A cold wind cuts through the air, rattling through the brilliantly changing leaves and carrying with it the faintest cinnamon whiff of pumpkin spice latte. As a nonprofit fundraiser, you know this means only one thing: Giving season is almost here!
The end-of-year giving season is a huge deal for the nonprofit sector, driving billions of dollars in the span of a month, with a vast amount of that giving coming in the final few days of December alone!
But don’t take our word for it. Here are 12 year-end giving statistics that show just how important the final month of the year can be—and how your nonprofit can leverage these trends to make your end-of-year campaign a success.
1. 1/4th of Annual Online Revenue is Raised in December
According to the 2023 M+R Benchmarks Report, December giving accounts for roughly one-fourth (26%) of annual nonprofit revenue.
While that figure is lower than some of the older (but still widely circulated) statistics out there—which generally pin December giving as representing a third of annual revenue—it’s still a lot!
That’s why it’s critical that your nonprofit find success with its end-of-year campaign. Slash 26% out of any organization’s budget, and the results will be dire! If you need some help planning your campaign, be sure to download our handy guide, Neon One’s Ultimate Year-End Giving Timeline.
The Ultimate Year-End Giving Timeline
In this timeline and checklist, will teach you how to use your campaign to make meaningful connection points between your year-end campaign, GivingTuesday, and your year-round fundraising strategy.
2. Nonprofits Raise 17-34% of Online Revenue in December
The 2024 M+R Benchmarks Study found that nonprofits raise anywhere from 17% to 34% of their online revenue in December, depending on their cause.
With an even larger amount of online donations coming through in December than the rest of the year, your nonprofit should make sure it has a branded, fully-optimized donation form.
A form that carries your organization’s branding will garner trust in your donors, and forms that incorporate other key best practices will increase conversion rates.
Want to learn more about donation form best practices (and how they are seamlessly incorporated into Neon CRM’s easy-to-use donation form builder)? Then check out the article below!
3. GivingTuesday is a Great Time to Kick Off Your Year-End Campaign
If you’re looking for a good time to kick off your year-end campaign, why not pick GivingTuesday? This global day of generosity began in 2012 and has only grown bigger and bigger with each passing year.
In 2023, organizations participating in GivingTuesday raised over $3.1 billion in the United States alone!
GivingTuesday always falls on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving. In 2024, that date is December 3.
Use this day—and its sizeable presence on social media via the #GivingTuesday hashtag—to start your year-end campaign off on the right foot and get your donors excited about giving.
For more tools and tips to help you craft your GivingTuesday campaign, download our GivingTuesday toolkit!
Kickstart your year-end fundraising with a global day of generosity
This toolkit has everything you need to mount a fantastic GivingTuesday fundraiser and supercharge your end-of-year giving.
4. The Most Important Days for Giving Are December 29, 30 and 31
Talk about last minute! The last three days of the calendar year—December 29, 30, and 31—are so important that many nonprofits bring in more revenue than even GivingTuesday!
According to the 2024 M+R Benchmarks, giving on December 31 alone accounted for 5% of 2023 revenue.
As those last-minute donations are coming in, you should be getting ready to follow up with your donors. Don’t be afraid to send out appeals and reminders in those last few days of December, up to and including New Year’s Eve!
Just remember to segment your email lists so that donors who have already given don’t receive those reminders as well.
Here’s another tip: Make sure that these reminder emails don’t include the word “reminder” in the subject line! We found that that’s one of the words in a subject line that absolutely kills open rates.
For donors who have already given, a great thank-you letter is a nice way to follow up that also serves as the first step toward effective donor retention.
Need help getting started with a thank-you letter? Check out the article below, which covers the ins and outs of composing a great donor thank-you and provides some handy templates to help you get started!
5. Giving Was Down on December 31, 2023
According to M+R Benchmarks’ 2024 report, revenue raised on December 31, 2023 was down 4% in the U.S. from 2022.
The good news is that that drop was smaller than the 13% drop in December 31 giving from 2021 to 2022 (as cited in the 2022 M+R Benchmarks study).
Some more good news is that that 2023 drop might be partially explained, according to M+R, by the fact that the 31st fell on a weekend last year, so nonprofits might have simply shifted their communications back a few days to account for that.
The bad news is that, well, that’s two straight years of dropping revenue.
And some other not-great news is that email revenue on December 31 has dropped in both years—and it has dropped by larger margins than overall giving has.
In 2022, the drop was a whopping 22%. Last year, it was a smaller (but still substantial) 10%.
These trends are in line with an overall decline in giving to nonprofits, a state of play that some have taken to calling a “generosity crisis.” For our thoughts on that whole situation, we highly recommend you check out this article we wrote on how to rebuild donor trust.
