The secret to stressing less this giving season? A solid year-end fundraising plan!
We won’t lie…it’s pretty much impossible not to stress a little about EOY. After all, a quarter of annual online revenue is raised in December alone.
There can be a lot of pressure to get that campaign just right!
But starting early and taking a measured approach to planning and implementing your end-of-year campaign can help. Plus, you’ll be more likely to develop a well-rounded campaign with cohesive, impactful messaging that really engages donors when you simply take the time to do so.
In short? Make a plan. Stress less. Raise more!
If you’re not sure where to start – or even if you get stuck in the middle – use our year-end fundraising timeline to stay (or get back on) track.
A Year-End Fundraising Timeline that Works
If you ask us, a solid fundraising campaign timeline should span about six months.
No, we’re not saying your campaign itself will run that long (unless that’s part of your plan).
But, ideally, you should have plenty of time to brainstorm, strategize, and develop every piece of your end-of-year fundraising campaign before it launches.
You also want to give yourself wiggle room for unexpected delays like printing difficulties, late mail, and last-minute adjustments. Plus, every campaign should have a wrap-up period!
This year-end fundraising timeline starts in August to ensure you get everything done…without needing to rush. Every month has no more than five key tasks, so you’ll have time to focus on other to-dos as well.
MVP Playbook Resource: Print out our free Year-End Fundraising Timeline and hang it right by your desk to help you stay on track!
August: Analyze & Prepare for a Great Giving Season
Wait…August?
Yes.
Starting your giving season planning in August (or even July, if you’re feeling extra proactive) will set the stage for less stress in the months to come.
Here’s what to check off your year-end fundraising list this month.
Review Last Year’s Campaign
Take some time to look back on your last end-of-year campaign. What worked? What didn’t? Is there anything you want to do differently this time around?
Review recent campaigns of similar nonprofit organizations as well, especially if you’re just starting out with year-end fundraising.
Set Goals for This Year
Every fundraising campaign needs at least one goal: typically either dollars raised or number of donations.
This helps determine key pieces of your campaign, including timeline, budget, and target audience. And, when shared publicly, a fundraising goal can create a sense of camaraderie and urgency for your donors.
From here, you can also add goals specific to your organization or campaign. Want to increase email or social media engagement? What about donations specifically made through a giving kiosk or by new donors?
Just make sure every goal is SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
Tip from the Playbook: Use this time to determine what success looks like for this campaign. Choose success metrics – dollars raised, email clicks, impact video views, etc. – to track how your campaign is performing, giving you more confidence to stay the course and the agility to pivot, if needed.
Define Your EOY Campaign
This is when you choose the type of campaign you’d like to run. Is this an annual giving campaign? A peer-to-peer campaign? Or are you hoping to focus on major donors, recurring giving, or a matching gift challenge? Hint: You CAN do more than one if you want!
Set a timeframe for your fundraising campaign as well. It should include a start and end date, plus any key milestones along the way, such as an event or giving day.
We recommend starting your giving season campaign with an appeal letter in mid-November and ending it with thank-you notes in early January.
Finalize Your Budget
Only you can decide how much money you have (and are willing) to spend on your giving season campaign!
What will it take to reach your fundraising goal? Consider possible costs associated with running a campaign, such as printing and postage for appeal letters, event needs like venue, food, and activities, and paid advertising.
Assemble Your Team
Try not to do all of this alone!
Assemble a team of dedicated individuals with a variety of skills. Use their perspectives and experiences to brainstorm and develop a well-rounded campaign. Assign various tasks on this timeline and hold accountability check-ins.
Don’t have the staff to fill out an EOY fundraising team? Ask volunteers and board members to step up! Also consider hiring a nonprofit consultant – many are willing to step in for a single campaign.
MVP Advisors is here to help this year-end! Check out our giving season consulting packages and get in touch with us to discover how our consultants can be an integral part of your team.
September: Plan & Organize Your Year-End Fundraising Strategy
Next up? Planning and organizing! This is when you’ll get into the meat of your year-end fundraising campaign strategy.
Spend September brainstorming ideas and getting everything in order so that you’re ready to dive in come Q4.
Define Your Target Audience & Segments
If you’re thinking you’ll just cast a wide net and see who donates, think again.
There’s a lot of noise going on during the giving season. Selecting specific target audiences will save you time and money while helping you stand out to those most likely to give. This target audience should be defined by demographics, geographics, psychographics, and behavior.
To further refine your messaging and tactics (more on this in a minute), segment your audience by the above. For example, you might have two primary target audiences: current donors and donors of similar organizations in your area. Your current donor audience could be further segmented by giving history (amount, recency, etc.), program interests, and/or age.
