Leveraging Event Insights to Boost Year-End Giving

Leveraging Event Insights to Boost Year-End Giving

- Julianne Read

It’s the time of year when we are stepping away from the glitz and glam of the gala event season and into the sparkle and shine of the holidays – but if you are a fundraising professional, the next few weeks can make or break your year. So, how can your past events impact your end of year giving strategy? We’ll get into that in a bit, but for now, let’s look at some data highlighting how critical year end giving can be.

OneCause did a great study on end of year giving and here are some of the key stats:

• 50% of nonprofits receive most of their donations in the last 3 months of the year.

• On Giving Tuesday, giving in the US alone totaled $3.1B last year.

• Donations on December 31st accounted for 5% of the total revenue in 2023.

From a strategic perspective, reviewing your event data prior to creating your end of year campaign will likely render some interesting insights. Here are three ways you can leverage your event data in a year-end campaign:

1. Re-use event content in year-end communications: Share photos of your events – continue to create community by talking about how fun your events were! Remind people of the stories that were shared, or the fun that was had!

2. Share how you have used the funds raised at your events: showcasing impact is so important for end of year communications – be specific!

3. Customize donor communications to event attendees: Using your communications database, create a version of your end of year campaign which specifically goes to event attendees and mention the event, especially if the event was the first time they made a gift. Working to evoke a sense of belonging to a donor is important in relationship building.

Over the course of your fundraising events in 2024, you likely gained new donors, or increased engagement with current supporters and other event participants. There is a huge opportunity to share your organization’s progress towards mission via email, social media and direct mail (I know – so many people don’t like direct mail, but if you look at research done on the generations, millennials and boomers still love to go to the mailbox!). And finally, there are a lot of messages out in the world at this time of year…so take the time to create a campaign that stands out and shares your mission.