How is Your Team Gearing up for Giving Season?
The holiday season is hectic for any industry, and it’s just around the corner. If your nonprofit is planning a holiday giving catalog, there are some important details to consider before setting one up.
First, what is a giving catalog? It’s a single page or platform where nonprofit organizations can list virtually any type of fundraising ask. This might include support for an ongoing named fund, a one-time ask for a specific project or event, or a recurring ask or registration for membership.
These are common examples, but they can be whatever you need. Additional examples are items, a single donation, or even coverage for ongoing costs. These are all listed together for donors to browse so they can find and support the causes they care about most. More importantly, the asks tie a donor’s gift to an impact (e.g., just $10 provides 25 children with meals this holiday season.)
This is why holiday giving catalogs are so important. Not only are you providing donors with giving options that are aligned with your goals, but you’re also showing the impact of donors’ gifts. And people want to know how their money will be used.
All the activity toward the end of the year isn’t for nothing, either. More than 30 percent of annual giving online happened in the month of December in 2017. That’s just about one-third of all donations in an entire year. Considering that statistic, how do you manage your year-end initiatives?
Streamline Your Fundraising Process with a Holiday Giving Catalog in a Single Platform
When you’re getting a holiday giving catalog ready for the giving season, there’s a good amount of work that has to be done before you can launch it. But once it’s out, the real work begins. You’ll need to be able to process donor information, manage the financial aspects of donor gifts and what those gifts go toward, reporting on progress and analyzing results, and so on. And this is all happening while keeping your messaging consistent in emails and social marketing, and more — all while you’re still trying to broaden the reach of your catalog.
It can quickly turn into a tangled mess, and things easily slip through the cracks. With one of the most profitable times of year for nonprofits, this is an important matter that requires care and shouldn’t be taken lightly. But how do you make your team more efficient?
If you want to make managing and maintaining a fundraising campaign easy, centralize everything you need to do in one platform. And we don’t just mean one person’s computer. Rather than having information scattered in spreadsheets, documents, and notes, use an online giving platform as the one area where you keep everything related to your holiday fundraising.
How does this help? Aside from less stress, operational expense, simplified marketing efforts, and more time for other year-end tasks, your fundraising efforts will be in a stronger position to deliver measurable, repeatable success.
Externally, with a giving platform, you’ll have a single place where your donors can go to learn more about you, your cause, and what your campaigns are. It’s also where they can donate and see how their fundraising interests are progressing. Your campaign will be well-designed and well-branded with little work on your part. Since you won’t have to spend time making sure everything is on brand, you can go back to focusing on the next most important task.
Your constituents can also be a part of your campaign through peer-to-peer fundraising or crowdfunding. At Big River, we make it easy for your constituents to participate with templates and messaging that’s already been created so they can set up their page and start sharing with just a few clicks.
Rather than getting people to share your cause through word of mouth, let your holiday giving platform spread like wildfire by taking advantage of your constituents’ networks. People are more likely to get involved with something when it’s coming from someone they already trust, so this is a great way to get your foot in the door.
Internally, an online giving platform makes you and your team’s lives easier. While your potential donors have one place that they can visit to support your cause, you’ll have one place where you can follow up on progress and manage orders without getting lost or confused because you’re missing information. As soon as an order comes in, you’ll be able to process, invoice, and update inventory all from one single location. Everyone on your team will be able to be on the same page, and you’ll be able to focus on boosting your campaign. And of course, you’ll be able to provide in-depth reporting on your campaigns’ performance.
Use a Holiday Giving Catalog that Takes Your Fundraising to the Next Level
If you’re ready to trust an online giving platform as you gear up for giving season, you deserve to have a partner who will make it your most successful season yet. Big River’s online giving platform helps nonprofits of any type or size. Why work with us? We allow you to set up campaigns in minutes, and you can manage all your campaigns in one easy-to-use platform — rather than multiple spreadsheets or tools.
With the majority of online giving happening in December, don’t trust this key part of the year to just anyone. We’ll work with you to build a holiday giving catalog that creates results, and we’d love to show you how.
