Hey, everybody. It is so good to see people starting to join.
I am really excited that you all are here because we're
gonna share some really fantastic
content with you. Let me go ahead and pull up the chat.
If you could do us a favor and as like a little sound test,
let us know where you're tuning in from.
That would be really helpful.
It lets us know that you can hear us and that everything is
going according to plan.
Kind of in the meantime, as you're dropping that in the chat,
wanna go ahead and introduce myself and our speaker and what
we're gonna cover today.. Thank you, Joey, so much.
I appreciate that.
My name is Abby Jarvis. I'm part of the team over at Neon One,
and today I'm here with Candace Cody who I'm so excited to be working with.
And we're gonna talk about some very practical things that you
can do in the last three days of the year,
to kind of like put the last finishing touches on your year
end fundraising plan. So before we get started,
I wanna just lay out a couple of things.
The first thing,
if you are on this call and. I see some familiar names,
If you're on this call and you're a Neon One client and
you have questions about how to apply anything we talk about
today to your own, like, account,
let me know and I will get you in touch with the right person
or I will find you the right article.
We'll help you get squared away. If you're not a Neon One
user, that's wonderful. Everyone
here is going to learn the same things and lead to the same takeaways.
So, welcome to all of you.
Thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
I know it's a really busy time of year and taking an hour out
of your day in mid December is a huge commitment.
Thank you so much for that.
Couple little things just to make sure you all get the best
experience out of this.
Please do talk to us in the chat.
I'll be monitoring the chat my favorite thing in the world is
seeing people share ideas and encouragement with each other
in the chat. So please do that.
That said The chat can get going pretty quickly.
So if you have a question that you would like us to cover at the end,
drop that in the q and a box.
So I'll I'll moderate all of the questions at the end of this session,
and that's where I'm gonna go to find your questions.
So drop drop your questions in the Q and A box and commentary
and whatnot in the chat.
The other thing that. I'll say is that yes,
we are recording this webinar. And,
I will send you a follow-up email with a link to the
recording tomorrow morning.
So if you have to leave early or if something really strikes
you as being interesting or useful and you wanna share it
with a friend or a colleague, that's totally fine.
I'm gonna send you the recording tomorrow.
Feel free to share that with whomever you want to.
I think that's everything. That all said,
I'm gonna turn things over to Candace.
And, I'm gonna settle back and learn along with you all.
Thanks so much, Abby.. This was so amazing.
Thank you for having me here. And thank you all for
attending. I think this is such a busy week for nonprofits, and
so I know how important this time is for you.
I'm really thankful for you being here today.
Alright. So I can go over and switch over my
screen sharing as we get started with our webinar on the
year on fundraising playbook for maximizing donations in the
last three days of the year.
My hope for this webinar is that you come away with ideas
that are easy and practical to implement and I will preface
everything by saying,
even if you just come away with an idea or takeaway or two,
then is enough. I'm gonna go over a lot of options for you
and you can pick and choose which ones are gonna make the
most sense for your nonprofit.
So
a little bit about Community. Boost where I work.
So community boost is a digital marketing agency that exists to
empower nonprofits and causes through high impact digital
marketing so they can change the world. So we are really
proud that this year,
we've worked with about five hundred nonprofits directly,
through our agency services,
helping them to practically implement a lot of the things
that I'm going over today,
and where a lot of our insights that I'm sharing are drawn
from. Plus, we have our accelerator program.
So this is more of like,
courses and coaching
that empower nonprofits to learn for themselves they can
implement a lot of these. And, we are also really proud to,
support nonprofits as they learn and grow in their digital
marketing and fundraising with the nonprofit marketing summit,
which is what I want to invite you to.
So if you haven't grabbed your seat yet,
nonprofit marketing summit is completely free.
It is all virtual
and it is three days of really, really great learnings.
Neon is gonna be there.. Abby's gonna be teaching a session,
and so I would love for you to be able to join Abby's session
at the nonprofit marketing summit, the unthinkable.
So you can either go to nonprofit marketing summit dot
org, or you can go ahead and scan that QR code on the
screen. So wanna leave that up for for just a moment.
And let's go. So my name is Candace. As Abby said,
I'm the director of events at Community Boost,
and I've been working with nonprofits for the last nine
years. So I've, helped nonprofits implement their
fundraising strategy
all year and during your end, at my last position.
And for the last two years, I've,
really taken on events here at community boost and,
drove over a hundred thousand nonprofit professionals to the
nonprofit marketing summit and it's just been a joy and a
delight to really pour into the sector and do webinars like
this. So again, thank you for being here.
So I wanna just start us off to learn a little bit more about
where you are with year end fundraising and how you feel
it's going for your organization. So for you,
do you feel like it's going great?
Do you feel like you're on on par to reach or exceed your
fundraising goals Do you feel like it's going good?
You're like, I think I'm gonna reach my goals.
It's going pretty good on track.
Is it going okay where you feel like you might need to patch up a little bit.
And you're not quite sure,
but you're you're kind of pushing for it, or has this
year end so far been a real challenge for you and you're
feeling it like you're not on pace to hit those goals.
We've got a pretty fair mix.. We've got a little over half of
you say that it's going okay.
Around thirty percent of you are saying that it's it's a
challenging time of year right now.
Eighteen percent of you think that it's going good and four
percent of you are having a great time.
So if you're having a great time,
please share how you're how you're doing, what you're
doing, and even some encouragement in the chat. But
yeah, about half of you feel like you're doing okay.
About a third of you are are having a challenging time, and
the remaining third are doing great or good.
And I'll share those results with you all now.
Awesome. This is so great to hear from you all and see where you're at.
