Do you have the tools you need to raise as much as possible this Giving Season? In this article, I’ll explain why you need a CRM to elevate your year-end giving.
Join the fundraising movement! Join the fundraising movement!Starting in November, Giving Season refers to the year-end holiday period when hearts are full, and donors want to spread good cheer through charitable giving. It’s also their last chance to enjoy the tax benefits of donating to a 501(c)(3).
The latest M+R Benchmarks study reports that nonprofits raised 37% of all 2025 online revenue in December. This is 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.
Below, I’ll share 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 elevate your fundraising.
Looking for a solid, all-in-one solution to carry your fundraising to the next level?
Built directly into the Donorbox fundraising platform, Donorbox CRM (coming soon) is designed to help you foster stronger donor relationships, increase retention, and turn one-time donors into lifetime supporters.
It enables you to engage supporters with targeted messages powered by real-time donor activity for more effective outreach this Giving Season and beyond.
Here are five ways a CRM can help you bring in more funds at the end of the year.
Your CRM can help you work smarter so you’re making the most of your time and energy when you have a lot to do and limited time to do it.
Review your data from last year’s Giving Season campaigns. What did your donors respond to? You might find that your supporters are most motivated by a matching gift campaign, or that you have enough dedicated volunteers to launch a successful peer-to-peer campaign.
Vicki Burkhart, founder and CEO of The More Than Giving Co, shares her expert advice:
Whatever the data shows, remember to experiment to avoid launching the same campaign every year. Combining experimentation with some hard-won data will ensure success.
Bonus resource: Discover proven Giving Season strategies and insights from eight fundraising experts in this blog post.
Pull detailed reports using the Donorbox CRM reporting templates, which allow you to customize and export in just a few clicks.
Plus, use your AI-powered fundraising assistant, Jay·AI, to pull helpful fundraising data and create graphs for visual analysis.
The best Giving Season campaigns speak to your donors’ interests and personalities. Understanding what your donors like, are interested in supporting, 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, communications, recurring plan details, and more.
Use the Supporter Timeline feature to track how a donor interacts with your organization. View completed donations, profile updates, refunds, and more. Here’s how it looks on your end:
Plus, ensure timely outreach to donors with Moments, which reminds you of significant dates, milestones, or donor actions. View an automatically updated list of donor birthdays, first-donation anniversaries, and more.
Capture the attention of your donors during the busy Giving Season by personalizing your outreach as much as possible. The most effective way to do that is by segmenting your audience.
Below are some features to consider segmenting by for targeted donor outreach:
Katherine Lacefield, Founder of Just Be Cause Consulting, emphasizes the importance of segmentation for Giving Season outreach:
Look for a CRM that helps you quickly segment your donors into groups for personalized outreach.
Choose between multiple segmentation methods to pull targeted outreach lists.
Sort by various common filters to quickly export a list of donors. Or, use Jay·AI to sort donors under specific prompts, like “donors who gave in December last year.”
You can also filter donors and create Static Lists for one-time historical groups like event attendees.
Plus, use the Dynamic Lists feature to create lists that change with your donors. Lists update automatically so you always have the latest segmentation data at your fingertips.
New List insights help you understand how different segments are growing and giving.
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 Conversations built into your CRM, you have everything you need in one place.
Connect your Gmail or Outlook account to view, send, and receive one-on-one emails from within Donorbox CRM. All communications are automatically saved to your supporter profiles, enabling efficient tracking of all your donor outreach.
Plus, a consolidated inbox makes it easier for your team to collaborate.
And if you get stuck crafting the perfect outreach, use Jay·AI to write effective copy to engage your audience.
How are you going to know how close you are to your goal without all your donations in one place?
A good CRM should enable you to track all your online, in-person, and offline donations. This provides you with a more holistic view of your fundraising success.
Donorbox CRM automatically collects any donation or donor information from your Donorbox donation forms, so you never have to worry about missing data.
Offline transactions can easily be added to your database to view all your donations in one place. Plus, capture in-kind donations, pledges, and soft credits for more accurate forecasting.
Looking for a way to collect more in-person donations? The Donorbox Live™ app turns your tablet and card reader into a donation kiosk that accepts payments made with credit/debit cards and digital wallets. Or, fundraise on the go with Donorbox Live™ Mobile on your smartphone – no additional hardware needed. All donations you receive automatically show up in your CRM, eliminating clunky in-person donation processes.
Download this free KPI scorecard to track the success of your Giving Season campaign and identify where you may need to adjust your fundraising and outreach strategy.
Now that you know how crucial a CRM is this Giving Season, here are three ways 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 is a great way to remind them of their previous gifts and encourage them to give again.
It’s also the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the impact of their donations. Share beneficiary stories, statistics, and pictures/videos showcasing the difference their donations have made.
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.
Crafting outreach that speaks directly to your donors’ interests shows them that you care enough to know them and increases your chances of receiving a donation.
Look at which campaigns and funds they’ve donated to in the past. Review 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?
Make your outreach to donors feel personal. For example, send an email celebrating their birthday or the anniversary of their last donation. This shows them you notice important 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. Review reminders for key donor moments so you never miss the chance to build a real connection.
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 crucial to reaching your fundraising goals without any added frustration.
Platforms like Donorbox CRM make managing donor relationships effortless. With powerful tracking and segmentation, use Donorbox CRM to achieve your year-end fundraising goals and bring even more good into the world in the coming year. Join the waitlist today.
For more Giving Season fundraising tips, visit the Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to the monthly newsletter to receive the best resources in your inbox.
Lindsey Bower is a writer, content strategist, and nonprofit consultant. She specializes in helping nonprofits craft compelling messaging for websites, blogs, social media, and email marketing, with a strong focus on SEO and AEO strategy. With a background in fundraising and membership management, she knows firsthand what it's like to juggle priorities and wear many hats in the fast-paced nonprofit world.
Join the fundraising movement! Join the fundraising movement!
