Include an inspirational video that serves as a recap of all that the non-profit was able to accomplish over the past year. Express gratitude to your donors and supporters in this video as well. Then you can make the ask for further donations to keep the non-profit's initiatives going. A well-done video montage with moving music can be an extremely powerful way to convey a message. Showing rather than telling can make people feel more connected to your non-profit and, thus, more willing to support it.
Gain some early momentum for your campaign by doing a soft launch to a select group of your loyal supporters two weeks before you send it out to the general public. Craft an email introducing your campaign by emphasizing the value they bring to your cause, motivating them to help jumpstart your fundraising effort. Write a compelling subject line that's time and personalized but also has a sense of urgency: "The best gift you can give those in need this holiday season." Include a concise description of your campaign and its goals in the body of the email. And mention their previous involvement with your nonprofit and the impact their gifts have made. You may also want to offer special incentives that only your most avid supporters will receive. Be sure to thank them and then sign it with your name above your organization's name. Closing your email with a personal touch shows supporters how much you value them.
The end-of-the-year coincides with the holidays, when most folks are in a mindset of goodwill and giving. Nonprofits can capitalize on this connection to humanity and frame engagement as a natural extension of the holidays. For example, a subject line might read, "There's a gift you're forgetting!" These occasions often remind people how blessed they are, plus they are conditioned to give gifts. By crafting messaging around gift-giving versus donation, you can leverage seasonal generosity and drive one final fundraising push for the year.
It’s never enough to thank your donors; after all, it’s all because of them that you’re successfully running a non-profit, and more importantly, the right people are being helped. Craft unique, warm, beautiful, and heartfelt thank you emails beforehand to thank your donors the moment they donate. You can even take a step further by delivering the physical hand-written thank you cards on their door-step. The goal is to appreciate their valuable input in helping you accomplish your nonprofit’s mission. Make sure you’re doing that; in your emails, on social media, on your website, and on your donation page.
Call to Action in email marketing is super important. In your year-end fundraising campaign, ensure you’re focusing enough on crafting CTAs that are compelling, bold, and make the ask. People need to feel the stir when reading those calls to action. “Donate Now”, “Support The Campaign”, or “Raise Funds” — these calls to action are vague, common, and don’t inspire the action as much. Ensure your call to action are personalized, and hyper-focused on your organization, campaign, goal, and your target audience. For instance, “Name, Save a Child’s Life by Just Donating $5. Please Donate by Clicking Her. Or, “Name, Someone In Africa is Waiting for Your $5 Donation to Get The Meals for a Day. Please Donate Here”. Take these examples as inspirations only; craft unique CTAs according to your end goal and mission of your nonprofit.
Visuals are super-effective when it comes to making your messages effective. They grab attention and evoke emotions. You need that to successfully launch end-of-the-year email campaigns. Use relevant images; you can capture your own or use stock images. Or, use infographics to spread awareness about your cause. For instance, if your nonprofit is working on improving the lives of homeless communities, include relevant stats in your infographics. In short, visuals grab interest faster than text. At this time of the year, where every brand and charity organization is launching campaigns, there’s a high chance yours might get blended into the noise. Unique imagery and infographics can help you stand out from the crowd.
It's not unusual to get no response from your prospects on the initial part of your email campaign. If that happens, avoid repeating the same subject line in your follow-up emails. The reason is that it only increases your chance of getting rejected again or, worse, being treated as spam. Make the subject line more personal and approachable instead of letting it sound generic and transactional. That will give your recipients the idea that the message comes from a real person and is not just automatically generated by the system.
Since the end of the year is always busy, many other non-profits will be reaching out, too. Make sure you send at least 6-7 emails up until December to stay top-of-mind for your supporters. Also, segment your emails to nurture your leads and don't become repetitive to the supporters who have already donated.
Create a compelling, cohesive email campaign that tells your organization’s story. Create a series of content-rich emails that include compelling text and images, and new appeal information. After that, you can even follow up with current donors. Create an email template for your campaigns with aspects like date, time, text, and image links. With these features in place, you’re ready to engage donors with a new offer.
Bashing out the first batch of your emails, and then waiting for donations to skyrocket is not what you should be doing. Chances are your donors are busy, they missed your emails, or they read your emails but forgot to process the donation. Constantly remind your donors with follow-up emails. Send at least 5 follow-up emails, with different relevant subject lines, and body copy — while keeping the same goal and narrative. You can even take this further by segmenting the less active donors, and targeting them with exclusive emails with the goal to re-engage, and possibly, donating. The year-end campaign at least lasts one month or so. Throughout this period, keep monitoring the performance, and keep following up individually with your most important donors.