I'm glad that you guys At least half of you are doing okay, and
also for those of you who are finding it challenging, I would say,
and I'm sure Abby would say as well that that's not a big
surprise this year has been a challenging year overall when
it comes to fundraising. So you're in good company. And,
hopefully, for all of you here,
no matter where you are in your fundraising process,
there's going to be,
strategies that you can implement in the short term
that can help you move that okay to good or great and then
challenging to okay or good or great hopefully.
And then for those of you that are already on on pace.
Hopefully these strategies help you even pick up the pace and
you're able to, really exceed your goals. So,
that's that's my hope for us. So first up, I have a
quick kind of overall recap on year end fundraising and some
of the strategies that are proven to capture attention
during year end and talking a little bit about, you know,
kind of what that overall year end process looks like.
And then we're gonna spend the majority of the time going into
the six tactics that you can use to drive more gifts in the
last three days of the year. And then I have a couple of quick,
slides and takeaways to help you drive long term growth
throughout twenty twenty four after year end comes to an end.
So I'm gonna do my best to not talk too much and leave some
time for questions.
After the end.
So keep the questions coming in the Q and A beam.
So you may know this because you're here.
But the last three days of. December are the most important
time in
the entire year.
Because
about thirty one percent of all donations come in in December.
And depending on the study,. I've seen a few different
studies, even one from Neon,
that report between ten and twelve percent of gifts are
actually made in those last three days of the year with the
thirtieth and the thirty first actually exceeding
the revenue that is brought in from giving Tuesday.
So that is huge.
There are so many webinars about giving Tuesday.
There's so much content out there about giving Tuesday,
which is fantastic because it helps us kick off the giving
season. Right? But the thirtieth and the thirty first
are your biggest opportunities to raise even more this year end. So
We also see that,
or I've seen about fifty eight percent of donors complete
donations on their mobile devices.
This is very contested, so happy to, learn more about what
you're seeing in your data.
But between at least twenty eight percent of donors are
actually gonna be donating on mobile.
So that will come back into play as we talk a little bit
later about making sure donation pages are mobile
optimized, but I'll leave that for later. And, revenue
from,
December thirty first last year was actually down thirteen
percent from twenty twenty one. So what that tells us
is that there has been a drop
historically now,
in the revenue that is being driven on December thirty
first. So your biggest opportunity here is to try to
get that up for your organization so that you're
really able to capitalize on the year end giving opportunity
for your organization and hit those goals.
And so that's really what we're talking about today.
So let's talk about the top,
the six top strategies that you can use to capture attention.
So
you're probably feeling this and those that feel like you're
in the okay range or maybe even the challenging range.
I think this will resonate with you.
So usually when you launch a campaign and this is This goes for year end,
but it's honestly every campaign that I've ever seen.
There's usually a lot of hype.
There's a lot of initial excitement right when you
there's a big spike in donations.
And then kind of in that middle area where there's not a lot of urgency
campaign is just kinda up and running.
You're you have your emails going.
You have your social post going. Maybe you have ads running.
But there's not that, same urgency and increase in
donations as you saw at the beginning.
And then typically
right as the campaign comes to an end to keep us all on our
toes, is the big finish where we see a spike in donations.
So If you feel like you're in this middle part right now,
you again are not alone.. This is a very typical experience.
But I will say right now is your chance.
This is honestly perfectly timed where we're at the
perfect point where we can ramp up some of our digital
marketing strategies, our fundraising strategies,
our advertising strategies right now,
so that you can get out of that middle range and drive
the most donations
this year end. So
when we take a look at fundraising in general,
there's typically four
ways that you can grow your fundraising.
The first one is I feel like the one that we think of the
most, which is acquire more donors, just get more donors giving money
but another way that you can grow your fundraising is just
simply to increase the average gift size of those donors who
are already giving to your organization.
Another opportunity is to increase your donor retention.
Get people who donated earlier year to give again
during your end, and really just kind of getting more
gifts from each donor throughout the year.
And increase your return on investment. So this means,
spending less money on your overall fundraising strategies
so you overall out with more money at the end of it. So,
hopefully that helps give you a little bit of a framework where
we're not just talking about acquiring more donors.
We really do wanna explore these other options,
especially, I I would say right now,
increasing the average gift size and increasing donor
retention so that you're able to drive the most growth.
Of course, we do wanna capture those those new donors, but,
we'll get into some of these strategies in just a minute.
And so we talked a little bit about the typical campaign structure
and I wanna go into what we have seen is like the
real six phases of the year end timeline. So usually
October first through giving Tuesday is that kind of like
pre year end,
fundraising gratitude.
So that's what we typically do with the non profits we work
with is just run gratitude campaigns to past donors in the
last year or two. And then for phase two, that's typically
giving Tuesday through December twentieth, So through tomorrow.
And that is kind of like your year end fundraising is in full
swing. You're getting donations.
You're telling stories you have your plan in place. Right?
And then right now, we are entering into phase three.
With urgency and remarketing.
So typically what we do with the nonprofit clients that we
work with is actually, usually right now, we're not necessarily
trying to get new donors through the door or,
or get new audiences through the door,
because it does take a little bit of time to build that trust with audiences.
But rather convert the audiences that have already
engaged with the organization so far. And so we'll talk more
about those strategies in just a minute.
And phase four is, of course,
January first through the thirty first where you're just
following up having more gratitude to all of those
donors who gave during year end so that they're more likely to stick around.
Phase five is really when you kind of get started with some
new fundraising momentum,
and you might want to use this time to
try to convert some year end donors to recurring donors,
or just like think about, you know,
how can you communicate your impact during this time and
kinda lay the groundwork for your next campaign, which,
is phase So and then you're kind of into spring
fundraising. So,
I know that is a very brief overview of that whole
framework and often is typical of fundraising cycles for
October first through through March.
