As the leaves change color and the days get shorter, the days tend to become busier. In an ideal scenario, there would only be one thing on fundraisers’ to-do list — year-end giving, of course. While it would be nice if this were the case, we know that the world doesn’t stop for nonprofit teams like yours to prioritize year-end fundraising. But no matter how busy you are, it’s important to carve out time to develop your year-end appeal letter strategy. The goal is to nurture supporter relationships to bring in valuable end-of-year contributions.
If you’re unsure how to tackle year-end appeal letters in the most effective way, fear not! In this post, we’ll provide seven unstoppable strategies for crafting effective appeals that make year-end fundraising a breeze:
- Create a year-end-appeal timeline.
- Present your year-end appeal letter through the right channel.
- Personalize every aspect of your year-end appeal.
- Share your success stories in your end-of-year appeal.
- Format your appeal letter strategically.
- Follow up after your year-end appeal letter.
- Reference our free year-end appeal letter sample.
Keep in mind that like any nonprofit effort, the right software can facilitate a stress-free year-end appeal experience. Check out Giveffect’s marketing and communication tools to see how our solution can boost your fundraising strategy during the end-of-year giving season!
Now without further ado, let’s jump to the tips so you can start writing your appeal letters.
1. Create a year-end appeal timeline.
If you’re scrambling to develop your appeal letter plan in the middle of December, chances are that you won’t have much luck winning over all of the supporters in your database (much less potential new prospects).
Instead of throwing your fundraising appeals together at the last minute, start early. Schedule time with your team midway through the year to begin plotting your end-of-year strategy. Develop a clear timeline to serve as your roadmap for the last months of the year.
As you’re creating your calendar, check off the following steps:
- Delegate key responsibilities. Determine who will be writing the direct mail, email, and social media appeals? Consider if the same person or people will ensure all of the direct mail is sent and received, Decide if you design the appeals in-house or work with an outside designer.
- Establish smart goals. Using reports from previous years as a baseline, how much money do you hope to bring in through your year-end appeal letters? How much money do you need to raise to cover operational expenses?
- Determine how technology fits in. Is your email marketing software integrated with your nonprofit CRM? What about your direct mail solution? (Hint: the more connected these systems are, the easier it will be to automate tasks and limit manual data entry!)
No matter what, make sure you clearly document your timeline and inform all relevant team members about the plan. Trust us: when everyone is on the same page from square one, you’ll mitigate a significant amount of confusion and stress once the end-of-year season ramps up!
Takeaway:
Your team should think about how to manage year-end fundraising appeals well before the holiday season. Create a practical timeline to ensure that responsibilities are covered and tasks don’t slip through the cracks.
2. Present your year-end appeal letter through the right channel.
There are many channels to reach supporters. The trick is to identify the right channels to reach your specific supporter groups. The right channel means that you are contacting your supporters how they want to be contacted. As a result, they are then open and willing to learn more and contribute.
We won’t be able to touch on every creative year-end appeal approach in this post. However, we can provide real-world advice for sending fundraising letters through two distinct channels: direct mail appeals and online appeals. Let’s explore each!
Direct Mail Appeal Letters
Many nonprofits rely on traditional and time-tested, end-of-year direct mail appeal letters for a reason: they work!
The major downside of direct mail is that sending a letter or postcard through the mail costs money. For smaller nonprofits with a less flexible budget, it might be easy to write off this marketing channel in favor of free or cheap online methods.
However, all nonprofits can — and should — utilize direct mail appeal letters. Just follow these tips:
- Focus on existing donors, particularly small-to-midsized donors who’ve previously given through mail.
- Be deliberate with your design, from the color and size of your envelope to the content itself, by using direct mail software that gives you plenty of customization options.
- Make the donation easy by including a pre-addressed reply envelope and the URL to your online giving form. Don’t forget: when you use integrated direct mail marketing software, you can track appeal responses in your CRM automatically.
Direct mail can be the most compelling type of appeal you send, so don’t forget to make the most of this channel!
Online Appeal Letters
Though some may feel that it’s less personal than a letter in the mail, a year-end appeal sent through the internet is virtually free for your nonprofit and accessible to almost all of your supporters.
Take advantage of the ubiquity and cost-effectiveness of online marketing in a few ways:
- Follow up your direct mail letter with an email appeal. If you haven’t heard back after your initial solicitation letter, reach out again with an email appeal.
- Maintain a diverse social media presence. Link to your year-end giving page on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram throughout the holiday season. Be sure to capitalize on key giving days like #GivingTuesday.