Decide on Theme, Messaging & Branding
Creating a cohesive campaign helps you stand out and makes it more likely for your audience to remember and trust your message.
Start with a theme – what do you want your entire campaign to focus on? This theme should be relevant to your mission and your goal.
From there, determine your overarching messaging. Will you take on a serious or more playful tone? Are there certain types of stories you want to tell?
Also, see if you have any impact details that will better connect your audience to your fundraising goal. They’ll care more about what their donation will do rather than simply helping you hit an arbitrary goal. For example, “Donate today to help us provide 1,000 families with fresh food this holiday season,” resonates better than “Give now so we can raise $10,000 by the end of the year.”
Finally, develop the branding for your year-end fundraising campaign. Decide if you’ll use your nonprofit’s primary brand colors and graphics, or if you’ll bring in something new. Think about the types of images and videos you’ll need as well.
Select & Source Stories for Year-End Fundraising
Every fundraising campaign should feature at least one impact story. These stories are real accounts of the impact your mission has had on the people, animals, or places you serve.
Now is the time to select the story (or stories) you’ll share – remember to keep your theme and messaging in mind – as well as source those stories by conducting interviews or research.
Tip from the Playbook: Always be respectful of those featured in the stories you tell. Offer to change names and never include information that may be too personal or sensitive. And, remember, your beneficiary can say “no” at any time during the process. Donorbox has a great blog about ethical nonprofit storytelling here.
Start Collecting & Organizing Assets
This month should also be spent collecting and organizing every asset you’ll need for this year-end fundraising campaign.
On the communications side, this means gathering (or taking) photos and videos and organizing them in shared folders that can be easily accessed by everyone on the team.
On the fundraising side, decide how you will build the lists of donors you’d like to reach via mail and email. For existing donors, determine who will pull the list and what information is needed. If you’re looking for new donors, decide if and how you will purchase a list.
Either way, make sure to review all of the information on your donor lists to check for errors and inconsistencies.
Choose Channels & Tactics for Giving Season
By the end of this month, develop a full communications strategy that includes the channels and tactics you plan to use to reach your audiences and segments.
And, yes, we said channels…plural.
Developing an omnichannel campaign helps you reach more donors and ensures that these donors see your message more than once. It can take up to 12 touchpoints before a donor decides to make a gift. Seeing your campaign several times – and in more than one way – reinforces your message and reminds them to take action.
Do consider your target audiences when selecting your channels and tactics. Where are you most likely to reach them? How do they typically engage with your nonprofit? There’s no point in putting effort into a channel where none of your segments are active.
October: Build & Perfect Your Key Campaign Pieces
October is all about building and perfecting some of the most important pieces of your year-end fundraising campaign.
You’ll start reaching out to key players, finalize your giving options, and make sure any print pieces are done (or close to it).
Decide on Giving Options
It won’t matter if your campaign content reaches and resonates with donors if they don’t have a way to make a gift!
Be sure to decide how you want your supporters to donate during this campaign, then start putting those giving options in place. Offering a range of options appeals to more donors and gives you more flexibility.
With 63% of donors preferring to give online with a credit or debit card, having an online fundraising page is a must. But many older donors still prefer to give via check, so including a return device in their targeted mailings is important.
If you want to utilize other giving methods like text-to-give or a donation kiosk, assign someone on your team to get those set up with your fundraising platform ASAP.
Connect with Key Players
Should your end-of-year fundraising campaign plan require the participation of people outside of your team or organization, now is the time to start reaching out to them.
This might include major donors, who can be asked to make a pre-launch gift that will get your campaign’s fundraising thermometer started. Or, ask if they’d be interested in putting forth a matching gift challenge to encourage others to donate within a specific timeframe in order to have their gift matched.
Tip from the Playbook: Develop a major donor strategy as part of your overarching year-end fundraising campaign to ensure you engage these critical supporters. This blog can help.
If you’ve decided to launch a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, start reaching out to supporters you feel would make excellent advocates for your mission. Let them know about the impact they can have, walk them through the process of setting up their own fundraising page, and provide assets like email and social post templates.
Other key players may include community partners and businesses who could sponsor an event, promote your campaign, or hold a matching gift challenge of their own.
We suggest connecting with these key players directly via phone call. If it helps, draft a script you (or your team members) can use when reaching out.
Develop All Appeal Letters & Print Pieces
Planning to send a fundraising appeal letter? Are there any other print pieces in your communications strategy? (Think reminder postcards, one-pagers, brochures, event invites, or flyers.)
