Year-end is the hardest season of the year to win your donors’ attention.
There is a natural state or urgency and generosity built into the year-end season. But with every nonprofit looking for a share of your donor’s wallet, it can be a challenge to stand out.
How do you differentiate yourself?
How do you keep from getting lost in the noise?
Fundraising segmentation is a primary strategy to stand out in the year-end noise.
When most nonprofits are using generic language, a targeted, personalized message at the right time can make a tremendous difference.
But which segments should you talk to?
What should you say?
And how do you customize your donation ask?
Keep reading to discover 15 unique audience segments that you can incorporate into your fundraising during key times of the year-end season.
Fundraising Segmentation Ideas for Giving Tuesday
There are countless ways you can divide up your audiences and create targeted outreach to strengthen your Giving Tuesday playbook.
Here are a few audiences to consider unique messaging for across your channels in order to activate unique donor segments and drive greater giving.
1. Existing Donors
Existing donors are going to be the lifeblood of your year-end campaign as a whole. They should always be given the opportunity to give to your Giving Tuesday campaign—taking advantage of the natural excitement about giving.
When talking to known donors, show that you know them by referencing their previous giving. Thank them for their most recent gift. Provide custom donation asks based on their previous giving levels.
And just because they give to your Giving Tuesday campaign doesn’t mean you should suppress them from other year-end communications.
Many donors will give multiple times throughout the month of December.
2. Email Subscribers, Non-Donors
With Giving Tuesday being a primary time for donor acquisition, specifically talk to your email subscribers that have not yet given to you.
Use your free content offer funnel to engage these non-donors, setting them on a path towards giving.
What is a free content offer funnel?
- Send them an email inviting them to get access to a free offer (ebook, video, video series, online course, etc.)
- Link the email to a landing page for them to fill out a form to get access.
- Make a Giving Tuesday donation ask directly on the confirmation page.
- Follow up via email with those who don’t give to make a dedicated donation appeal.
Consider offering unique incentives like a gift matching opportunity just for these supporters who are considering making their first ever donation.
3. Lookalike Audiences
Use Facebook/Meta ads to create a lookalike audience of your most valuable donors.
Import a list of your high-value donors to Meta Ads, and it can create a modeled audience of Meta users who have similar online behaviors.
Target this list with your free content offer as a means of acquiring them as a new donor during the lead up to Giving Tuesday.
4. New Donors
Donors who have given for the first time this year are hard to retain. But if you can get them to give a second gift during this same year, their likelihood of retaining increases dramatically.
Create targeted messaging for these donors, incentivizing them to give again. Use urgency language, incentives like a match or unique content, and custom donation asks based on their original donation.
5. Frequent Donors (3 or More Donations in the Past 12 Months)
Donors who have given 3 or more times in the past 12 months may be a likely audience to upgrade to a recurring donation.
Consider targeting these donors with a specific recurring upgrade appeal on Giving Tuesday, asking them to give monthly in order to increase their impact.
Giving Tuesday can also be a good time to introduce a specific incentive for starting a monthly recurring donation. Offer a free gift, unique content, or even a matching opportunity to incentivize action.
Early to Mid-December
Your year-end fundraising campaign should have touch points with all of your donors and subscribers.
It’s a primary season both for converting subscribers into donors for the first time, as well as reactivating and upgrading existing donors.
Between Giving Tuesday and the last week of the, the goal of your campaign is to prime potential donors for your final year-end appeals.
But you should also see a steady drip of donations along the way.
Plan to create segmented messaging, giving opportunities for specific audiences and segments. Here are a few examples to consider:
6. Mid-Level Donors
Mid-level donors are likely source of significant revenue during December. Even if they’re on a gift officer’s portfolio to call, create special cultivation messaging for them.
This will keep your organization top of mind and prep them for when a direct appeal arrives.
You might also consider reaching out in early November to mid-level donors who have yet to give this year. Ask them to contribute to a gift matching fund that you can use in your year-end campaign to incentivize giving from new donors.
7. Major Donors
You may not want to berate your major donors with countless email donation appeals. But that doesn’t mean there’s not an email strategy for them.
Consider modifying a portion of your year-end emails to be purely cultivation. Remove the direct donation ask, but still share stories of impact, testimonials, goals for the new year, and more.