- Open up a variety of online giving methods. As you promote year-end giving, offer plenty of convenient ways to donate. Be sure to include your online donation form, corporate giving option, text-to-give campaigns, or a crowdfunding page.
Another perk of online appeals? You can use them to reach a broad audience of prospective donors without spending a dime. To do that, ensure that your online content is shareable and visually engaging. Then, encourage supporters to forward your message to their peers!
Takeaway:
By pairing your online year-end appeal strategy with a stellar direct mail campaign, you’ll maximize the amount you’re able to bring in. Make sure your marketing software allows you to explore both avenues for the best results and the most seamless experience!
3. Personalize every aspect of your year-end fundraising appeal.
There’s nothing worse than a generic “To Whom It May Concern” letter, especially if that one-size-fits-all letter is asking the recipient for money!
If your year-end appeal letters lack a personal touch, draw on the information stored in your nonprofit CRM.
You should already know a thing or two about your donors based on the forms they’ve filled out, the conversations you’ve shared, and the giving and engagement history they have with your organization. If you track this information effectively in your database, you are starting from a great position for a successful year-end appeal!
Here are a few suggestions for where personalization pays off:
- Greeting. Always address a supporter by their preferred first name or title. For most donors, their first name is better than “Mr/Ms.” Major donors or individuals with prominent roles in the community may prefer a more formal salutation.
- Ask amount. Reference an individual’s giving history to determine the right solicitation amount. To maximize the ask, offer suggested giving levels that align with their previous donation amount but encourage them to increase slightly.
- Content. Personalizing your letters means more than just filling in the blanks for a name and donation amount. Craft different appeals that relate to specific segments of your list. Consider different messaging for major donors, lapsed donors, and prospective new donors.
If possible, reference the recipient’s previous involvement explicitly within the copy of your letter. For example: “Your $500 gift last year provided school supplies for five underprivileged children.” Or, “Your hard work volunteering on our fundraising event committee ensured our auction went off without a hitch.”
For direct mail appeal letters, add a special touch with a handwritten P.S. from a notable member of your team, such as a board member.
Keeping all of this data in an integrated system will help access donor, volunteer, or member data to inform your year-end marketing strategy. You’ll be able to stay on top of your end-of-year solicitations without bouncing back and forth between disparate systems.
Takeaway:
Reading a year-end appeal letter should feel personal. Use the information in your nonprofit software to guarantee that each letter is as unique as the supporter who receives it.
4. Share your success stories in your end-of-year appeal.
Distinguish year-end appeal letters from the other appeals you send by showcasing the effectiveness of your fundraising efforts throughout the year.
To make your case for support, tell the story of what your organization has accomplished over the last 12 months to warrant their contribution.
The good news is that this doesn’t have to be a source of stress for your fundraising team; instead, you should view this as an opportunity to highlight key stories of your nonprofit’s success in the communities you serve!
Here are tips to compellingly show donors how much you’ve accomplished in the past year:
- Focus on the donor. It may seem counterintuitive (after all, you are trying to illustrate what your nonprofit has achieved), but hear us out. First, remind your supporters why their donations are valued. Second, illustrate what their support has accomplished. And third, remind them that your organization can’t make an impact alone.
- Use visual elements. Use high-quality photos (and, in online appeals, videos) to put faces to the individuals, places, or animals that you support. Plus, a photo or graphic can break up the text and catch a reader’s eye, drawing them toward your call to action.
- Include statistics sparingly. A powerful statistic can validate the need for your organization, or the impact you’ve already made can motivate supporters. However, your readers will gloss over a wall of numbers. Use stats sparingly.
In a way, your year-end donation request letter reminds donors why they’ve supported your mission in the past and gets them excited about contributing once again.
The more you illustrate the powerful things your supporters have helped you accomplish, the more likely they are to make a donation again. Additionally, they are likely to help spread these stories to friends and family. After all, who wouldn’t want to broadcast such amazing stories that they’ve made possible?
Takeaway:
Your year-end appeal letter is your chance to reiterate how vital your donors’ contributions are by illustrating the impact they’ve already had. Tell the story of what your fundraising campaign has accomplished and why you need their continued support. With a compelling story, your supporters are sure to give again.
5. Format your appeal letter strategically.
Now that you have an idea of the content you’ll include in your year-end fundraising appeal, let’s dive into specific tips for laying out your letter for the best results.
There’s no such thing as magic formatting. However, there are proven techniques to get your appeal letter in optimum shape:
- Start with “thank you.” The first paragraph of your appeal should include a thank you to your donors. They’ve already done a lot for your organization. Don’t launch a request without acknowledging their past contributions.
