It’s December and Giving Tuesday is over, but the holidays are still ahead and almost ONE-THIRD of digital giving is done in December, according to Charity Navigator.
So here is a quick end-of-year checklist of things that you can do right now to make the most out of the final stretch.
1. Reassess – Giving Tuesday review
Giving Tuesday is a great time to stop and look at how some of your end-of-year giving strategies are working so far. Did you meet or exceed your goals for the day? And what parts worked best and what parts may need some tweaking?
This is where a comprehensive review of your donors is a great choice. You can look at issues like:
– Of course demographic information like age, gender, and income.
– Are your donors first-time donors?
– Are they first-time Giving Tuesday donors?
– How many have been a part of your community?
– How many donors are volunteers?
– How many attend events?
– How many are volunteers and attend events?
– How many give every year?
– How many have given for five straight?
And of course, the other critical question is, who are the donors that you are not reaching?
Finding out who your donors are and who your messaging is resonating with gives you a great idea about what messaging is working for your intended audiences. And this also can give you a fantastic idea about other groups that you may not be reaching, to improve your fundraising reach even further.
Some of these reports may be more difficult to create than others. This is where an all-in-one system like Giveffect can be particularly useful in creating cross-referenced reports quickly from any angle that you may be focusing on or curious about testing.
2. Replan – Retool your weak points
Setting new goals for the month, or tweaking them, may be needed at this point after your Giving Tuesday review. But you must keep in mind your main goals for end-of-year giving and how close you are to realistically achieve them.
The overall strategy can be evaluated if the results were less than prior years on Giving Tuesday in targeted groups. In fact, a quick overhaul or retargeting may be needed if your messaging is not meeting expectations.
A good strategy would be to:
– Hold a meeting where you review the Giving Tuesday reports.
– Hold a brainstorming session where you discuss how to expand on what you learn.
– Hold departmental meetings where you divide up the work.
– Review sessions to look over the reformed work and evaluate.
And even if you are meeting your expected goals or exceeding them, you can still work to tweak your campaign and examine the parts that are doing better than others.
But do note, there is not a ton of time for marketing testing, so using an updated version of an older idea or strategy that had success in the past can be a great fall-back position if you feel you are having problems. You can even play into the idea using a nostalgia campaign of remembering past focal points.
3. Realize – Execution
Once you develop or refine your campaign based on your Giving Tuesday results you can start putting it into action.
You can include refined messaging in:
– New emails
– Print materials
– Social media posts
– Website campaigns
– Phone calls
– Event promotions
And as the new campaign goes out, you should be constantly keeping an eye on your performance and deliverables. And that includes the time and day of your outreach, particularly with holiday schedules changing up normal routines of both your workers and your audience.
4. Review – Taking your lessons into next year
A year can be a long time to remember all the details from a campaign. It’s a great idea to sit down at the end of the year and take some notes on what worked best with the campaign along with your reports from the year.
A review with:
– A list of report findings from Giving Tuesday and the end-of-year push.
– A list of some of the actions that were taken after Giving Tuesday.
– A review of the final results.
– And a final brief list of actions/tips that should be remembered in the future.
Also, remember that many of these lessons may also be applicable to other campaigns throughout the year as well. So a review can lead to a fresh perspective for all your planning for the next year.
And you can also directly start to make a strategy for the end of the year next year, and particularly next year’s Giving Tuesday, based on what you learned this year.
Giveffect is an all-in-one nonprofit system that can make your reporting and planning easier, which means you can react more quickly as demands change. Let us show you how Giveffect can make reporting (and so much more) a breeze and schedule a demo today:
