Reports show that on average, close to 50% of a nonprofit’s online fundraising occurs in December. This is serious business.  For an organization that averages $1 million in online fundraising a year, one day in December with a broken donation form or mass emails going to spam could mean missing out on $10,000 to $50,000.

Here are 6 things you can do now to get started on your year-end fundraising.

1. Analyze Last Year’s Results

Too many organizations wait until fall to take a look at how the last year-end campaign performed.  By that time, none of the information is fresh — staff has changed and emails explaining test groups have been lost. If you’ve been putting it off, don’t. Get going on it today.

2. Grow Your List

Do a list swap.  Send out some action alerts.  Take advantage of what’s timely.  With spring and summer months being slower on the fundraising side, now is the time to grow your list so that it is maximized for year end, when you must focus first and foremost on fundraising.

3. Collect Information

Take an organization like the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).  Some members of their email list support WCS because they enjoy WCS’s network of zoos.  Others support WCS because of its worldwide conservation work.

If your organization works on Issue A & Issue B, which don’t necessarily overlap, and your year-end campaign is entirely focused on Issue B, you are losing out on all those Issue A people who are interested in the other great work that you’re doing.

Even if your organization only works on one issue, you may have a year-end campaign that incorporates local information based on supporter state or zip code – information you may not have on everyone.

Take the time now to figure out what information will be useful to run a successful year-end campaign, and spend the next few months extracting it in different ways: Do a supporter survey that collects demographic and interest information, run action alerts on multiple issues and see who responds to what, and incorporate a variety of donation asks.

Not everyone opens every email.  Starting now will help ensure that you have information from as many of your users as possible.

4. Do Major Testing

Some new/exciting email, website overlay and online advertising tests work great.  Figuring out a new approach that increases fundraising 10% or 20% is one of the most exciting parts of working online. But for every new approach that works, there’s a flop.  That’s why you need to get them out of the way now.

Think of it this way.  Our hypothetical organization that raises $1 million a year raises $500,000 every December, but only $25,000 every July.  A month long test that flops, performing 20% worse than last year, will only cost you $5,000 in July.  If that same test was run in December, you’re losing $100,000.

Now is the time to lay out the major pieces of your year-end campaign and figure out what pieces you’ll need to test between now and October.  Then, in the year end, you can focus on more nuanced optimization tests to maximize every last dollar.

5. Complete Any Landing Page Changes

It’s the same story as testing.  Don’t risk a new landing page or tell-a-friend page that could have unforeseen breaks or security issues.  Update templates and complete any technology changeovers now so you aren’t spending the holidays fixing code while donors fret over whether or not their donation was successful.

6. Say Thank You

Don’t forget to say thank you in some way, at least twice, between now and November.  A quick, personal looking email with no “ask” is always a great way to go.  Or, try sending a YouTube video showing supporters what they’ve made possible. Make sure they know they’re appreciated.

Other key findings:

• 75% of nonprofits say they’ll email supporters at least monthly.
• Facebook comes after only websites and email as important communications tools for nonprofits.
• Quarterly is the most popular frequency for nonprofits to send direct mail to the average supporter.
• What excites nonprofit communicators: new ways to connect w/ supporters, social media & better comm integration.
• What scares nonprofit communicators: money woes, hard-to-implement comm strategies & lack of staff time.

Facebook

• Understand the FB algorithms: The default view on Facebook, Top News, shows only a small selection of posts from your friends (and pages you’ve “liked”). If you switch to the Most Recent tab you’ll see how much content isn’t included. Facebook uses a sophisticated set of algorithms to determine which content you see on the Top News tab. An important factor is the number of likes and comments the content has received, so you’ll often want to ask questions in your posts and phrase updates so that it’s more likely people will “like” your post.
• FB Advertising: Facebook allows you to advertise either Facebook pages or websites that are external to Facebook. When you advertise your pages on Facebook, a “like” box will appear next to your ad, allowing people to become fans of your page with a single click.
• Facebook tab as landing page: Since your primary goal on Facebook is likely not to simply increase wall posts, you may want to create a custom default landing tab on your page. Many custom tabs include an arrow pointing to the like button or a registration form (possibly with an offer to induce signups). It’s also possible to show different content to Facebook fans and non-fans. Exclusive content and special offers that are only available to fans can be a great way to induce people to “like” your page.

Twitter

• Following others: Twitter users will often follow you after receiving an alert that you are following them. When using this strategy you may want to target your universe by searching for tweets with relevant words or hashtags, or follow reporters, bloggers, and others who are influential players in your field.
• Hashtags: You can tweet using relevant hash tags or use trending topics to increase the number of people who will see your content. You can also start a tag for a contest or conversation and encourage others to include it in their tweets.
• Write for RTs: Tweeted responses (i.e. tweets starting with @name) only appear in the feed of people who follow both you and the person you are responding to. While good for relationship-building, these messages do not show up for your full potential universe. Retweets, on the other hand, will show up for everyone who follows the person who posted the RT. Encouraging responses through questions can be less useful than brief tweets designed to be retweeted (thought they can help to build relationships)

Email

• Petitions and letters to legislators: This time-honored technique can help you build targeted lists while simultaneously engaging in efforts to support your lobbying initiatives. An eCRM advocacy tool like CapWiz and Salsa can help strengthen your grassroots advocacy program and make it easier to manage. This is an especially good tactic if you are encouraging compelling actions since the new emails you get are likely to take action again in the future.
• List acquisition: While blanket spamming can be counterproductive, acquiring targeted lists from trusted vendors like Care2 or Change.org can be a great way of expanding your audience. Be sure to segment your lists! Where it makes sense, you could also ask a strategic partner to send out an email to their list on your behalf, with a call to action that will help build your list. It’s recommended to use URL sourcing codes so you’ll be able to use your website analytics software to identify whether this tactic was effective (and should potentially be repeated).
• Special offers: Providing special access information on your website (possibly in conjunction with search engine marketing) can be a great way to expand your email lists. You can offer white papers (targeted to strategically desirable demographics), or allow people to sign up for webinars once they have provided their email address.

Do you have other techniques that have helped you to build your outreach capacity? Leave your tips in the comments.

We learned that there is only one method to test and have the conditional content work accurately in sending out emails. The following methods of sending out email will NOT work correctly with conditional content:

• Sending Quick Emails: for instance they will not identify you correctly in all groups you may be a member of when you send.
• Email Campaign emails you send as tests to ad hoc email address will also NOT correctly work with conditional content.

To get conditional content to work in your testing you need to use Email Campaigns AND send test emails to a Reviewer Group.

In general when running tests of emails, the closest you can get to simulating production sends is to create and use a test in Campaigns (vs. Quick Email) and a reviewers list. Sending to the reviewers list more closely simulates the production send than sending to ad-hoc defined emails. Reportedly this has to do with using a test mail server vs. the prod mail server for the send. So next time you’re testing your campaign emails, be sure to take the time to construct a reviewers list and test-send the email there.

Occasionally too, we’ve had different experiences in how long it takes to receive test sends to various domains. In talking with Convio staff, this may have something to do with Convio having to constantly stay on top of being on major email providers “white lists” and possibly being subjected to more scrutiny on delivery.