So interested as well. All of you here. If that resonates
with you, if that that's how you see your year end
fundraising timeline as well.
And so I do wanna talk a little bit about
just kind of where we are right now. So right now,
a lot of what you've hopefully been doing already is having a bit of,
urgency when it comes to your fundraising appeals,
some things that we like to see organizations doing around this
time is to really just drive engagement. So, this could
look like anything from having a virtual event, like
having an event on. Facebook doing some live streaming,
getting people interacting with your organization
or posting a lot of videos so that you're driving some
engagement. Because you're also able to retarget with ads,
anyone who watches even one second of a video.
From your organization.
So that's what something that we typically do around this
time is do a lot of retargeting
from everyone who's engaged on social so far.
And then same thing with email email, of course.
And then for We also do a lot of search ads and a lot of
search ad retargeting,
around this time so that you're getting people
seeing your organization come up multiple times across
multiple platforms.
We're also updating a lot of copy right now.
Where maybe the earlier
communications you've sent out have been just kind of
educating people about why you're fundraising this year
end, what fun funds are going towards.
And instead reflecting urgency,
we're doing more call to action We're doing more,
asks for donations,
and generally our budgets are increasing so that a especially
to those warm remarketing audiences.
So if we are running social ads or YouTube and display ads or
search advertising,
we're increasing those budgets specifically to re marketing
audiences, which are, again,
the people that have already engaged with your content
already engaged with you on social media and already
engaged on search.
And so something else we really ramp up right now
is the, conversion design.
So really,
increasing the use of pop ups and tools on your website,
which again, I'll get into more in a little bit,
to help drive increased conversions for anyone who
lands on your website so you're getting more donations coming
in through your marketing strategies.
I do wanna take this moment. So if you feel like you wanna resource
that will help put all of these things into place for you.
We have a year end marketing template.
So this actually comes with a calendar.
So if you don't already have a year end marketing
calendar with all of the different communications you're
doing across all of the different channels that you're doing them on.
This will really help you put that into place so that you can
have a really, really,
dialed in plan in place to help carry you through the end of the year.
So you can either scan that. QR code and get that template,
which will help you guide you as you plan your year end
communications for, of course, the rest of the year.
And then there's that link at the bottom.
You can go communityboost dot org slash guides slash year end
fundraising twenty twenty three.
So I hope that you can take advantage of the resource.
If it will be helpful to you, I do think it helps put a lot of,
especially the framework that we talked about here into, action.
And so I wanna kind of recap just six tips
that really do help drive increased engagement and
donations just during December and during year end in general
before we get into the specifics of what you can be
doing in in the last few days.
So the first is just to thank and re engage any donors who
have already given on giving. Tuesday or already gave earlier
in your year end campaign.
This is really, really important to be constantly
thanking your donors where you don't wanna just save those thank yous
for everyone who gave during your end for January.
If people already gave, they should, on top of their
automated donation receipt or any automated
emails that you've put into place,
they should get something personalized if possible
around this time because number one,
it builds that relationship and builds trust and they feel that
you're thankful for their donation,
but also something that we've seen is that if you're thanking
donors right now, they're more likely to be like, oh, yeah.
I gave that donation a few weeks ago to this amazing organization.
Maybe I should give again.
Where are they in their in their goal? Like, maybe I can give again.
It is the season of giving after all.
And a lot of people are feeling generous at the moment.
So you may actually drive more donations just by sending out thank yous,
which is It's something that I feel like shouldn't be surprising, but,
can be a bit. So that's number one.
Definitely thank and reengaged owners who've already given
this year in so far. Number two is to finalize your digital
communications plan.
So kind of like what. I was saying earlier,
you can use that template or if you're using any,
content calendars or have you know, a plan in place.
You want to take a look where. I feel like even for me, right,
I'll create a communications plan for the nonprofit
marketing summit or other events and I have my plans set
in place but
as we go, we're always learning. Right? We're saying,
hey, people responded to this one email
really, really well.
We got more clicks on this one email than any other clicks,
and then we'll take a look of like, what was in that email?
What made people so interested?. And how can we replicate this?
So I think it's less about going back and starting over
again and trying to rework your whole plan.
Than it is tweaking your communications plan so that you're
putting those learnings from past communications you've
already done so far into action and showing the people content
that they've already responded to really well.
Number three is to create content that drives gifts.
So this is really more about
increasing kind of that storytelling approach
with all of your communications across all of your platforms and also
increasing,
the call to actions that you're using
in those stories as well. So it's amazing, amazing to tell a
story that is really compelling that drives people to want to
take action. But if you're not clearly asking them to
donate now.
They're not gonna know what to do with that story and with
that information.
Number four is to optimize your donation page for your
end. So you are putting all this work into
getting those emails out and you're posting a lot and you're
doing so much to drive people to donate to your
your organization,
but what I think is often the biggest low hanging
fruit is actually just tweak that donation page so that
you're able to drive the most actual donations from the
people that land on the page to the people who that donate So
that can look like maybe making a few of those form feels optional,
if possible so that they don't have to fill out as much on the
form. Or making sure that that page is really
mobile optimized and exploring what that experience looks So
there's even like small tweaks you can make to your donation
page right now that help you maximize the gifts that you're
able to get out of, all of your efforts. So even small
increases in conversion rate can really pay off huge when it
comes to, your fundraising.
And number five is to engage your audience with Facebook and Instagram ads.
I hope that you've maybe been running ads already this year.