We urge you to use October to get this print collateral out of the way.
1. Write Your Content
First, develop your fundraising appeal letter. As one of the most important – and likely longest – pieces of your campaign, it should be a priority. Use this blog to help you craft an effective appeal letter.
Once your letter’s content is finalized, you can syndicate it across your other outreach – both print and digital – saving you time while also reinforcing your message.
It’s best to have all print content completed (not just drafted) by mid-October to give your graphic designer time to design each printed piece.
Advice in Action: We do recommend sending at least one mailed appeal letter during your end-of-year fundraising campaign. Why? We’ve seen them work for our own clients. Plus, the numbers don’t lie: coordinating digital and direct mail efforts increases response rates by 63%.
2. Design All Letters & Print Pieces
After finalizing your content, hand it off to your graphic designer. They should use the branding and imagery you decided on earlier to create eye-catching print pieces that will engage your audience.
For fundraising appeal letters, however, simple is key: research has shown that letters printed on basic letterhead tend to perform better than overly-designed pieces. This letterhead design can still reflect your campaign’s brand, but save the graphics and images for other print collateral and digital outreach.
3. Send Everything to the Printer!
Aim to get everything over to your printer by Halloween.
Feeling a bit crunched? Prioritize getting your fundraising appeal letter out the door first. Not only is it typically the centerpiece of your campaign, you also need to account for time in the mail.
Print pieces that will go out later (like a reminder postcard) can be sent to the printer in November, if needed.
November: Finalize & Launch Year-End Fundraising
You’re probably used to really feeling the pressure by November, right? By following this timeline, we hope you’re at least a little less stressed than usual!
Let’s take a look at what you should be doing this month.
Confirm Key Details
If you haven’t already, spend the first week or so of November confirming and finalizing key details. This includes your giving options – especially your online fundraising page – as well as conducting a final review of your donor lists.
For fundraising appeal letters, be sure to check that everything is lined up with your mailhouse, including list, pre-sort, and postage details. Some printers work directly with mailhouses, which can be a huge plus!
Review & Approve Print Pieces
Your printer should send you proofs of every letter and print piece. If possible, ask for printed proofs! Make sure to closely review every proof and ask at least one other person on your team to look everything over with you.
Give your pinter your approval (or any small tweaks) at least two weeks before your intended drop date. Your planned drop date may be the day you’d like your letter to hit mailboxes or the day you need your printed pieces in-hand so that you can start distributing them.
Either way, this two-week window accounts for possible delays with printing, finishing, or mailing. More complicated pieces that require inserts or folding may need more time.
Advice from the Playbook: Remember, everyone is extra busy this time of year! Always ask your printer for their preferred timeframe – they’ll be able to give you a better estimate based on their workload and your specific needs.
Write Content for Digital Outreach
Next up, start writing the content for your digital channels, including blogs, emails, and social media posts, as well as media outreach.
We recommend writing as much digital content as possible in advance. While you can always edit and adjust later, developing content early will give you time to focus on engaging donors during the campaign itself.
Finalize Digital Assets
Also use this time to finalize all of the digital assets for your campaign. This may include graphics like email headers, digital ads, and social media posts.
Ask your graphic designer if they can create templates for posts that you’ll need to edit quickly, such as those with updates about your progress toward meeting your goal.
We also suggest developing at least a few short videos about the campaign. These can be used on your website, in email, and on social media. In fact, video often gets the highest engagement on social when compared to image or text-only posts!
Launch Initial Campaign Outreach
That’s right! It’s officially time to launch your campaign!
On the print side, consider aiming to get your fundraising appeal letter in mailboxes prior to Thanksgiving. This will get your appeal in your donors’ hands before those from other nonprofits, and gives you more time to follow up as needed.
Many nonprofits wait until Giving Tuesday to officially launch the digital side of their campaign. And that’s a great method!
But, consider sharing pre-campaign content such as save the dates and impact stories. This primes donors to give when your campaign does start.
December: Remind & Adjust with End-of-Year Messaging
This is it…the big one!
December means all-hands-on-deck in the nonprofit world. This is when your campaign should be fully active!
Here’s what to do.
Participate in Giving Tuesday
Yup – Giving Tuesday is still a must-do in our opinion! In 2024, nonprofits raised a record high on this global day of giving.
Giving Tuesday will take place on December 2, 2025. Even if you only send one email and share one post, we urge you to participate on some level. Join the conversation – many donors are prepped to give on this specific day, and you don’t want to miss out!