Be sure to brand your donation landing page with your email campaign’s message. While generic giving pages work well during the rest of the year, whenever you run a distinctive campaign, you’ll see better results when you switch up your landing page. The page should reflect the campaign’s branding and build feelings of exclusivity so donors feel like they’re participating in an event or contributing to a specific, meaningful goal outside your normal donation requests. Building a separate donation landing page will take a little bit of time, but you’ll see more success. Before launching your email campaign, ensure the page offers a top-notch user experience. If buttons lead to broken links or the page loads too slowly, users might bounce before they donate.
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Giving a recap of the accomplishment of the prior year sets your organization in a good position to secure financial funding for the upcoming year. In the recap, highlighting the challenges you expect in the coming year helps give the donors an idea of the momentum you carry into the upcoming year. An uptick usually marks the end of the year in giving from donors; hence specially curated messaging gets you funding. Apart from standard donations, the recap also attracts non-donors through referrals, and the spirit of giving drives them to top up the giving.
Timing matters more than your message, especially for well-established charities in donors’ minds. 12% of all charitable giving happens in the last three days of the year, so schedule your campaign wisely. That doesn’t mean waiting until then to start campaigning after donors have already planned which charities will split their donation budget. Start with a slow build-up as Giving Tuesday draws near, amp up momentum, and push through an extensive email blast in that last week of December.
Most people think of email as a part of their strategy but when you take emails as a part of the conversation you are having with your customers. You open a new path to the possibilities of support. Do not send an automated message or cookie-cutter emails instead try the emails just like a conversation striking up with the receiver. Your appeal should be more focused on the audience than the business. Treat the conversation not just like a talk with a customer but take it as a relationship where another person is also equally important to you. A good relationship wants to understand the feelings and perspectives of emotions, when you portray all these in your message then end of year mail campaign would be very successful for your organization.
Mention how close you are to your goal and how (few) donations it would take to reach that goal before the end of the year. Show the impact that even the smallest donation can make at your organization. Sometimes, getting many small donations can lead to better results than a couple of large donations. You want more people to be able to afford to donate, and this means appealing to those who don't have extensive budgets to splurge on the causes they care about.
Emails may appear straightforward. But on every email platform, technical problems are always a possibility. We advise performing test runs prior to pressing the transmit button because of this. Make sure your audience can access and read your emails on their desktop computers, mobile phones, and tablets. An efficient email marketing campaign must be tailored for all devices.
Create a sense of urgency in your end-of-the-year email campaigns. You can do this by sharing messages with time-sensitive language. As a non-profit, you can do this by saying, “Before XXXX ends, help us change lives,” “donation ends at midnight,” or “You have days left to help sick children.” Doing so could enhance reaction time and instill a sense of need among your readers. Launching end-of-the-year email campaigns effectively compels them to carry out a charitable act before the year ends.
One of the most important things to remember when creating an end-of-the-year email campaign for a nonprofit is to be honest and transparent with your donors. If your organization is doing well, make sure to let your donors know! Make sure to let your donors know if your organisation is in need of funding. This will show your donors that you are honest and trustworthy and that they can count on you. Additionally, don't be afraid to reach out to your donors year-round. It's always a good idea to stay in touch with your donors so that they feel connected to your organization and know how they can get involved. When creating an end-of-the-year email campaign for a nonprofit, it's important to remember that it's not about you, it's about the donor. Put their needs first and respect their time and attention by keeping the email short and sweet.
Non-profits usually launch their end-of-the-year campaigns on GivingTuesday, which is on 29 November this year. Because the common theme of this day is to just give, it makes sense to start your email campaign right from this day, and let it run till the end of the year. But also be aware that most of the giving happens in December; the last ten days specifically. Segment your email list; create a separate campaign for the funders who have been less active throughout the year, to re-engage them. You’ve pretty much one month or so — but you can go past that timeline depending upon your audience and the effectiveness of the campaign.
The best marketers are the best storytellers. As a non-profit, you will surely have many stories at your disposal of individuals you have helped or changes you have caused within your community or cause. Utilize these stories in your email campaigns and show your audience the good that their support can do. These stories do not have to be on a giant scale, even a story about how your team has changed the life of an individual can be enough to motivate readers to support your non-profit.