- Keep it conversational. A complicated dissertation on why your nonprofit deserves their funding is not the answer. Instead, use a warm, friendly tone and simple, to-the-point language to invite them to participate in your organization.
- Be brief. All of your appeal letters should be easy to read. Email appeals should be shorter than direct mailings. Your storytelling should provide context, touch on emotions, and quickly get to the point to keep your donor’s attention through to your ask.
- Write for scanners, not readers. You’d like your recipients to soak up every thoughtfully crafted line in your appeal letter. Realistically, many will only scan it. Use short paragraphs, images, and bold or italic lettering to keep your appeal scannable.
- Include a clear call to action. Ensure your formatting facilitates the point of your letter — a donation! Reiterate this call to action throughout the letter in clear language. Explicitly reiterate your ask in your closing.
On top of those important tactics, look at the draft of your letter with your audience in mind.
Show a copy of your direct mail appeal to a board member or staff member. Is the font easy to read? Are you capturing their attention through to the ask? Do the images make sense to them at first glance?
Takeaway:
Format your year-end appeal letter in a way that draws readers into your story. The faster you capture their attention and make your ask, the more likely they will make their donation!
6. Follow up after your year-end appeal letter.
The end-of-year season is a busy time for your nonprofit, and it’s a busy time for your supporters. Don’t let them slip away if they don’t reply to your initial solicitation letter!
Use integrated marketing and fundraising software to track where your appeal letters are in transit and whether your recipients have made their gifts. (In fact, some software can even automate the data entry process so that all year-end transactions are stored instantly in a supporter’s profile.)
When you know where your donors are in the year-end giving journey, you can better tailor your follow-up, which might include:
- Additional Solicitations. If your recipient hasn’t replied to your first appeal, consider following up with an email, direct mailing, or a phone call. Time your first message early enough in the season that you have time to follow up before the year’s end.
- Corporate Matching Gift information. Show your contributors how their gifts can go twice as far through corporate philanthropy programs. Segment your donor list by their employer to send the most detailed matching gift information.
- Thank You Notes. Perhaps the most crucial follow-up you’ll send is the thank you note! Depending on the gift size, you may send an email or personal note in the mail. Either way, send these communications as quickly as possible following the gift.
Again, when you have software that automates many of your important communication tasks, sending manual follow-up messages to each supporter in your database is a thing of the past.
Furthermore, when all of your nonprofit systems work together, your donor profiles inform your donor segments and outreach. Each follow-up is personalized, relevant, and engaging. Now that’s a recipe for year-end appeal success!
7. Reference our free year-end appeal letter sample.
Now that you’ve got all the top tips, here’s one more resource to get you started on your year-end campaign.
We’ve put together a sample your team can reference as you craft your best year-end appeals letter yet. This template works for direct mail or email appeals. Of course, you’ll need to tailor it to meet your nonprofit’s specific audience.
Sample:
Sample:
Dear Jane,
Thanks to your generosity, over 5,000 homeless animals received shelter, food, and life-saving veterinary care last year. With your help, many of these dogs and cats have been placed in loving homes. On their behalf, thank you for your help.
Just take a look at a dog like Fido. We brought him in off the streets, hungry and scared. Thanks to donations from supporters just like you, our vet staff treated Fido for malnourishment, and he became healthy and trusting again in just a few weeks. Now, Fido is in the care of his forever family.
Fido can’t say thanks, but we can! We are so grateful to have supporters like you making stories like these a possibility for helpless pets.
Today, we embark on our Year-End Campaign. Our goal is to provide care for 500 more animals in need by raising $10,000 by December 31, but we can’t do it without help.
We’re reaching out to you because you’ve already demonstrated your compassion for cats and dogs like Fido. Would you be willing to make a special year-end contribution of $25, $50, or $100 to save 500 more animals in need?
With your support, we can impact our community in a lasting way.
Please join us by making your gift on our online donation form or by sending a check in the enclosed envelope. The lives of hundreds of animals are at stake.
Thank you for your continued support.
Best wishes,
John Smith
Executive Director
P.S. On our website, you’ll find dozens of more stories of animals just like Fido. You can learn more about the amazing work your donations make possible by checking out our nonprofit website, Facebook, and Twitter.”
There you have it! Tweak our sample to fit your recipients, mission, and channel, and you’ll be well on your way to fundraising appeal success in no time.
Final Thought:
In conclusion, year-end fundraising appeal letters are critical. With our strategies on hand, you should have no problem outlining a plan that reaches donors and guarantees donations.
