Paola Espinosa:

Welcome to the Doing Good Lab podcast brought to you by Digizent International. We’re here with you to explore strategies, insights and ideas to help nonprofits thrive in a digital world. I’m your host, Paola, and I’m so glad you’re here. Today we’re talking about one of the biggest fundraising moments of the year: Year End Giving. We’ll break down how to prepare, engage donors and drive results during this season of generosity. And we will have a special gift for you at the end of the episode. To get us started, I’d like to introduce three incredible leaders from Digizent who are joining me today. First, we have Jim Killion, our founder and CEO. Welcome, Jim.

Jim Killion:

Hi, Paola. Great to be here. Thank you. Thank you.

Paola Espinosa:

Also we have Aaron Sandoval:, our Chief Creative officer. Welcome, Aaron.

Aaron Sandoval:

Hello. It’s great to be here again. Thank you.

Paola Espinosa:

And this time we are also excited to welcome a new guest, Danna Arnold, our senior Vice President of Strategic Services. Danna is a nonprofit fundraising strategist with years of experience helping organizations grow through effective digital strategies. Welcome, Danna. And thank you all for being here. Danna, please take a moment and introduce yourself to us.

Danna Arnold:

Hi. Hello. I’m so happy to be here. For those of you who don’t know me, my background started in traditional direct response agencies working with big brands. And throughout that experience, I would always get, you know, a one off pro bono nonprofit client. And it was through that I really decided, you know, I think I would like to do this full time. And so in about, in 2007, I found a shop called IS7 that was started and founded by Jim in a previous lifetime. And that is where I met him and Aaron and started working with them. And so we have a deep background. We go back many years and many lifetimes. So I’m just happy to be here and been at Digizent for 11 years now. Eleven and a half.

Paola Espinosa:

That’s awesome. Thank you, Danna. So I have a question for you all. Year end giving has evolved a lot over the years, especially with the rise of Giving Tuesday and digital fundraising. What are some of the important learnings and how have they shaped the way nonprofits approach this season?

Jim Killion:

That’s a great question, Pao. And there have been many changes over the years. I still remember when Giving Tuesday was launched and I thought it was a good idea, a needed idea, but I have to confess to being a little skeptical about it. One, it was early in the giving season and secondly, with many nonprofits getting about 30% of their annual income at the end of the year. I was concerned that it would be what I like to unfortunately call one and done give a small gift on Giving Tuesday and then don’t give any more. And how was that going to really handle the volume needed for most nonprofits to meet their budgets for the year? Well, thankfully it didn’t turn out to be what I was afraid it might be.

Instead, I think it’s really become the well known kickoff to the giving season. It’s sort of like waving the flag, the checkered flag at the start of the race. And so now if you’re not present on Giving Tuesday, it can send the false signal that we don’t need any of your help. We’re good. Give to someone else. So it’s really been an incredible phenomenon that hasn’t taken away from the last three days of the year where Benny Orgs get 10% of their annual income. So it doesn’t start an end to Giving Tuesday. Like I say, it’s just the opening, the flag, the starter’s gone. Whatever you want to use as a metaphor there. But because it’s such an important time of the year, I can’t overemphasize and I’m sure we’ll be talking about today preparation that goes into a good Year End strategy.

It’s not spontaneous. It takes planning. It takes a lot of work to execute well. But obviously it pays off. So as we go through our discussion today, I think what I always want to start with and end with is treat your donors well. Don’t treat them as numbers. Don’t treat them as part of this group or that group or this demographic or that decile, but rather as individuals, people with hearts, people with minds, people with souls that want to do good. Now it comes down to giving them the opportunity to be a part of what you’re doing that resonates with them, their values, their passions, their commitments. It’s a great challenge.

Danna Arnold:

And I’m going to jump right in here. And I completely agree with everything you’re saying, Jim. And you know, one of the things that you mentioned is just making sure your donors are communicated with all year long in a personal tone. They’re thanked and valued throughout the year, not just December. A really important factor is that, you know, you plan and you build trust and an emotional connection throughout the year. And it’s not just, oh, it’s the end of the year, let’s put a campaign together. Back on your topic on Giving Tuesday, how you know, it’s the kind of red the checker flag of going and your giving season. I do. I wanted to share a quote with one of our clients, Michael Johnson, who is the president of Slavic Gospel Association.

And his quote is: “With the bump we saw on Giving Tuesday, we’re seeing roughly a 70% increase in online revenue growth fiscal year to date as well as 60% growth in the gift count. This is most encouraging. Thank you, Digizent. You and your wonderful staff are a great blessing to us”. So just it goes to further prove, you know, the giving season with the kickoff of Giving Tuesday all the way through year end, it’s so key and so important that you plan your communication and cadence all the way through as well as the rest of the year.

Aaron Sandoval: 

You both mentioned the importance of connecting with the heart of the donor. And it’s really interesting to think of where the donor is emotionally, spiritually toward the end of the year, right? They’ve, they’ve gone through everything they’ve gone through in that year. And so now they’re in a time of reflection, they’re in a time of hope for many, right? This is, this is a season of hope, of connection, of family. And so it’s a wonderful time to speak to the donor’s heart. There’s so much going on. We talked about the history of giving Tuesday and, I agree with you. It’s amazing to see how much impact it has had culturally. All organizations now are really leveraging this. And so because of that, there can be a lot of noise at that juncture.