Just because right now is such a prime time for you
to boost,
your investment into re marketing
to the audiences that have already engaged with you. And
last, but certainly not least is to introduce a matching gift
So it's been proven that matching gifts tend to drive
about fifty percent more in the average gift size of
the the donor. So they feel like they're getting a deal
when it comes to giving to your organization and they're
they're getting a deal on the impact that they can make if
they know that their gift is being doubled.
And that has proven time and time again to drive more gifts
and increase the average gift size as well. So
if you don't already have a match in place,
I would definitely explore,
seeing if there's a major donor who typically gives during your
end and ask them if you can repurpose their gift as a matching gift.
Or approaching your board who should be giving donations to
you this year and any way of food they're not.
That is a bigger problem.
But,
see if your board can contribute to a matching gift as well,
and that can really help spike donations around this time,
through the end of the year.
So that is just a quick overall recap of kind of what
those strategies look like,
so far that can help drive increased donations,
and I wanted to share a little bit more about what this looks
like in action. So cancer research institute race over
almost one point one million dollars,
during their year end campaign. And this was online.
This is just their online campaign. And of their e appeal
donor data that they shared with us,
forty eight percent of them were new donors,
forty percent were existing donors and twelve percent were major donors.
So when we broke this down of looking at know, how did this
really happen? What was the framework?
And what were the channels that they used?
This is what we found. So
They really leaned into that gratitude and pre wire. They also,
really
honed in on their storytelling and their engagement during,
the first through the twentieth and just launching their,
you know, holiday campaign across multiple channels.
And then, of course, right now
around this time,
they did a lot of urgency and a lot of remarketing. So,
for us here at community boots,
we were no longer trying to new audiences.
We were simply trying to get those who had already engaged
with some of our ads and already engaged with our content,
to just get them to take that next step to make a donation.
So they're already aware of the or organization.
They already had seen the campaign.
And we're just trying to get them to convert.
And so,
that's really what we see work best is,
just trying to get those audiences to convert in a lot
of the ways that we do that is by having a lot of urgency and,
using those campaign matches, as well.
Alright. So now let's get into actually the I added one.
So it's actually the six tactics that drive more gifts
in the last three days of the year.
First up is to use a multi channel approach and
increase your frequency across those channel.
So, Jeffrey Lance, rule of seven, this may be familiar
with you. But this states that you you you must contact your
buyers. So this is across any sale, but it also is the same for donations.
Must contact your buyers a minimum of seven times before
making a sale.
There's been some interesting studies recently that it's
actually more of a rule of eight now just because of how
much is out there,
and it's hard, a little bit harder to get attention these days.
And there was devastating statistic that I found,
which is fifty nine point nine percent of nonprofits only make
one to three donor touches or really audience touches for
their year end campaign.
That is way not enough.. It is really essential.
That we make at least those seven or eight touches
before the end of the year. So
you may be even in the category of the less than ten percent
that make five plus touches, and that's that's good.
I for those of you that are doing great, maybe this is why.
Because you are increasing those touch points and you're,
consistently getting in front of donors.
Or prospective donors. So this is,
something that I feel like I hear so often is, like, how how
many emails is too many emails how many social posts is is
annoying? Am I annoying my audience? The answer is no.
Like, you see sales coming in your inbox around this time and
it's constant. You're constantly getting an email.
I I've gotten emails every day from stores. Right?
They're not shy about it.. Why you, a nonprofit who's doing
amazing things in the world, should you be shy about it,
about reaching out to your donors? It's not annoying.
You're really actually just letting them know and keeping
them in the loop that they can really make a difference this year end.
The next, kind of piece of this is not just increasing,
or really is just thinking about how often you're sending communications
and increasing that frequency of communications through the
end of the year? What we see a lot of organization do is
really just land in that like minimum effective marketing
dose spot where you have some communications going out but
it's not really enough to get that eight plus,
interactions to get them across the finish line to make that
donation. So right now,
my recommendation to you is to take a look at your email
strategy, take a look at your social posts, that strategy,
take a look at even your investment into ads, and double down.
Now is the time increase that frequency, do that testing,
And the only way that you will figure out if it's too many
communications is by doing that testing and seeing, you know,
is there a diminishing turn is there's, you know,
a point in which people start unsubscribing more.
Most likely you're not sending enough communications
And your biggest opportunity is to increase that in order to
get people over the finish line to make a donation.
Alright. And then one thing is,
one thing sorry.
My friend's dog is singing a little bit in the background.
No, all good. I also really encourage you to
really take that multi channel approach.
So,
again, this is almost an example
from that same
marketing template that. I I was sharing earlier,
where it's as simple as this where you just wanna map out,
like, what you're doing on every channel?
What do your emails look like on which days?
Are you making any website updates?
Are you trying to optimize that donation page?
Are you doing organic posts or ads? Or what does
that look like? And,
how can you increase that frequency and you map it out? So
This is just an example of how you can put that into action.
So a few suggestions for channels for those year end
asks. So definitely be email marketing.
Email marketing is still the most important channel when it
comes to fundraising.
We ran nonprofit acceleration report and found that it was
seventy eight percent of nonprofits felt that it was
important or very important when it came to their marketing efforts,
which put it as the number one marketing channel for
nonprofits period with a very actual, close second of social media,
organic social media and building those audiences online.
The other thing that I feel like is not always leveraged as
much is live stream events kind of getting people to engage
with you and and live, you're on social media. You could do
webinars or you could really just do things like LinkedIn
lives or Facebook lives or Instagram lives,
just to drive the increased engagement during year end.
Paid social ads.
I've mentioned this before that. Facebook and Instagram ads are
really effective I would say at driving conversion.
