17 Dec 2012 1 Comment

What to expect from your year-end fundraising campaign

As you begin sending email appeals for your Holiday fundraising campaign, you might want to think about what results to expect.  It is time to start benchmarking your progress.  Doing this will not only serve to track current progress and measure it against past campaigns but also as a guide for future fundraisers.  To help you in this, NTEN put together an infographic that breaks down the average success of nonprofit email fundraising campaigns.  Here are some of their key findings.

Email benchmarks.  The infographic notes that 35% of online revenue came from emails, while 65% came from other online sources.  The study found a 12% open rate for fundraising emails.  To go along with this, there was a 0.47% click-through rate and a 0.08% response rate.  For advocacy campaigns the rates were higher, with a 14% open rate, a 4.2% click-through rate, and a 3.8% response rate.

Growth in online giving.  The NTEN study shows an increase in online giving by 20% with the average one time gift being $62 and the average monthly gift of $20.  This number is sure to increase as nonprofits become more tech-savvy and Americans become more online focused in their daily habits.

Room for improvement: Social Media.  For every 1,000 email subscribers a nonprofit has, it has 103 Facebook fans, 29 Twitter followers, and 12 mobile subscribers.  These subscribers contribute to 2.5 daily likes and comments for every 1,000 Facebook users.

These findings can prove helpful in formulating your organization’s goals for 2013. Here are some ways to improve the click-through rates of your emails:

Analyze your successes.  Take a look at past campaigns and see what worked and what didn’t.  Use these benchmarks as a guide and see how it matches up with your own data.  What kinds of appeals worked for you?  Were longer or shorter emails more successful?  Conduct a test to see the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities from each, and then base your next campaign off of those successes.

Have a clear call to action.  Link your appeal to a specific call to action.  A great way to do this is to show what the money is going to.  The American Red Cross has done a great job with this with their Digital Holiday Catalog.  In one example, donors can sponsor a full day of emergency shelter.  Each donation amount will tell you up to how many people it will shelter for the day.  This is a really effective call to action because donors know exactly what their money is going to and who they are helping.

Use social media to grow your list.  The great thing about social media is that it allows you to know what your potential donors are talking about.  Use this to your advantage by being a part of that conversation in a helpful way.  Be a friend and advocate for your cause and when the time is right, don’t be afraid to ask.  You’ll gain more supporters over time by being a helpful resource to those who share your passion.

To gain a stronger social media presence toward that effort, download your free eBook Guide to Sharing Your Fundraising Page with Social Media.

by John Jarowski in Fundraising Ideas Tags: , ,