Why early giving Tuesday and holiday planning drives year-end success
November and December have always been the lifeblood of nonprofit fundraising, with nearly one-third of annual donations flowing in the final month of the year alone. Q4 isn’t just a season of charity, it’s a make-or-break period that sets the stage for the entire next year of the organization. It’s fair to say that everything hinges on the success of Giving Tuesday and holiday giving campaign planning, yet too many nonprofits delay strategizing until the fall (or later), scrambling on donor outreach just when attention is most divided.
Not only does this result in missed fundraising opportunities, but it also prevents nonprofits from differentiating their cause and connecting more deeply with their donors. Avoiding these Q4 revenue shortfalls should be your number priority — and something to focus on now. Summer is the perfect time to get a head start on everything you need to create a successful holiday giving campaign. Here’s what to keep in mind to ensure your team is celebrating when the ball drops on December 31.
Facing reality: start planning now for Giving Tuesday success
The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) America reports that a staggering 62% of all donors plan to donate in November and December, dwarfing giving rates from January to October. What’s more, 15% of survey participants only give during the holiday season. Holiday giving has historically been the financial backbone of the nonprofit sector and Giving Tuesday has only institutionalized this fundraising seasonality for the social media age. The global generosity movement generated a record-breaking $3.6 billion in donations in the U.S. alone in 2024, pushing its cumulative impact to over $18.5 billion since its founding in 2012.
Despite all of the economic upheaval reshaping the world as we know it, Altrata found that charitable giving is thriving, and donation amounts and volume are only expected to grow as the Great Wealth Transfer picks up steam. In a recent report with CAF, Altrata found that, in 2023, high-net-worth people in the UK donated an estimated £7.96 billion, equivalent to 0.4% of their investable assets. This donation amount is in addition to the £13.9 billion given by the general population in 2023 (UK Giving).
This is good news for nonprofit organizations looking ahead to their holiday giving campaign planning: you can expect your efforts to be just as worthwhile — if not more urgent — than the years before.
Of course this explosive growth in charitable giving also brings fierce competition for donor dollars. Nonprofits now face a crowded landscape where donors are bombarded with appeals, making it harder than ever to stand out. Focus on Giving Tuesday especially is a winning strategy for nonprofit fundraisers, but the average donor’s inbox is flooded with 5 or more Giving Tuesday emails, not counting social media posts, texts, and direct mailings.
With such an oversaturation of marketing material and incredible demand for attention, donors expect much more from outreach efforts than they have in the past.
To break through, nonprofits must deliver hyper-personalized appeals that speak directly to a donor’s giving history and their personal passions. But this level of personalization requires you to get started now.
Why early holiday giving campaign planning wins year-end metrics
Planning ahead on a quarterly basis traditionally makes sense from a marketing standpoint because the landscape is changing so rapidly, but nonprofits that start planning Q4 in summer gain a decisive advantage. Here’s why:
- Strategic clarity without scrambling – Summer’s slower pace allows more time for data analysis, creative storytelling, audience segmentation, and message personalization, allowing your team to get truly organized, and more in touch with messaging about what your organization is about.
- Time for testing and optimization – Early planners can gain an edge not only with better-crafted messaging, but more extensive A/B testing, time to refine donor journeys, and fine-tune tactics before peak giving season for higher conversion rates.
- Highly personalized outreach – Donors are going to be bombarded from every channel by organizations requesting their charity. Messages that truly speak to donors as individuals won’t just stand out from the crowd, but actually build a connection with recipients.
- First-mover advantage – Setting strategy early also allows you to execute holiday giving campaigns earlier, potentially locking in donor commitments for the holiday before competitors have even begun outreach.
Four holiday giving campaign planning tips for right now
With so many benefits to beginning holiday giving campaign planning in the summer, giving yourself the advantage is a no-brainer. If you’re committed to getting a jumpstart on Q4 marketing, here’s 4 ways to actually spend the extra time and resources:
- Audit previous campaign metrics – Begin by reviewing the engagement strategies, messaging frameworks, and other outreach elements that were most effective in years prior. Don’t just examine last year’s, look at data and trends and how efforts played out over time. Focus especially on KPIs like conversion rates, email opens, and donor retention. Did certain messages perform better? Were some channels more effective than others? Did some donor segments give more than others? Identifying these trends helps your team double down on successful tactics while avoiding repeats of previous mistakes.
- Define your goals – A strong campaign needs clear objectives. Are you focused on fundraising targets, donor acquisition, or re-engaging lapsed supporters? Set specific measurable goals, such as increasing average gift size by a specific percent, or boosting the number of recurring donations.
- Segment data – Segmenting lets you tailor outreach, whether it’s a major donor personal call, a lapsed donor reactivation email, or a volunteer appreciation campaign. Use summer’s slower pace to categorize supporters by giving history, engagement level, and capacity. Testing messages on small groups helps ensure better performance when campaigns are under way.
- Craft targeting messaging – With such an oversaturation of marketing material and incredible demand for attention, donors expect much more from outreach efforts than they have in the past. Now, highly personalized messaging is a pre-requisite to open emails, let alone actually donating to a cause. Use past interactions to customize asks and deploy them across every channel you focus on. The more tailored and multi-channel your approach, the better your results.
Cut through the Giving Tuesday noise with Altrata
Even with a head start on holiday giving campaign planning in the summer, the intensive labor needed for segmentation and donor research can still be overwhelming to manage. Altrata is a secret weapon for nonprofit fundraisers to get the valuable people intelligence they need.
The key capabilities most useful for holiday giving campaign planning are:
Donor Prospecting, allowing you to uncover hidden potential in your existing database before Giving Tuesday. Altrata helped Mercy Ships UK identify underutilized donors for major gifts within their pool of small recurring donations.
Campaign Personalization from leveraging wealth indicators, past giving behavior, and engagement data to segment donors and craft hyper-personalized asks that resonate with recipients. Altrata helped the University of Portsmouth better understand the potential in their alumni and faculty networks to identify an entire new pool of donors.
Relationship Mapping tools that shine light on who people know, how they’re connected, and the value of those connections. The St. Paul & Minnesota Foundation used Altrata to better understand the relationship potential their board already possessed, resulting in more tailored asks, and massive revenue growth.
As a leader in wealth screening, donor insights, and prospecting tools, Altrata helps nonprofits transform raw data into smarter outreach, stronger engagement, and most importantly: bigger gifts. Ready to see how Altrata can elevate your holiday giving campaign planning? Schedule a demo to start building your high-impact strategy before Giving Tuesday begins.
Already have your holiday giving campaign planning complete? Here’s how to bridge the gap between Giving Tuesday and the new year.