So you're you're trying to drive donations.
The paid social ads are are kind of the way to go at the
moment. With, Bing,
Google and YouTube advertising being a great way to
increase those touch points and create kind of like a surround
sound approach where no matter if someone's interacting with
you on social or email or wherever they go and they're searching,
your nonprofit just keeps coming up.
And that approach
across multiple channels will actually,
inherently increase their trust in your organization because
they're seeing you everywhere.
It's a little bit of a psychology trick, actually,
where that seeing your nonprofit multiple times in
multiple settings increases their in your organization,
and they're more likely to give direct mail, of course.
You probably have already sent these. If you,
if you are doing direct mail,
phone calls are actually a great opportunity,
if, especially with those larger donors that you want to,
you know,
make sure that they complete their donations or getting
those matching gifts.
It might be a good time to pick up the phone.
And then SMS is also really effective where you're able to really,
engage people on their phones.. I'm never without my phone.
Open every text message.. I'm sure you do too.
So you're able to, really maximize that.
Something that I even saw. Charity Water do last year,
because my mom had signed up to donate,
for their monthly,
recurring giving called the spring.
She got a voicemail drop,
from Scott Harrison,
letting her know it was the last day of the year,
and now is the time
to give to their programs for twenty twenty four,
and she may ended up making an additional gift because she got
that voicemail dropped.
And so just kind of a a practical use case here, with CRI.
We ran ads across meta.. We did paid Google and
Microsoft search ads. So a lot of Bing ads as well.
Google display ads, you ads, Twitter ads,
of course, email marketing, and then of,
and that direct donor outreach to some of those larger donors.
So this is an example of their display ads from
their, Google,
our our Google display ad campaign. So just to give you a
peek into what they did to raise over a million dollars during year end.
So when you're thinking about your digital communications
plan, you wanna think about the dates of sends,
the channels that you're you're posting on or sharing on or,
increasing that, advertising investment in,
the audience for those where, you know, you do want to think
about how you can segment your audiences because the way you
talk to a donor who's given every year during year end,
and the way you talk to a donor or,
a prospect really that just found out about your
organization earlier this year is gonna be really different. Right?
And, like,
the content that you wanna put in those communications
the images or graphics that you wanna use. And then, of course,
most important is that call to action to donate and the link
and where you're sending them to give. So,
this is something that you wanna think through as your
mapping out the rest of your communications calendar.
And then again,
it's really reviewing those communications that I've gone out so far.
And then investing more in the channels and the types of
content that people have responded to the most,
what got the most clicks, what got the most engagements,
because that's going to be the type of content that you wanna
double down on right now.
Alright. I'm I gotta pick up the pace here.
I feel like there's gonna be a lot of questions,
and I wanna leave some time.
So number two is to increase conversions with conversion
rate optimization strategies.
So why should you use conversion design on your website?
One percent of nonprofit website visitors will sign up
for an email list.
And only one point one percent will make a donation. So If you increase
just,
a little bit of,
those who get to your website to those who make a donation,
you're able to really optimized giving. So with pop ups on your site, so,
right now is a perfect time for a pop up.
You're running your end.
You want people to know that when they get to your website
that you have a year end campaign going that they can
contribute to.
And this is something that where if you have those pop ups
in place, those numbers can average into three point two percent.
Of those that get to your website will make a donation,
which is three times over three times.
The the funds that you're able to raise through your website.
So easy with just a few strategies
and, things that you can implement now.
And the average company actually generates about twelve
thousand dollars a year from conversion design elements
alone. So What we mean by this is that, you know,
before someone goes to exit out your your website, there's an
exit intent pop up where it's like, hey,
before you go, you can make a donation,
and and support a child this year.
And we do a lot of,
timed pop ups where if someone's on your website,
they're taking in your content, maybe, thirty seconds in,
they get a pop up to support the organization.
And so these are just a really, couple of simple,
ways that you can,
use pop ups to increase donations. There's also,
I love this, little square in the bottom right here. Of
complete your one hundred and twenty dollar gift to make a
difference, and and they have I'm ready as the option,
and it takes them right to the donation and this is for, an organization
that we work with even now.. And they use banner ads
and or banners on their website. To to drive
conversions, especially during year end as well.
So for conversion design, definitely think about having
some of these elements pop ups, banners.
We typically see even a, pop up with a countdown.
To how many days left in the year is really helpful to
drive that urgency,
and encourage them to give now. So
pop ups work best when they're clear and concise.
There's not too much content on the page.
It's really clear what it is that you want them to do,
which is course donate to your year end campaign.
And focus on, like, the high
high level, impacts metrics,
like a donation of twenty five dollars will provide ten meals
for example. So in a short
phrase, they're getting, you know, how their gift can be used,
in in practice, and that really does encourage
giving as well. Definitely adding that countdown timer, and then,
or just even saying how many days are left.
Can increase that sense of urgency where they only have
this time to give. If they leave your website now,
they're not gonna, you know, have the opportunity to give,
beyond the next couple of days.
So it really does increase donations. And,
I would definitely use
for those pop ups consider using some pictures,
to really show who, who your donation, who who their
donation might be impacting.
Alright. Number three is to personalize your ask.
So,
very simple switch here when you're thinking about your
email marketing. If you wanna get more eyeballs those emails,
which you definitely do in order to drive more donations,
of course. You want to personalize
the subject line. So using a first name, or if potentially
you're, like, targeting,
companies or if you have a lot of dot com, you know,
basically, like,
people that are using their work email that are on your
email list, think about,
using the first name or the company name in those subject
lines because twenty six to twenty nine percent,
you'll increase your open rate,
twenty six to twenty nine percent.