Find all of our big do’s and don’ts for Giving Tuesday in this blog.
Reinforce Messaging with Ongoing Outreach
Be sure to take your campaign through December with several emails and social media posts. If you have the budget, consider sending a reminder postcard as well!
As we said before, just make sure every communication you send has the same tone and branding to reinforce your message. Adjust your content towards the end of your campaign to reflect higher urgency as you strive to meet (or surpass) your goal.
Tip from the Playbook: Say “thank you” early and often. Most donors are more likely to give again – potentially even during the same campaign – if you express gratitude ASAP after their donation has been received.
Continue Connecting with Key Players
Fundraising is all about building and sustaining relationships. Donors are more likely to give if they feel a real connection to your organization. And if they feel like they are truly needed.
Be sure to personally reach back out to those key players you connected with in October (or even some you might have missed).
If you’re getting close to your goal and notice a regular donor hasn’t given yet, call and ask if they’ll make a gift to get you the rest of the way.
Stay in touch with any matching donors, sending them regular updates about the progress you’re making towards meeting their challenge.
And send any peer-to-peer fundraisers regular reminders and helpful tips that will guide them towards reaching their personal fundraising goals for your organization.
Measure Success & Pivot as Needed
Remember those success metrics you set way back in August? Now is the time to closely monitor them.
If you’re falling behind in one metric or another, don’t panic! Even if you’re nowhere near hitting your critical fundraising goal, you can still pivot.
Adjust your messaging a bit or look for donors you haven’t connected with yet. Reach out to those key players (read more about that above) and continue to form real connections with them. Try out a trend on social media that can be applied to your mission or message.
Tip from the Playbook: It’s never too late to try something new! Check out this blog to find last-minute fundraising tactics you can quickly put into play.
Finish Strong
December 31 is often the biggest giving day of the year.
What does that mean? Your fundraising campaign shouldn’t stop until the year is over!
Send out final reminder emails in the last few days of the year. Post a countdown on social media. Call those key donors one last time. And include information about getting that last-minute gift in to receive this year’s tax benefits.
You never know what piece of outreach will get you to (or past) that big goal!
January: Appreciate & Audit Your Giving Season
Ok. Now you can take a breath. It’s January!
But our year-end fundraising campaign timeline doesn’t stop quite yet.
Here’s what you should be doing this month to wrap up the giving season and look forward to the year ahead.
Thank Your Giving Season Donors
Even if you’ve been saying “thank you” throughout your end-of-year fundraising campaign, it’s a best practice to send another round of thank-yous out in the first week or two of the new year.
This is a great opportunity to announce how much money you raised and the impact this will have on your mission. Bring your donors into the celebration and be sure they know you couldn’t have done it without them!
Run Final Reports on Success Metrics
While the data is still fresh, run your final reports on all of your success metrics. This will help you see how your campaign performed, even beyond how much money you raised.
Audit Your Year-End Fundraising Campaign
Run an audit of your campaign by combining your success metric reports with an internal review. Ask your team to share any wins or pain points they experienced throughout the entire planning and implementation process, and don’t forget to jot some down yourself!
You might note that your team needs a little extra time to write, review, and finalize an appeal letter. Or, maybe the process you used to film and edit videos was spot-on this year. Someone may have heard from a donor that a specific piece of outreach really resonated with them.
Collecting all of this information now is best because it’s still fresh. Plus, it will save you a lot of time when you’re ready to start the giving season planning process all over again!
Send Annual Tax Letters to All Donors
Aim to send your annual tax letters to all of your donors (not just those who gave at year-end) by the end of January.
Find donor acknowledgement letter tips and templates in this blog.
Celebrate! 🎉
It’s officially time to celebrate the end of your giving season!
To avoid burning out, be sure to give your team a bit of a breather before jumping to the next big thing. Even if it’s just a bonus day off or a celebratory lunch, making your team feel seen and appreciated will do wonders for morale.
MVP Playbook Resource: We know…we know. Planning a year-end fundraising campaign takes a lot of time and effort. BUT you can use our free Fundraising Campaign Checklist to help! Print it out and hang it right next to that Year-End Fundraising Timeline.
Start Prepping for End-of-Year Fundraising Today
Ok…that was…a lot!
We hope you’ll use this step-by-step year-end fundraising timeline to guide you through each month leading up to (and beyond) the busy giving season.
And if you need a little extra help this year-end? MVP Advisors is here for you! We’re an experienced group of nonprofit consultants ready to offer a hand in campaign planning, content development, donor prospect research, and more.
Check out our giving season consulting packages today and set up a call to see how we can work together.