It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time to send some year-end fundraising emails! Or else it’s time to look blankly at the page while you try to plan your year-end fundraising email campaign because you’re not sure how many emails is too many or what your emails should include.
Deep breaths. If that’s you, we’ve got just what you need: a practical list of the types of emails that are great for year end, suggested timelines, and a template for building your own year-end email fundraising campaign. Ready? Let’s dive in!
In our experience, it’s a good idea to send at least five emails during your year-end campaign to ensure your message makes it out to donors- remember, not everyone is going to see every email you send. These emails should coincide with your wider, multi-channel year-end campaign promotion timeline.
We’ll get into more detail about the types of emails you can send, but all of them should include some story-driven content. Think about what will get your donors emotionally invested in your work, and then showing them how they can make a difference.
Here are the elements that should be included in all of your emails:
Let’s look more carefully at each kind of email in turn.
Before you properly launch your year-end fundraising campaign, it’s a good idea to send an email that’s not asking for anything. Simply thank your donors and let them know you’re thinking of them. We even have 14 ideas of how you can thank your donors at Thanksgiving. Here’s what this email should include:
This is an ideal email to send right around Thanksgiving to fit in thematically.
The soft launch is a chance to introduce your campaign to hand-picked supporters before you push it out to larger networks. If you’re planning on doing a soft launch, putting together a strong email to introduce your campaign to supporters is integral.
Here’s what the email should include:
This email can go out around the same time that your thank you email goes, or even a bit before. It will depend on what you want your supporters to do and how much time you think they’ll need, but in general leave two weeks between your main launch and your soft launch.
Ok, you’ve set up your donors with a thank you email and run your soft launch. Now it’s time to introduce the world to your year end campaign. Here’s what belongs in this email:
Ideally this email can drop between Thanksgiving and GivingTuesday. You’ll pick up on these same themes in your GivingTuesday email.
It’s a good idea to send something on GivingTuesday, even if you’re not planning a full campaign. It’s even better if you can seamlessly blend GivingTuesday and your year-end campaign. In some cases, you may want to use your GivingTuesday email as the launch of your year-end campaign. It’s up to you!
Here’s what to include:
Obviously this email should head out on GivingTuesday.
Now your donors know what’s up and it’s your job to keep reminding them that there’s time to donate. Your second year-end fundraising email can dive deeper into a story or program. Your donors know the overview of the campaign. Now it’s time to sell them on it. Here’s what to include:
This email can go out a few days to a week after GivingTuesday.
This is your last general campaign email, and another chance to tell more of your story. Here’s what you can do to make it stand out:
This email can go out the second week in December.
Now it’s time to start instilling urgency into your campaign. You’re over halfway through December and donors need to take an action now.
This email should go out between Dec 20th-Dec 27th to drive urgent gifts before the end of the year.
This is your last ask of the year and you want to make the most of it!
After the year is over you don’t want to ghost your supporters. In the first week of January make sure that you send a thank you/follow up email to let them know how your campaign went. Include:
If you’re wondering how this all comes together, here’s an example of what your communications schedule might look like:
Nov. 21: Thank you email with Thanksgiving theme
Nov. 27: Soft launch campaign email to invite board members to fundraise
Nov. 28: GivingTuesday email focusing on a matching grant
Dec. 5: Campaign launch email with details about your goal and impact
Dec 10: Campaign email #2 with a client story
Dec. 17: Campaign email #3 with updates on how you’re doing so far
Dec. 27: ‘3 days left’ email focused on what’s left to be done
Dec. 31: Last chance email with powerful stats about what you did in 2023
January 4: Thank you and follow up email letting supporters know how the campaign went
When you set up an email campaign like this you get a few benefits. First, you’ve got a clear plan so that you don’t spend your last few months scrambling to get donations and feeling panicked. But even more importantly, a carefully structured email campaign will increase your year-end fundraising.
A final note to keep in mind: you could write the best emails in the world, but if the donation process is difficult or the content on your page just isn’t up to standard, you’ll miss out on donations.
To get the best results, you’ll want to create an online, branded year-end fundraising campaign with a live progress bar and more content, and a page that drives donor conversion. Bonus tip: keep in mind many people check emails on their phone, so it needs to be mobile optimized.
Don’t forget to make sure that your email plan falls in line with your larger year-end strategies.
Are you ready to start preparing your year-end fundraising campaign? CauseVox has tools that make it all easy, You can drive all your supporters to one page for donations, ticketing and peer to peer, and use beautiful donation forms for one-time, monthly recurring and pledge donations.
Raise more with less effort. Easy for you to set up and easy for your donors to navigate.
Editor’s Note: This post was updated in October 2023 for relevance.
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