If you’re looking for advice that’s slightly more practical in the short-term, we can tell you that these declines in giving mean that your organizations can’t be too loosey-goosey with your end-of-year giving strategy.
If you need help composing your end-of-year appeals, download our Year-End Fundraising Letter Templates and use them to help craft your message.
6. December 30 Might Be the Best Day to Send Your Appeals
If you’re looking to maximize your year-end-giving emails this year, try focusing on December 30.
According tothe year-end addendum we released to 2023’s Nonprofit Email Report: Data-Backed Insights for Better Engagement, emails sent on December 30 had better open and clickthrough rates than those sent on December 29 and 31.
Even better, those emails raised more dollars per contact!: $1.61 for December 30 emails versus $.59 on the 29th and $.93 on the 30th.
That’s a really big difference! So why not give it a shot?
If you’d like some more data on year-end emails, you can download that email report addendum below:
7. Monthly Giving Is On the Rise
In case you need any more encouragement to try and convert your new end-of-year donors into recurring monthly donors, just remember: The trends are on your side!
According to Neon One’s Recurring Giving Report: Data-Backed Insights for Sustainable Generosity, the average nonprofit grew its recurring donor base by 127% From 2018 to 2022
Want to know more? Download the full report today!
8. Year-End Recurring Gifts Are on the Rise, Too!
In our upcoming year-end and GivingTuesday addendum to the Recurring Giving Report, we found that recurring gifts made in the last three days of December, specifically, increased by 21.34% in 2023.
Even more impressive was the rate of donors who set up a recurring donation even though they were first-time donors to that organization. They increased by 34.48%!
So if you’ve been looking to promote your organization’s monthly giving program as a part of your year-end campaign, we highly recommend giving it a shot! The data supports you.
If you’d like to get your hands on that addendum once it’s released, sign up for our email newsletter. You’ll be the first to know once it’s live!
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9. 50% of U.S. Households Give Annually
Sometimes, it can be helpful to remember just how many people out there are donating to worthy causes every year.
According to CCS Fundraising’s Philanthropic Landscape Report, 50% of U.S. households give annually—and a whopping 81% of affluent households give.
As your team is dreaming up new ways to find prospective donors, whether they be smaller donors or individuals with the potential to make a major gift, don’t be afraid to get creative.
With so many donors out there who are ready and willing to support a great cause like yours, the sky’s the limit.
10. The Average Gift Size Declined in 2023
When comparing the 2023 and 2024 M+R Benchmarks Study found that the average gift size for both one-time and recurring gifts declined between 2022 and 2023.
According to their data, the average one-time donation in 2023 was $115; that’s down $6 from an average donation amount of $121 in 2022. Weirdly en
The average monthly gift size decreased, too, but only by $1. The average monthly donation in 2023 was $24, down from $25 in 2022.
Here’s the interesting part: Both those 2023 numbers ($115 and $24) are identical to the numbers that M+R reported in 2021. So before you start panicking, the three-year trend was a small spike in 2022 and giving levels reverting in 2023.
When it comes to your nonprofit, knowing your average gift size is important because it will help you set your suggested donation amounts. You shouldn’t set suggested amounts that start way higher than your average gift size!
If you have a comprehensive nonprofit CRM, finding your average donation amounts should be easy. Learn more about which nonprofit CRM best fits your organization by taking this quiz!
11. Don’t Forget to Ask Your Nonprofit’s Volunteers
Although we tend to think of volunteers and donors as two separate things, volunteers really are donating their time (and skills) to your cause and are very likely to make a monetary donation as well.
Make volunteer retention a priority at your organization, and you’ll be building the foundations for some of your most engaged donors in the future.
12. Tell Donors How Their Gift Will Make an Impact
This part is crucial. According to CCS Fundraising, a whopping 97% of donors cited the real or perceived impact of their gift as a major motivating factor behind their decision to give. For comparison, only 56% cited income tax deductions as a major motivator.
When making your appeal, be sure to lay out the specific impact that a donor’s gift will make.
Furthermore, try to focus on individual stories. While it might seem smart to wow them with big, flashy stats that capture your organization’s overall impact, people are actually much more likely to give if they know how their gift will help one single person than how it will contribute to helping a thousand people.
It’s the Most Wonderful (and Stressful) Time of the Year
The holiday season is stressful for everyone. But if you’re a nonprofit fundraiser juggling the holiday season and giving season, then November and December are most definitely the most stressful, most chaotic … and most totally rewarding time of the year.
Feel like you could use some help from your fellow fundraising professionals this year-end giving season? You’re in luck! The article below will give you 11 awesome year-end giving campaign ideas that your organization can use to stand out from the crowd.
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