page visible from your top of the home page.
Potential donors who visit your website should easily find the link to the donation form on your website.For this, nothing is easier than inserting a your GiveCentral payment button on your website. A Call-to-Action efficient enough to attract the eye of your visitors.
You can also add a carousel of moving images on the banner, one of which illustrates your call for generosity specifically for the end of the year!
Whichever solution you choose, make sure your donation appeal is above the waterline on your website, that is, the visitor does not need to scroll, (or go down) on your page to see it.
# 2 Reconnect with your former donors
If you have already collected donations, I hope you have carefully kept the list of your former donors!
Take back this list and press on it: re-write to your donors to boost donations for your cause.
These generous people have already donated to your nonprofit in the past. So it’s a safe bet that your cause still interests them.
In addition to the possibility of re-engaging them, your former donors will certainly be happy to hear about your nonprofit and its development. Do not hesitate to show the impact of donations collected in this development.
Once you have decided on your content, find your former donors in your donor management software and create an emailing campaign dedicated to them. GiveCentral helps you do this in 5 seconds or less!
# 3 Relay information on your social networks
According to the report from NonProfit Tech for Good, 25% of donors say that social networks are now the communication tool that encourages them to donate the most.
Hard to imagine that donations will flow without communication. It may be interesting to consider putting your social networks in the loop.
As for your website, if you launch a dedicated donations campaign at the year-end (or the Christmas period), it may be relevant to relay it on your social networks through an event communication campaign .
Here are some ways:
- Dress up your Facebook page with the colors of your campaign,
- Publish news from your donors (if they accept it) to inspire others,
- Publish news of your beneficiaries to highlight the impact of your donations,
- Regularly share news about the number of donations collected and the goal of donations to be achieved in the manner of a crowdfunding campaign.
Obviously, the best ideas will be yours! Do not hesitate to organize a small meeting with your team to imagine creative and original ideas that will fly!
# 4 Highlight the impact of donations received
One of the reasons donations flow in December is the perceived gap between the situation of donors on the one hand, and the situation in which potential recipients of donations are found.
Therefore, showing the beneficiaries of your actions and the impact of the actions on their situation or their daily life can be an interesting communication lever.
# 5 Highlight the tax benefits of donations to nonprofits
As you certainly know donors benefit from a tax reduction on donations to nonprofits in the US. In addition to the natural inclination to solidarity, this is one powerful lever for taking action on donations.
Obviously, your nonprofit must meet certain criteria in order to issue tax receipts allowing donors to tax their donation. In your donation campaigns, do not forget to explain to your donors how they should go about tax exemption.
The deadline of December 31, end of the calendar year, marks the end of the fiscal year. All donations made before December 31 will be deductible in the year immediately after, those made from January 1 will be deductible the following year.
Using GiveCentral’s donor management software, donors and your administrators can view their giving history, transaction and donation tax receipts in real time.
This can obviously be an additional argument to express his generosity in December – nothing prevents you to remind your potential donors.
# 6 Suggest different donation formulas
All potential donors do not necessarily want to give the same amount at the same frequency.
To encourage them to finalize their gift, flexibility is in order!
So, do not hesitate to propose at first different amounts, but also a free amount , which the donor can complete at his convenience. We at GiveCentral use Smart Tokens and Express Setup and Communication features to help you set up you pledges and communication in just a few clicks.
Also let the donors choose to renew their donation. In particular, you can offer one-time donations or recurring donations, annually or monthly.
# 7 Modernize your collection system with online donation
Online payment is a habit firmly anchored in our daily lives.
Although it applies to everyday purchases, online payment has also been used for several years to collect donations.
For donors, the advantages of online donation are obvious: no more checks to sign and letters to send: the donation is made in seconds, from a computer or even on a mobile.
GiveCentral’s payment processor and donor management software works well with most accounting and reporting platforms in the market including Salesforce NPSP and reassures donors about the security of payment.
Best of all, online payment for your nonprofit will make it much easier to manage donations – your administrators will certainly be grateful!
# 8 Send a thank you email after collecting donations
Once the donation is received, we strongly encourage you to send a thank you email to your donors.
If you have many donors, you are obviously not obliged to send a personalized email to each of them! For example, you can easily automate email campaigns with GiveCentral’s donor management software to thank them.
Your thank you email is also an opportunity to engage your donors in the long term .
For example, you can invite them to subscribe to your newsletter to follow the progress of your projects. This allows you to anticipate the future as well.
Don’t forget to add your donors in your donor management software . In this way, identifying and recontacting them will be effortless in a year, when you collect donations for the end of the year.
Finally, if you have few donors but they greatly help your nonprofit fundraising, take a look at our article to learn how to retain your major donors .
As you can see, the success of an end-of-year fundraiser is a subtle combination of creativity, communication, timing and technology.
Mix it up, and you have a good chance of multiplying the resources of your association to further develop your projects !
It’s up to you now, we wish you a lot of success in your campaigns!
Last modified: December 3, 2019