That you're getting more people reading those emails.
And we also have seen that five revenue is five
point seven times higher in emails that have personalized
elements to them.
This also includes segmentation where,
the more that you're segmenting donors and showing them the
content, again, that they've already engaged with, let's
say, and the type of stories that they've already responded
to, that's really, really effective. What's also
effective is to make the right asks. So,
you know, segmenting by gift size is also really helpful in
helping you position what amount might be most
appropriate for that donor to to give.
And, yeah,
there there's also a point of frustration here where seventy
four four percent of online consumers get frustrated
when content isn't personalized because they feel like this
this organization doesn't know me.
They don't really seem to get me.
So the more that you're able to really,
develop that relationship
and show them that, no. We do know you.
We know what kind of content that you like to see.
And we know what kind of programs you've supported in the past,
that really does increase engagement. So yeah,
in practical ways this looks like just personalizing those
email subject lines,
segmenting based on,
the programs that they've supported in the past as well as gift size.
And,
also if you are emailing recent donors on top of just
sending a thank you.
So for those who have given, giving Tuesday on,
make sure that those donors get an email that acknowledges that
they've already given and you're asking them to give again.
And,
yeah, this is also really great for social ads where you
can take a look at what are the ads that got the most, engagements.
And let's leave off the other ads,
and we're just gonna double down on the ads that really work the most
engaging those audiences and then try to reengage them using similar content.
So these are just some examples from what we did with cancer
research institute,
as the campaign,
got a little bit closer to the end of the year.
We just looked Here are the top ads that really resonated with audiences.
A lot of them had that donation match mentioned in them.
A lot of them kind of showed,
what cancer research might look like, and even,
tried to hone in on the emotional element of, you know,
it's likely that if someone's giving to cancer research
institutes because a loved one,
had cancer or maybe they had cancer as well. So, kind of those emotional,
based appeals and, emotional ads were really high performing,
and that's what we we doubled down on when it came to the last,
remarketing stage of our our advertising for the year end.
Number four is,
impacts selling and upselling.
This is kind of for lack of a better term,
but I do think sometimes having this kind of framework,
in minds can help as we think about how to increase
gift size and increase the frequency of Dony So, also
increasing donor retention.
So we see that sixty eight percent of donors agree that
knowing how their donation makes an impact is important to their gift.
So people wanna know how their funds are being used.
So you're not selling anything, right, during your end.
There's plenty of people selling things.
They're getting a million emails, all the things they can buy.
I want you to sell your donors' impact. And so this is,
looking like integrating those impact statements potentially
on that donation form itself of what a seventy five dollar gift
does versus what a hundred and fifty dollar gift does breaking
it down to here's what that impact can look like. So,
you might wanna use,
just a few few of these ideas of
who is benefiting from the gift? How many people are
benefiting or if you're not necessarily,
purchasing if you're not necessarily benefiting people,
like, think about, like, what number of items might be provided
the time of services that your team is providing
for that, you know, hour or so
how much does that actually cost?
And I have seen organizations
say like you know,
here's the type of thank you that you'll receive.
You'll get a handwritten note versus you'll get a
personalized video.
That you know, if you're having a hard time really identifying,
some of those impact statements.
And then, of course,
just like exactly how funds are being used and distributed.
If you don't know,
one of the things that. I recommend if when you know
whatever your year end fundraising goal is,
take that full amount and think about how far that those funds
are gonna go over the next year and how many people you'll be
able to serve because you raise this really simple way to
divide that out and and get some really easy, giving
levels so that you can communicate that donor impact
based on the dollar amount.
So my suggestion to you is to create four to six suggested
giving levels. If you have more than that,
there's studies that show that that's too much.
People get decision fatigue and they can't make a decision and then
sometimes it backfires for you. So. I would keep it to four to
six giving levels that people can choose from. Oftentimes the
second tier or the second giving level is often the most
selected. So a little, like,
trick that I recommend to organizations is to look at
your average gift size and then increase it by like five
dollars or ten dollars or so. So that you're slowly but
surely increasing that average gift size by just using
donation tiers and knowing that people typically choose the second tier
and so, yeah,
few ways that you can do this across different channels is
segmenting your donors by the gift sizes that they have
contributed previously,
and then suggest actually just a slightly higher gift size for them.
Or you can also use this in your content for social posts
and for advertising to share stories that use those dollar
amounts, to show specific impact
and then you can even use this in, you know,
potential potentially how you're leveraging the Google ad
grant this year end, to
you know,
get more specific with how donations are gonna be used,
like, for example,
learn how a twenty dollar donation in the next twenty
four hours can make a difference for a family in
North Carolina, and that gets people interested in clicking.
Another thing is to kind of upsell your donors.
Couple quick things here is you can give donors the option to
cover transaction fees if you aren't already.
There are platforms out there that have ninety percent of
donors covering transaction fees,
and that's a way that you can, again,
actually lower your cost so that you're increasing your
return on the investment.
You can also prompt donors to instead of making a one time
donation of a hundred dollars actually just give thirty
dollars a month, and now you just tripled,
your donations for the year from that donor. So,
easy way that you can upsell your donors, and,
you're actually really generating more revenue for all
of twenty twenty four.
Another thing is
once they do make a donation,
you could always redirect to another page with a program,
to learn more about a program,
they may be interested in supporting.
So just get them to engage with your content further and learn
more about your organization.
Sometimes I see organizations offering incentives for donating.
I wouldn't recommend doing anything that you have to pay
for, but If there's anything that you can give away for
free, that doesn't cost you anything,
then that's always beneficial.
