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Ever feel like your team spends hours and hours discussing new ideas to optimize your year-end giving campaign, only to end up doing the exact same thing you did last year?

If you’re searching for new year-end campaign ideas that aren’t built on guesswork, you’re in luck:

Below you’ll find nine year-end fundraising strategies our recent year-end research by more than 7,500 fundraising a/b tests and 10+ years of nonprofit market research.

Try out these ideas in your own year-end giving campaign.

1. Leverage the Power of Multi-Channel Communication

For this organization, email was their primary channel of communication for their year-end campaign. 

They wondered if using a multichannel approach would increase donations and revenue. So, they tested using a single-channel approach (email only) against a multichannel approach (email + text messaging).

The multichannel approach led to a 27% increase in donations.

Key Takeaway: Combining channels of communication like emails, direct mail, SMS, and social media creates a more seamless donor journey and keeps your organization top of mind.

2. Send Emails During Peak Engagement Times

“What’s the best time of day to send an email?”

It’s a question we get a lot, and it’s pretty challenging to answer. But an easy place to start is by taking a look at the heat map below and consider sending some of your emails during times of the day when there is less inbox competition. 

52% of year-end emails are sent between 8 am and 12 pm on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Those peak times are highlighted in reds and oranges in the heat map. The greens and yellows are the times where the least emails were sent.

You shouldn’t avoid those busy times altogether, but your message is more likely to stand out during those less busy times.

Key Takeaway: Test sending emails during off-peak times, like weekends and afternoons, to avoid inbox clutter.

Pro Tip: Segment your email list to send personalized messages at optimal times for each donor group.

3. Prioritize December 31st for Your Final Push

Each day of the year-end season is important in it’s own way, but our analysis of 25 NextAfter clients shows that significantly more online revenue comes in on December 31st.

December 31st and GivingTuesday account for the same amount of web traffic, but that’s where there similarities stop. 

Web visitors are 60% more likely to donate on December 31st than on GivingTuesday.

Even more, the average gift size on December 31st is 92% higher than GivingTuesday.

All this to say, December 31st is the most crucial fundraising day of the year-end season. 

BUT, this doesn’t mean GivingTuesday isn’t worth the investment. It simply just means that if you’re looking to maximize your year-end revenue, you need to plan your communication by prioritizing the last week and day of the year.

Key Takeaway: Send multiple reminders on December 31st to capture last-minute donations.

Common Pitfall: Don’t wait until the final day—build momentum in the week leading up to it.

4. Use Personalized Sender Names in Emails

When an email is sent from an organization’s name, recipients are likely to perceive it as just more marketing clutter in their inbox.

And the worst-case scenario, platforms like Gmail may even classify these emails as “Promotions” and place them in a separate tab, not in the main inbox.

Below, you’ll see that the highest majority of email communications came from organizations and individuals.

Please note:

• Emails sent from organizations means the sender name is something like “NextAfter.”
• Emails sent from an individual means the sender name is something like “Riley Young.”
• Emails sent from a group means the sender name is something like “Riley from NextAfter.”

Based on our analysis, nearly half of the emails sent during the end of the year are sent using an organization name which leaves those organizations at a higher risk of ending up in hidden inboxes.

Execution Tip: Send emails from your CEO or a key team member to create a personal touch.

Pro Tip: Include a headshot of the sender in your email signature for added authenticity.

5. Include a Monthly Donation Ask

Only 4% of emails sent during the last 45 days of the year make a recurring donation ask or ask recent one-time donors to upgrade to a recurring gift.

According to our Digital-First Fundraising Benchmarks, the retention rate of recurring donors is nearly double that of one-time donors.

Even more, the revenue per donor of recurring donors is 77% more than one-time donors.

So, giving your donors more opportunities to give or upgrade to a recurring gift should help you retain more donors.

Execution Tip: Include a “Make this a monthly gift” checkbox in your donation form.

Quick Win: Create a separate email campaign focused solely on monthly giving to build sustained support.

6. Implement a Sticky Bar on Your Donation Page

This organization uses an instant donation page as the next step after someone downloads a free resource.

In this experiment, they tested adding a sticky bar to the instant donation page with scarcity language to create urgency around their campaign.

Including the sticky bar led to a 50% increase in donations.

Execution Tip: Include urgency levers like “Only a few hours left to double your impact!” or a countdown timer to drive action.

7. Use Exit-Intent Pop-Ups to Capture Last-Minute Donations

This organization typically uses an exit-intent pop-up with a donation call-to-action on its homepage. During their year-end campaign, they wondered if adding this exit-intent pop-up to their main donation page would increase donations by creating urgency.

Using the exit-intent pop-up led to a 179% increase in donations.

Pro Tip: Keep the messaging concise and action-oriented.

8. Include Initiative-Specific Bullet Points in Your Emails

This organization has 3 core resource initiatives and wondered if displaying them in a clearer way in a year-end email appeal would impact engagement.

The original email and the treatment both had significant value proposition copy explaining the impact of donation. However, the treatment email used bullet points to display the 3 initiatives.

Using the bullet points increased the click rate by 277%.

Execution Tip: Use clear, concise points showing how donations will be used.

Pro Tip: Tailor the bullet points based on donor interests or past giving behavior.

9. Try Faux Forward Style Emails

This organization wanted to come up with a way to cut through the noise of their donors’ inboxes during GivingTuesday.

To do so, they tested sending a faux forward email. In this faux forward email, the sender is different than the “original” email and it looks like the person is forwarding the email.

Using the faux forward-style email led to a 73% increase in donations.

Execution Tip: Use a person’s name for the sender of this email to make it look like an authentic forward.

Pro Tip: Keep the tone conversational and urgent, as if you’re sharing a last-minute opportunity.