Year-end giving amounts to an estimated 40-70 percent of many nonprofits’ annual budgets. The most charitable season of the year is a prime opportunity to secure new supporters and to lift the giving levels of current donors. In this blog series, we will review the steps to devising a strong campaign—including how to use data analytics to target your messaging, the importance of a compelling story, how to distribute your story through multiple channels, and when to follow up with donors.
2. EVALUATE YOUR DATA
The strongest fundraising campaigns are based on extensive donor analytics. Knowing who your donors are, their propensity and capacity to give, and their specific interests will inform the strategic decisions of your campaign.
Segment Your Donor Groups
The more specific you can be in your asks, the better your results will be. To do that, you’ll need to segment your donor groups. Start by looking at data from the past year. Who is new to the house file? Who’s giving at which levels? Who gave multiple times last year? Did those donors give to a specific program or area of service?
Ideally, you have a solid database that tracks this kind of donor behavior and staff members who know how to read those behavioral indicators. You can then take that data and craft targeted messaging based on donor personas. Make use of communications technology to create conditional content that sends specially crafted messaging according to past behavior and donor interests.
Action items:
- Before sending out year-end communications, clean up your contact list of any duplicates or bad addresses.
- Segment the donor file based on past giving, wealth overlays, and behavioral indicators.
- Identify each group’s targeted messaging.
- Compile metrics to test campaign results so that you can improve on your efforts each year.