And then, of course,
emphasize any matching gifts and employer matching opportunities.
Alright. I know we don't have too much left,
and I don't wanna talk the whole time.
I'm gonna try to get through this as fast as I can.
Let's talk a little bit about the ways to drive urgency and
scarcity during year end.
We know, I mean, I have a lot of fomo.
If I see
my friends having a great time, and. I wasn't able to go for whatever reason.
I get FOMO. I don't know if you do too, but You can kind of use this,
idea of this is just inherent in all of us as people.
And for donors,
you can give them fomo of just missing out on on
giving itself and having those feel good, having that feel
good response right afterwards.
And so,
another thing that you can do is talk
sometimes flipping the script is helpful where it's like,
here is what twenty five dollars,
is able to help us accomplish.
Or if we don't hit our goals, if we don't get that twenty
five dollars, here's what won't happen.
And then that can also drive a a bit of urgency as well.
And another thing that you wanna do is think about how
unique your organization is,
and this is just great for all of marketing.
What is your organization doing that no one else is doing?
Who are you serving that no one else is serving?
What gaps are you meeting specifically that there's no
other organization that they can give to that is doing what
you do. So I think that, also can help a lot with messaging.
People are generally motivated by deadlines.
December thirty first is a built in deadline.
This is so great.. For you to lean into.
I also get donors to understand why they should give now versus
another time in the year, like what donating at this moment is
gonna make a bigger difference than if they waited, till later.
And also how close you are to reaching your goal I think as
people, we just wanna see goals met. Like, there's, like,
if you have a progress bar on your site of here's how far we
are away from your goal, people will,
intrinsically just wanna see that move up a little bit. And so,
if you're communicating how close you are to reaching your
goal, it can drive some urgency around that too.
And so, you can even incorporate this into those pop
ups and banner ads, like,
you have less than forty eight hours to make an impact this
year, use a countdown, use of those thermometers,
you can even, like,
translate this into a lot of your email marketing,
whether it's you wanna incorporate a graphic of where
you're at and your fundraising goals,
sending frequent emails noting that they have so many hours
left to make a donation.
And then change language from with your support we can
to without your support, we can't serve this many families,
for example. And then for social ads, you can use a lot
of this in your visuals.
So,
you know, with, like, your goal and, like,
how much time is left and this can drive engagement,
not just on social ads, but also on organic posts as
well. So a few examples here,
just as an old email, but I thought it was a good one of
just, you know, don't miss out on your chance to make,
your twenty nineteen at the time,
outdoor impacts of an organization I was supporting.
You can see Cornell had a countdown and they were talking
about, you know, the clock is ticking, you know,
you have to give now, before it's too late.
And last but certainly not least is to leverage your
audience. So for those who have given already,
or have already been, big supporters of your organization.
And they might wanna do something more
you can ask people to refer a friend or family member in an
automated email.
So maybe they already gave and then now you have an email
automation go out a week later that asks them like, Hey,
do you have a friend or family member,
that you also feel like would be passionate about this cause,
like, send them this information, show them this page,
and then that way you're getting people to actually
refer by word-of-mouth,
others to your organization without them having to make a
monetary contribution.
So that's a great way to leverage your existing audience
Another thing would just be to,
challenge your audience to tag friends with an incentive.
Even a small giveaway,
is a great opportunity to get people tagging people so that
more people are seeing your social content
this time a year.. And, of course,
actually asking your,
donors those who gave previously this year to
actually fundraise for you through the end of the year.
This might be a little hard to get up and running right now.
But you would be surprised even if you get like five or ten
people to raise funds the last week of the year.
I mean,
they're bringing in new donors and they're advocating for you
and and bringing donors through the door. So it's it is,
a really great opportunity.
So yeah. That is a lot of what I wanted to get to today.
Just a reminder increase that frequency as your end
approaches, and I think you will do just fine.
I know that was a lot of information.
If you took away just a few ideas that you're gonna
implement, I think that will really help you,
move the needle when it comes to your year end campaign.
And then just as you're thinking about twenty twenty
four, I would really encourage you to,
double down on recurring giving in. February and maybe March as well.
And especially for those first time donors that are giving this year end,
steward them and then get them to give again in ninety days
because typically if a first time donor gives again in ninety days,
they're more likely to stick around and they have a three
times higher lifetime value.
And,
yeah, I definitely, explore other options like, you know,
buy now pay later is really popular.
You've probably seen that everywhere. You know,
there's there's some donate now pay later options that are
really interesting and and could help you,
increase gifts throughout the year.. So to keep donors around,
I really just recommend having that stewardship plan in place
of what's gonna happen after year end, what that email
series that's going out.
Ask for that second gift for first time donors if it's,
within that first ninety days.
Plan to follow-up with,
an impact report for twenty twenty three to communicate
where their gift went do a thank you campaign. Actually,
do thank you ads sometimes is what we we do a lot of the
time, and it really resonates.
Not a lot of people get ads saying thank you.
And it really does stick out.
Invite those supporters who gave during your end to fund
raise for you because You know,
it's likely they had no friends that also care about the, like,
your cause as well.
And, yeah, recurring giving and blood joss,
just have a plan in place to increase those recurring gifts
and upsell,
donors to recurring giving.
So that you're able to really maximize donations and keep
your donors around for the long term,
throughout twenty twenty four so they,
can can support you all year long and really get involved in your mission
And I really do think that recurring giving enables you
to, like, really deepen those relationships with those donors.
So I know that was a lot.
We're like literally right on the hour.
