Giving Season is coming. Do you have the tools you need to raise as much as possible? If you don’t have a sleek CRM that integrates with a world-class fundraising platform, you might be setting yourself up for a difficult season. In this article, we’ll walk you through why you need a CRM to boost your year-end giving and how Donorbox CRM can help.
Starting in November, Giving Season refers to the year-end period when hearts are full, holiday lights are sparkling, and donors want to spread good cheer through donations. It’s also their last chance to give before the end of the year – meaning their last chance to enjoy the tax benefits of giving to a 501(c)(3).
This means those two months are crucial for your nonprofit!
On average, 17-20% of a nonprofit’s annual revenue is raised in the month of December alone. It’s the perfect time to execute top-notch campaigns and donor communication, and if you don’t have the tools you need to perform, you might be missing out – big time.
Read on to learn why a robust nonprofit CRM platform is a must-have during year-end giving and how Donorbox CRM can help you build stronger donor relationships and boost your fundraising.
Looking for a powerful, all-in-one solution to carry your fundraising to the next level?
Donorbox CRM offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to elevate your donor relationships, streamline your tasks, and help you smash your Giving Season goals.
Sound good? Watch this short video and read on to learn more about Donorbox CRM.
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Let’s look at how a CRM can help you bring in more funds at the end of the year.
You have a lot to do and a limited timeline to do it. Your CRM can help you work smarter so you’re making the most of your time and energy.
Review your data from last year’s Giving Season campaigns. What did your donors respond to? You might find that your donors are most motivated by a matching gift campaign, or that you have enough dedicated volunteers to launch a successful Peer-to-Peer campaign.
Whatever shows up in your data, just remember that it’s also good to experiment. You don’t want to launch the same campaign year after year. Combining experimentation with some hard-won data will ensure success.
Pull detailed reports using the Donorbox CRM reporting templates, which allow you to customize and export in just a few clicks.
Plus, your powerful assistant DonationDriver AI can pull complex data and create graphs for visual analysis.
This keeps you moving – and informed!
The best Giving Season campaigns speak to your donors’ interests and personalities. Knowing your donors – their likes, what they want to support, and their giving capacity – is crucial.
A good CRM will allow you to collect and store important information about your donors.
Donorbox CRM empowers you to get to know your donors better, with precise donor profiles that include all contact and personal information, giving history, and more.
Use our Supporter Timelines to track how a donor interacts with your organization. See completed donations, profile updates, refunds, and more. Here’s how it looks on your end:
Plus, if you’re looking for the perfect time to reach out to donors, Moments alerts you to significant milestones in your relationship. Get notifications of donor birthdays, the anniversary of a first donation, and more.
The key to capturing the attention of your donors during a busy season? Personalizing your outreach as much as possible.
And in order to do that, you need sleek, fast segmentation.
Look for a CRM that helps you quickly segment your donors into groups for personalized outreach. Segment by features like age, giving history, location, and more to target your donors smarter.
Choose between multiple segmentation methods to pull targeted outreach lists.
Sort by a variety of common filters to quickly export a list of donors. Or, use DonationDriver AI to sort donors under specific prompts, like “donors who gave in December last year.”
You can also create Groups of donors based on households, companies, event attendance, and more.
Plus, use the Dynamic Lists feature to create lists that change with your donors. Your lists update automatically so you always have up-to-date segmentation data right at your fingertips.
If you’re busy, your email inbox is likely filled to the brim with meeting requests, newsletters, and circle-backs. You don’t want to miss donor communication because an email slipped through the cracks.
A CRM with built-in email functionality makes it easy to stay on top of all donor communication. Keep those relationships strong with reliable email outreach so you can raise more this Giving Season.
With Mail Center built into your CRM, you have everything you need – all in one place.
Combine up to five Gmail or Outlook accounts to view, reply, and send emails. Plus, access supporter information directly in Mail Center so you can see key insights as you craft your outreach.
You can also assign emails to your team members as Tasks so nothing slips by!
And if you get stuck crafting the perfect outreach, DonationDriver AI helps you write effective copy to engage your audience.
Did we mention you’re busy? Staying organized is crucial to ensuring you reach your Giving Season goals. Use your CRM to help!
Strategize, prioritize, and assign work to your team all from your CRM. This keeps you moving and ensures you don’t miss a beat.
Whether you have a team of two or twenty, things can get hectic during the year-end rush. Donorbox CRM allows you to easily assign work with the Tasks feature.
Assign donor email follow-ups with just a couple of clicks so your team members know exactly who is handling what. Create a campaign to-do list with everything you need to effectively launch your campaign and tick things off as they get accomplished.
How are you going to know how close you are to your goal if you don’t have all of your donations in one place?
A good CRM should be able to help you track all donations – online, in person, and offline – so you have a more complete picture of your fundraising success.
Because Donorbox CRM automatically collects any donation or donor information from your Donorbox donation forms, you never have to worry about missing data.
When you have offline transactions to report, easily add them to your database to see all of your donations in one place. Plus, capture in-kind donations, pledges, and soft credits for more accurate forecasting.
Bonus: Looking for a way to collect more in-person donations? The Donorbox Live™ Kiosk app helps you turn a tablet and card reader into a powerful donation kiosk that accepts payments made with a credit or debit card, smartphone, or smartwatch. All donations you receive automatically show up in your CRM, eliminating clunky in-person donation processes.
Now that you know how crucial a CRM is this Giving Season, let’s look at how to use your CRM for more personalized outreach.
Gratitude should be a year-long practice – not saved for the end of the year.
However, thanking your donors again at the end of the year can be a great way to remind them of their previous gifts, encouraging them to give again.
This is also a great time to tell them more about the impact of their gift. Share stories, statistics, and pictures/videos showcasing the difference their donation has made to your cause.
Use your CRM to pull a list of donors that gave during last year’s Giving Season, then segment further by gift amount and campaign or designation.
When you craft outreach that speaks directly to your donors’ interests, you show that you care enough to be know them – and you increase your chances of receiving a donation.
A good way to assess your donor’s interests? Look at which campaigns and funds they’ve donated to in the past. Dig into your CRM data to get creative with your Giving Season campaign approach and send outreach to donors based on what they’re likely to support again.
Timing is everything. During the Giving Season, donors are bombarded with emails, texts, direct mail, and more from their favorite charities. So how can you stand out?
Reaching out to a donor for a specific reason – like their birthday or the anniversary of their last donation – shows that you notice these details and gives you a solid reason for the outreach.
Donorbox CRM’s Moments feature is the perfect tool for this kind of personalized touch. Get reminders for key donor moments so you never miss the chance for a real connection.
The end of the year is a time to reflect on all of the positive changes your organization has made in the world. Celebrate all the hard work it took to bring in the funds necessary to make that change.
Unfortunately, Giving Season is not a time for you to slow down – it’s a time to speed up. Having the right tools in your toolkit is absolutely crucial to reaching your fundraising goals without wanting to pull out your hair.
Donorbox CRM is a sleek, AI-powered CRM solution that makes managing donor relationships a breeze. With powerful tracking and segmentation, use Donorbox CRM to smash your year-end fundraising goals and bring even more good into the world in the coming year.
For more Giving Season fundraising tips, check out the Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the best of the blog in your inbox every month.
Lindsey spent years wearing many hats in the nonprofit world. Whether she was helping arts nonprofits with their messaging and content, planning a fundraising gala, writing an NEA grant proposal, or running a membership program with over 400 members, she learned how to navigate – and appreciate! – the fast-paced world of fundraising. Now, she loves sharing those hard-earned lessons with the Donorbox community.
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Lindsey Baker Bower