Back when I was a development director, I keenly understood the important opportunities these final weeks of the year held. And I worked hard to maximize donor generosity and the Board’s willingness to pitch in at year’s end. 

In one of my development director jobs, the agency closed the final week of the year, and I was surprised to learn that my predecessor traditionally took that week off as well. Instead of following her lead, I saw an opportunity to raise more money and approached my executive director to negotiate a change. I offered to work the last week of the year to prime additional donations in exchange for a taking off a week of my choosing in January. 

I spent that quiet week reaching out to people who had not yet given that year, calling to thank major donors, and asking Board members to engage in end-of-the-year fundraising. That final week of the year became not just our most lucrative, but also a quiet time in the office when I could get some deep-think work done. 

Fundraising at the end of the year favors action over planning. For this reason, if you don’t already have an end of year campaign planned, I encourage you to implement the five opportunities below as weekly sprints. And, if you are in the process of rolling out the final stages of your annual campaign, consider supersizing your efforts with these opportunities. Each can take less than 8 hours to quickly plan and implement, and each will help you generate significantly more money. 

If you happen to find this blog post weeks (or even months) after the end of the year, these are also good opportunities to (a) raise money fast any time of year and (b) include in your next year-end campaign. 

Engage your Board (First week after Thanksgiving)

Assuming your Board members agreed to give personally and to fundraise, then the final weeks of the year are the perfect time to remind them of their commitments. There’s an easy process for approaching them:

• • • Calculate each Board member’s personal contribution and fundraising results and create an individual score card for each of them.
    • Email each member their individual score card, letting them know that you’ll be following up. If a template for an individual board member score card would be helpful, you’ll find one at the end of this section. 
    • Follow-up by phone to thank them for their contributions, encourage them to make a personal gift (if they haven’t already), and invite  them to participate in the rest of the end-of-year fundraising activities.

Always remember: if some of your Board members haven’t given by the end of November, asking for their contribution can be the easiest and most successful solicitations of the year. 

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Solicit your LYBUNTs (Second week after Thanksgiving)

LYBUNT is a fundraising acronym for donors who gave Last Year But Unfortunately Not This [year]. Your LYBUNT list represents “current donors” who become lapsed donors if they don’t give before the end of the year. Since it’s always easier to keep a current donor engaged than re-engage a lapsed donor, the time and effort you and your Board spend on LYBUNTS will pay huge dividends.

In approaching LYBUNTs, you will utilize three strategies based on donor level:

• • • For major donors, it is important to reach out and schedule a coffee, Zoom, or phone call to discuss their support for the organization. 
    • Mid-tier donors can receive an unscheduled phone call, which will likely roll into voicemail. If you do get voicemail, be sure to follow-up with a text or email and offer to schedule a time to meet.
    • For everyone else (those donors who give at smaller amounts), prepare a series of email or text messages urging them to renew their support. 

Regardless of a donor’s level, each meeting, phone call, voicemail, or email has just four parts:

• • • Thank you for your prior support
    • Your support has helped us meet our mission (share a specific, recent example)
    • With your help this year, we will be able to achieve even more (share what you will be able to achieve)
    • Can we count on you to continue your support this year at the $(amount) level? 

Create a peer-to-peer giving campaign (Third week after Thanksgiving)

Creating a peer-to-peer giving campaign can be a complicated process that takes months, but it doesn’t have to. Instead, consider creating a simple peer-to-peer page with a reasonable goal. “Reasonable goal” is based on several factors: your nonprofit’s size, the size of your donor base, how many Board members and other champions will realistically approach their peers, etc. But for many of the leaders in the Successful Nonprofits® community, $5,000 to $25,000 is likely a reasonable goal. 

Once the page and giving link are live, ask your Board members and other champions to directly solicit their peers. This doesn’t mean just sharing or reposting the campaign on social media. In fact, your peer solicitors will need to commit to send their friends direct messages, emails, and texts that personally ask them to give. And the more personal the solicitations, the more effective they will be. 

Reach out to your largest donors (Week before Christmas)

The week before Christmas is the time to have “no ask” check-in calls with your largest 5 to 10 donors.  To get the most out of this important cultivation opportunity, start the phone call by explaining that you are NOT calling to ask for money but just to say, “thank you.” Touch bases on a personal level, share a year-end update, and schedule a time to have lunch with them in January (ideally at your agency’s office or facility).  Best case scenario is that some major donors will send an additional year-end gift without you asking (or even hinting); worst case scenario is that your donor will feel a joyous glow about the organization who called with holiday cheer and good wishes. 

No donor left behind campaign (Week Between Christmas and New Year)

This is crunch time for your development operations, and you want to bring your A-game! Start by making and sending personal videos to your top 50 LYBUNT donors (those folks who gave last year but not yet this year). These personal videos must be less than 60-seconds long and be addressed directly to the donor. Yes, that means you’ll make 50 videos for 50 LYBUNT donors. A standard script will help keep your videos short and ensure you can create and send them in just one day. 

Finally, use the urgency of December 31 to flood your donors and prospects on social media, social media direct messages, emails, and text messages. And ask your peer-to-peer solicitors to do the same. The six days from December 26 through December 31 pass quickly, and even your most curmudgeon of a donor will forgive over-asking during this week. 

These five simple tactics can help you raise tens-of-thousands more at the end of the year. And they work regardless of the type of nonprofit. That’s why I want you to look at your year-end calendar now and schedule one day each week to plan, implement, and activate each step.