Did you know that in 2017, $19.51 billion dollars were donated to arts, culture, and humanities nonprofit organizations (Giving USA)? For arts organizations, December is the most wonderful time of the year for fundraising. In fact, according to some leading nonprofit experts, your organization could raise up to 40% of it’s donations during the last 6 weeks of the year if you use a variety of fundraising channels. Over 20% of all giving for the entire year comes in the last 48 hours of the calendar year (npEngage). So how can your organization actually raise almost half of its yearly donations in such a short amount of time? Here are MogoARTS’ top tips for boosting year-end giving.
1. Reach the Right Donors with Targeting
For nonprofit organizations, making your limited marketing budget stretch as far as possible is crucial. To guarantee that you are maximizing the budget for your year-end giving efforts, use highly-targeted campaigns to assure that you are only reaching out to extremely qualified potential donors. One way to do this is by segmenting your existing CRM list to identify the patrons that are most likely to donate; you can suppress current donors and target inactive donors who have yet to make a donation this year. You can also use retargeting to re-engage demonstrated and intended donors. Additionally, it is beneficial to utilize the donors’ zip codes from your CRM list to focus your advertising efforts on the areas with the highest number of qualified potential donors – this will help maximize your reach. To further elevate your targeting methods, work with an advertising partner who can leverage advanced technology and techniques.
2. Let Your Digital Campaign Strengthen your Traditional Fundraising Efforts
You may have launched a direct mail campaign in October or have volunteers making calls, but it is important to also use digital mediums to further reinforce your organization’s cause and drive donations. While traditional advertising mediums can be effective (especially for reaching donors ages 55+), it should be coupled with display, social, search, and email campaigns because 40% of patrons need to see an advertising message 9 times before converting. Display and social campaigns allow you to re-target patrons who have viewed your website, lapsed donors, those who have volunteered for your organization, current patrons, lapsed patrons, and more. Typically, two thirds of patrons don’t do research before making a donation, so it is important that you present your cause to them in the digital environments that they already frequent. Adding as many touch points as possible can persuade that person to donate to your cause.
3. Have a Strong, Heart-tugging Message that Speaks to Your Audience
During the holiday season your potential donors will give to causes they deem important and whose mission is close to their hearts; they want to know and feel that their hard-earned money is going to make an impact. Because of this, it is extremely important that your audience feels a strong connection to your organization and its work. The best way to help create that bond is by using strong, engaging visuals and messaging to convey the importance of your cause with your advertisements. Use your display and social ad creative to showcase how your cause uplifts the community and what your organization has achieved with its work. If you can, include pictures of people directly affected by your cause to help make the problem that your nonprofit solves more real to the donors. Use your display and social ad copy to help explain the impact that each donor will personally make. The Cal Performances display ads pictured below show images of real performers uplifting the community with their art. They also include powerful copy inviting the reader to “Explore how you can make great art happen” and “Give today.”
As the holiday season quickly approaches, we hope that your organization can use these tips to help drive more donations than ever before. If you are interested in learning more about how MogoARTS works with its partners to drive donations, shoot us an email at hello@mogoartsmarketing.com.