How to Boost Year-End Giving

As the year draws to a close, now is the perfect time to elevate your school’s fundraising efforts. Discover quick, effective, and practical strategies to boost year-end giving, engage supporters, and achieve success for your school, group, or club.

4 Ways to Boost Year-End Giving

Email Outreach

Craft personalized messages to potential donors, showcase the impact of contributions, and utilize links. Email is one of the simplest of tasks, so use it to inspire community generosity that will take your fundraising to the next level.

Share Impactful Stories And Achievements From The Year

Include the most inspiring parts of your school or club’s year within the email. Whether it’s a newsletter or a “year-end” review, include highlights of the most transformative impact that donations throughout the year have had on student experiences, academic programs, and school-wide initiatives.

Through compelling narratives and images that put faces to the contributions, connections between donors and students will drive the support you’re looking for. The goal here is to reinforce the value of the donations that play in shaping the future of the school.

Include Beneficiary Testimonials And Visuals

Within emails, you may also want to include beneficiary testimonials along with the aforementioned visuals. Sharing real-life stories from students, teachers, and staff who have directly benefited from donations, illustrates the tangible impact of contributions in an even more powerful way.

Enhance engagement and evoke empathy by pairing testimonials with compelling visuals, such as photos or videos. By showcasing the transformative power of giving, you can inspire donors to make a meaningful difference in the lives of those within your school community.

Use A Strong Call To Action For Year-End Donations

Don’t forget to clearly communicate the urgency and impact donations can make for the rest of the school year, prompting supporters to take immediate action. Utilize a direct ask for year-end contributions, accompanied by prominent donation links. The goal here is to instill a sense of urgency and purpose.

Social Media Engagement

Similar to email, social media is a great way to reach potential donors in unique ways and lets you show rather than tell what your fundraisers have accomplished. Live streams, stories, posts, and relevant hashtags will help get your last call to action for the year in front of the community.

Develop A Unique Hashtag For The Year-End Giving Campaign

Creating a unique hashtag on social media for your school can help spread and meet your goals! Encourage supporters to use the hashtag when sharing their contributions, stories, and experiences, amplifying your campaign’s reach and visibility. With a dedicated hashtag, you can unite your community, spark conversations, and inspire generosity to achieve fundraising success.

Encourage Followers To Share And Engage With Your Content

Actively engage followers on social media. Encourage supporters to share your campaign content with their networks. Foster meaningful interactions by responding promptly to comments, messages, and shares, cultivating a sense of community and connection. By empowering followers to become ambassadors for your cause, you can ignite excitement, inspire generosity, and drive fundraising success.

Use Countdowns And Live Streams To Create Urgency And Interactive Engagement

Harness the power of countdowns to create excitement and urgency among followers. Embrace live streams to foster real-time engagement, showcasing impactful stories, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and donor appreciation moments.

By integrating countdowns and live streams into your campaign strategy, you can captivate your audience, drive interactive participation, and propel your donations.

Print Promotion

Utilize brochures, flyers, and direct mail campaigns to reach donors offline and reinforce your message. By blending traditional print methods with modern storytelling techniques, you can captivate audiences, inspire generosity, and drive fundraising success.

Distribute Flyers And Posters In Local Communities

Extend the reach of your school’s year-end campaign by distributing eye-catching flyers and posters throughout the local communities. Capture attention with compelling visuals and concise messages.

Strategically place materials in high-traffic areas such as coffee shops, community centers, and local businesses to raise awareness and inspire support. With print outreach, you can engage with a broader audience and rally community involvement.

Feature Stories Of Impact And How Donations Have Been Used

Ensure that you’re using stories of impact on these print items. Share the most compelling narratives that illustrate how contributions have directly benefited students, programs, and initiatives within your school community.

By highlighting tangible outcomes and success stories, you can inspire potential donors to make a meaningful difference and drive fundraising success.

Include QR Codes Linking To Your Donation Page

Enhance the accessibility and convenience of supporting your school by including QR codes in print materials. This can seamlessly connect donors to your donation page with a simple scan.

By leveraging QR codes that link directly to your FutureFund page, you can streamline the giving process, engage tech-savvy supporters, and maximize fundraising opportunities.

Word-of-Mouth Endorsements

Leverage personal connections and enthusiastic endorsements to spark interest and inspire donations. By harnessing the collective voice of your community, you can ignite excitement, foster trust, and propel your school toward the ultimate goal for the year.

Encourage Supporters To Share Their Experiences And Stories

Reach out to your supporters and encourage them to amplify your message through authentic, word-of-mouth advocacy.

By sharing heartfelt testimonials and anecdotes, supporters can inspire others to join in and contribute to your school’s success. Together, through the power of shared experiences, we can make a meaningful difference.

Create Ambassador Programs To Spread The Word In Communities

Take it a step further. Empower your most passionate supporters to advocate for your fundraising efforts, leveraging their personal networks and connections. Equip ambassadors with resources and talking points to effectively communicate your school’s mission and fundraising goals.

Through grassroots efforts and genuine engagement, ambassador programs can significantly expand your reach and inspire generosity within your community.

Offer Templates Or Key Messages For Supporters To Use When Talking About Your Cause

To make those ambassador programs run even more smoothly and with your specific goal in mind, provide supporters with templates and key messages to effectively share your school’s cause through word of mouth. Give them the tools to articulate your mission and impact, ensuring consistent and compelling communication.

Maximizing the Impact of Social Media on Year-End Fundraising Success

Harnessing the power of social media is essential for maximizing year-end giving at schools. By strategically leveraging platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok, schools can expand their reach, engage their communities, and inspire generosity like never before.

Through compelling storytelling, interactive content, and strategic calls to action, outreach by email, print, word-of-mouth, and especially social media enables schools to connect with donors on a personal level, driving increased participation and support for fundraising initiatives.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I use FutureFund’s messaging system to promote year-end giving or other specific fundraisers?

FutureFund’s messaging system lets you:

• Send messages to every parent in your school community or filter your audience to reach specific groups.
• Create unique sender profiles to make sure the message is always coming from the appropriate party.
• Use customizable message templates to save time when broadcasting updates or announcements.

Should my school fundraiser be a Purchase or a Donation campaign?

Use Purchase campaigns to sell event tickets or physical items (like baked goods, merchandise, or arts and crafts).

Use Donation campaigns to collect money from community members in support of a specific goal or cause (like a food drive).

Sometimes you can leverage specific holidays, such as Mother’s Day, to market a certain event or campaign with even more appeal to the community.

What are some creative fundraising ideas for boosting year-end giving?

We love brainstorming ideas for your fundraising needs. Check out some of these lists:

• Ultimate List of School Fundraising Ideas
• 20 Fundraising Ideas for High School Sports Teams
• 15 Elementary School Bake Sale Ideas

How do I sell sponsorships with FutureFund?

FutureFund displays sponsors on your school group’s online directory once they have agreed to make a contribution. You’ll be able to set the price for sponsorships on your own—but our team can provide guidance and support if you’re not sure what to charge.

How can I use FutureFund to track my fundraiser’s success?

FutureFund gives you the ability to generate financial reports for fundraising campaigns in just a few clicks. To do this, navigate to Store and click the Reports tab near the top of your screen. Then choose Campaign Summary from the drop-down menu and click Generate Report.