If you want more strategies for year end or you wanna strategize,
actually about how to keep your donors for the long term. Either way,
you can actually use this QR code to book a time directly
with our team of experts who will just assess where you're
at with your year end campaign and what your biggest
opportunities are right now,
and then also what your biggest opportunities are for twenty
twenty four. And,
help you come away with all the actionable insights and
opportunities for you to increase donations,
for your organization.. So It's a great resource.
There's no obligation.
Just an opportunity to chat with our team of experts. So,
hope that you can take advantage.
Thank you.
I want to ask one question.. I know we're at time,
but I wanna ask one question because it's so relevant and
it's so good. So, Sean asked,
what are some, basically,
what are some steps that a very understaffed
group can take, to incorporate some of these processes.
And then kinda be on that.
If you have a small staff or if you are really trying to hustle
to get some last minute tactics in for the end of the year.
What do you think are some
relatively simple to execute tactics that people can do right now,
even if they're short staffed or just like trying to to put
the very finishing touches on their campaign.
Yeah. I honestly think just increasing frequency,
is such an easy way where like you're already writing some emails.
Just just write one more.. You know, like, just increase that
frequency as it gets to your end, just because the more
you're communicating and the more you're getting in front of
your audience, the more likely they are. To, make a donation.
So increasing frequency across the channels that you're
already using, don't do anything new right now,
just focus on the ones that you're already leveraging.
And I think that's like a really practical, like, way for you to,
just double down and without, like, extra staff necessarily.
For sure.
I did see some concern in the chat about unsubscribes time of
year, and I wanted to reassure some of you.
So I went back and while y'all were talking about that,
I went back and checked.
So I have two little tidbits to to share with you.
If you are worried about unsubscribes and you want to up
the cadence of your email campaigns,
one, we saw an increase in email campaign sent on giving
Tuesday and corresponding with that on increase in
participation and engagement with those emails.
So nonprofits were emailing more frequently on giving
Tuesday, but people are more likely to engage with them.
The trick and this is the second tidbit. The trick is
that that will You can send more emails and keep
your unsubscribe rates relatively low if that email is
engaging and informative
And it really I would kind of like lead with gratitude that
way. You can also try if you are doing what Candace says and
increasing the cadence of emails, you can try using,
filters or segments to make sure that the emails that
you're sending are really targeted.
The other thing I would tell you all to do,
scroll back up through the chat and look at Marcy's note about
her unsubscribe rates, and. Marcy is going to be our next
motivational speaker,
because their insight was really beautiful that if you're
sending good emails, you're sincere, you're being genuine,
and you get those unsubscribed, it's okay.
Those aren't people that you need on your list.
So I hope you guys go back and write that.
It was a really great note.
Candace, thank you so much for everything.
I know I took a ton out of this.
Do you have any resources?
We had a few questions that we probably won't be able to dig
into about ads and how to run ads. Do you have any resources?
We can share around ads or y'all. If you
want, at the end of this,
there's gonna be the opportunity for you to, like,
get emails from community boost.
I'll send Candace your email address if you're interested in
those. But, yeah,
if If you have any pointers like where to go to learn about
how to run ads or do retargeting,
that would be really helpful because we've had a number of
questions about that.. Yeah. Absolutely.
I would encourage you. I
it looks like I can only send link.
Paste in the chat to host and panelists.
So if you don't mind sharing this, Abby,
I just paste it in a link to our guide.
On Facebook advertising for nonprofits.
I know I talked about that a lot,
so this is a great place to start.
If you just wanna get kind of like the rundown,
and then I also have
one for Google ad grants that I'm gonna try to pull up. If I
can't, I will send this out in a follow-up email,
but definitely start with the. Facebook ad one because I I
know that that's super helpful.
And,
I will say so for anyone that does wanna, like, dive a little
bit deeper into all of these things,
community boost ourselves host a lot of webinars.
And we have a lot of webinars that are specifically about the
Google ad grant and leveraging that and paid ads and,
just so so much, from our team itself. And
we package all of this,
and it's over like three hundred hours of content.
And it's in our nonprofit marketing club.
It is twenty dollars a month,
but right now you can get it for just a dollar,
for the first month if you wanna check it out.
So I'm gonna I can share that. If people really wanna, like,
go deeper and get access to a lot of that, expert content
from our team. And, yeah, so you can, you can check that out as well.
Sweet. I am dropping that in the chat So, everyone,
if you look at the chat, you have questions about grants.
There's a link to the nonprofit marketing club.
There's also a link to a guide on Facebook advertising.
Both of those are from community boost. And then, like
I said, at the end of this, when I end the webinar,
you'll see a little pop up survey.
You can opt into getting emails from community boost.
I get emails from community and I learned something new every
time I get one of their emails.
So, Canvas didn't even ask me to say that.
I just said it by myself.
Thank you much. I'm so glad you finally got it.
Because you're like the email queen. So if you approve, then
I that means a lot.
Oh, good. Alright, everyone.. I know it is after time.
Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for being
encouraging and for asking and for really being so engaged with us today.
Listen, I know it's a stressful time of year,
and I know you're gonna do an amazing job. So wherever you
need help, let me or Candace know, we'll get you what we
can. But other than that,
you are an expert with your donor base.
You are an expert on your mission,
you are gonna do a great job.
Let us know how we can help in the meantime.
I'll email you tomorrow,
with the link to this recording and some other resources And,
we are around if you need any questions answered or even just
a little bit of encouragement.. Okay? So, alright,
everyone with that,. Have a great afternoon.
You will get an email from me tomorrow.
Good luck with your urine campaigns.
Good luck, everyone.. You guys got this.
Thank you much. Abby for having me.
This was so much fun and what a delight to spend this time with
you all. Good.. Alright. Bye everybody.
Bye.