This can prime them for a potential outreach from a gift officer. And it may lead them to organically give on their own.
8. Recurring Donors
Your recurring donors are already giving automatically in December. But that doesn’t mean they’re not willing to give a donation above and beyond their regular gift.
Consider creating a modified segment of your year-end emails that specifically encourages recurring donors to give an additional gift before the end of the year.
Don’t forget to share compelling reasons about the impact their additional gift will make!
9. New Subscriber Activation
Year-end can be a primary season to activate new email subscribers from this year who have not become a donor yet.
Consider segmented messaging in some of your appeals that talks specifically to these supporters, recognizes their important role in supporting the cause, and asks them to take the critical next step of giving to further their impact.
10. Recently Lapsed Reactivation
Your recently lapsed donors have tremendous value. Compared to new donors, they cost a lot less to re-activate and they tend to give at higher levels.
Consider dedicated communication to these donors that recognizes their previous giving, highlights that they have not given recently, and invites them to reactivate their donation to make significant impact in the year to come.
11. Donor Who Are About to Lapse
Donors who gave last year but have not given yet this year are another potential audience segment during year-end.
These donors already have some affinity with your organization. They’ve expressed alignment with your mission, your cause, and your values.
It’s possible they’re intending to give already. But they may need additional prompting to get over the finish line.
Craft dedicated appeals for these donors to invite them to renew their giving before the end of the year—extending the impact they’re able to make on a cause they care about.
Last Week of December
During the last week of the year, urgency is the name of the game.
With most communication being short and to the point, it may be tempting to throw segmentation out the window.
But there are plenty of opportunities for nuanced, segmented messaging in the last week. Here are a few key audiences that you should consider sending customized messaging.
12. Small Donors
Donors who have historically given small gifts may continue to do so if not prompted to give more. Consider testing messaging for your smaller donors that gives a compelling reason for them to give at a higher level.
Use personalized copy to recognize their previous giving, and include a custom and specific donation amount in your call to action.
13. Consistent Donors Who Have Not Given
Create an audience of donors who have given consistently for the past few years, but have not given yet this year-end season.
Send tailored messaging thanking them for their consistent, faithful support over the years. Make it clear that they have not donated yet this season. Ask them to renew their giving before the year-end deadline.
14. Early Year-End Donors
It’s not uncommon for a donor to give multiple times throughout the year-end season.
Create an audience of people who gave within the first two weeks of December. Discuss your campaign goal and how close you are to reaching it. Ask them to give an additional gift to help reach your year-end goal in order to create greater impact in the year ahead.
15. Uncontacted Donors on a Gift Officer’s Portfolio
There is only so much time in the day. So an effective gift officer will prioritize contacting donors that show signs of being likely to give.
For donors that have yet to be contacted, consider a series of communication to create engagement.
Send them a dedicated direct-to-voicemail message sharing a story of impact. Send an SMS linking to a testimonial. Send them an email with a video highlighting impact this year.
If they engage, send them to the top of the call list for a gift officer to make a personalized appeal before the end of the year deadline.
Get the AI-Powered Year-End Playbook
Year-end fundraising requires more than ever before. More channels. More touch points. More segmentation.
The AI-powered year-end playbook will help you keep up and grow your year-end giving.
What’s inside:
- Strategic year-end insights based on data from 130+ nonprofits
- A comprehensive campaign playbook spanning Giving Tuesday through December 31st
- Year-end segmentation ideas to help you reach donors on a more personal level
Get the AI-powered year-end fundraising playbook here »
Automate Your Year-End Fundraising Segmentation
Getting this granular in your fundraising segmentation is no easy task.
Segmentation is a manual process for most fundraisers. And ongoing segmentation requires weekly—if not daily—work to keep your segmentation in sync.
With Avid, your fundraising segmentation is kept in sync automatically. Create it once, and Avid will sync our lists across your channels every day.
Watch the quick video to see how Avid Pathways automates your segmentation.
It doesn’t stop there.
Avid Playbooks creates all the copy for each of these segments for you in a matter of seconds. Every touch point. For every channel. Customized to each of your segments.
Schedule a strategy call to see how Avid can automate your year-end fundraising segmentation »
