Giving Tuesday and the nonprofit end-of-year fundraising cycle are quickly approaching! Here are a few last-minute tips to maximize your efforts and make the most of this season of giving:

1. Segment your audience.

If email or mail appeals are a part of your Giving Tuesday strategy, segmenting your audience could make a big difference in return on investment (ROI.) Don’t worry, it doesn’t need to be complicated. If you’ve never tried it before, start with these two simple audience segments: active (made one or more donations in the last 12 months) and lapsed (made zero donations in the last 12 months.) From there you can create two versions of your appeal: 1) thanking active donors for their previous contributions and asking for a final end-of-year gift to maximize their support, and 2) reminding lapsed donors about your organization’s important work while also letting them know they still have time to make a donation. This added personalization shows donors that their philanthropic activity (current or past) has not gone unnoticed by your organization, and your reminder may give them the extra push they need to make an end-of-year gift!

2. Refine (and quantify) your message.

Does your organization have a new project or special initiative within your community launching in 2023? Make sure you tell your supporters about it! Get specific about how a gift today will translate to impact tomorrow—and wherever possible, quantify! Donors want to know what your organization is accomplishing with their donation dollars. Think about your own giving: If presented with the choice to “donate now to support animal rescues” or “donate $35 to feed a rescued puppy for a month,” wouldn’t you feel extra motivated to give knowing what $35 was able to do?

3. Track and analyze your results.

This isn’t just a good idea at the end of the giving season! By listening to your donors and continuously learning from their giving trends, you can make adjustments to your fundraising strategy in real-time to increase your campaign’s revenue. For example, let’s say you send two emails on Giving Tuesday and one raises twice as much as the other. That is a big difference! You should immediately try to learn why. What was special about the better-performing email? Perhaps it mentioned a specific initiative that donors really liked! If it did, you’ll want to incorporate other mentions of that initiative into your upcoming end-of-year appeals. Check to see if your constituent relationship management (CRM) platform or email marketing system has the ability to A/B test and let your emails race to the finish line! Don’t be afraid to make some last-minute changes to your campaign if the data supports them. Your bottom line will thank you!

Read more on the EveryAction blog here.