There can be a lot of noise as inboxes as your mailbox is full. So making sure that we’re communicating to the heart of the donor, right. That we are providing them with that connection to why they support this particular cause is critical because otherwise it’s just a game. Which one did you pick to give to? Where in reality is, if they connected with you, there’s a reason there’s a reason for that empathy, there’s a reason for that interest. There’s a reason for that desire to be a part of the mission. So let’s talk about that. Let’s connect with donors on those areas specifically. And year end is a great time to do it again because of the, of where they are mentally at this point of the year.

Jim Killion:

Let me just hitchhike on that real quickly, Aaron. Again, I think we’re all on the same page here. I think of year end giving as a fast moving stream. It’s the time of year where more people will tell your friends will say, I’ve got so much to do. I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done before Christmas. I don’t. And then it’s. I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done I need to get done by New Year’s Eve. It’s just there’s so much. So if we think of this metaphor, this image of this fast moving stream, now go back in time and think of horses crossing that stream. It’s challenging right now. You’re a rider one of those horses. Your donors are riders on those horses. They’re not likely to change horses in the middle of that stream.

It’s not comfortable. It’s maybe a little scary and you just don’t do it. That ties all the way back into building that relationship over the year. Relationship of appreciation, relationship with information, relationships that go beyond the busyness. Because most people don’t make a first gift in December. They may make their biggest gift though, in December, if we’re doing that right.

Paola Espinosa:

Well, let’s talk about the donation experience. Because even the most compelling appeal can fall flat if the giving experience isn’t smooth. Right?

Danna Arnold:

Absolutely. You know, in all of our years working on with nonprofits, we’ve come across pretty much every donation platform out there. There’s some big ones, there’s some small ones. And one thing kind of stayed steady throughout my career is were always trying to improve the donation form. We were always testing, always doing different variables. And you know, with a lot of platforms still experiencing a lot of abandonment, a lot of people getting there with every click or every even sometimes it’s. The fields can be in different orders, it causes anxiety for the donor and they abandon. And so we’ve taken all of those learnings and created FlexFormz seven years ago. And I remember even, you know, with SGA, the client I mentioned earlier, they were, you know, our first client we put on platforms and immediately started seeing an 80% increase in their gifts giving. And that is one, wjust made it easy. It’s so important to make giving easy. We made the ability to give on the page to where they don’t have to leave and click somewhere else. We looked at, you know, all the different factors from all of our years of testing donation forms and we’ve really implemented and fine tuned it for the best donor experience possible. It’s great with having, you know, light boxes, everything’s mobile, optimized, your wallet, your digital wallet, Apple Pay, Google pay, donors can use that. And with the increase we’re seeing of site traffic on mobile. That is also really important.

You know, I think we found kind of a wonderful combination of feature sets based on testing and data and analytics to help improve that experience and improve conversion rate.

Aaron Sandoval: 

You know what I find really interesting, Danna, is the importance of the details. So many little interface elements or even on a reply card, right? It’s not a digital interface element, but everything that’s in that aspect of doing the ask, doing the final transaction, there’s friction in all these little places, right? And you’re right. One of the things we’ve done with FlexFormz has really studied that to try and eliminate the friction as much as possible. This friction can be in every area of the process. One of the ones I think that a lot of people overlook is the actual call to action, right. The CTA. How are we asking people to act upon their intention? And I think most people or most organizations will think, well, we’ll just put a button in.

But the importance of even the language on that button, it’s critical. We need to test that. And as an organization, what you can do is test what language works best. Test out a give now versus an option like help a child now. Try to connect with that emotional aspect, with that main messaging that you’re putting through on the appeal. So looking for that, maybe adding some sense of urgency, double your gift before midnight in December 31st kind of call to action right where you’re putting that right into the button. Now I do want to say something that many tend to fall into this trap, especially on digital when you’re, when you have a Year End ask you want to say please give your gift. Hurry to give your gift before December 31st.

Which is great if you’re sending that email on the 29th or the 30th, but if you send that message on the 3rd, basically what you’re telling is the don’t to the donor. Just shelve this for now. Don’t worry about it. You have 20 plus days to deal with this. And so just be careful in how you create and craft that language. The digital world is a now world, right? And so everything is in the moment. If it’s not dealt with immediately, if they don’t click at that moment, they’re gone. They’re not going to come back to the email. They’re not going to come back to that landing page got to happen now. So let me encourage you. In direct mail, you can get away with a call to action in the letter give today, right? Or send your donation today, that’s a different logistics. It’s a different reality.

On digital, you need to use the word now because that gift happens right now. And so encouragement just to think through what the call to action is on your button, on your donation form. You can also, you know, track not just what you’ve done in the past on year end, look at other campaigns you have created, whether it be fiscal year end organizational anniversaries or special campaigns that you’ve done throughout the year. Where are you getting some of your best results? Track that messaging, see what resonates and see if that’s something that you can apply this year end. See if that’s a way to connect with donors more. There’s always so much that you can learn from the data that you have.

Jim Killion:

That’s so right. It sounds almost contrived. I hear us agreeing with each other so much, but we’ve done this together so much. We’ve seen the data so much, we’ve tested so much. And it’s great to be able to share just little pieces of what we’ve learned. The reality is, and you both have talked about it, but what I call the dirty secret of online financial transactions, whether it’s a commercial cart or a donation form online, the dirty secret is abandonment rate. In most cases, it’s over 50%. Think about that. Somebody comes as far in a shopping cart to buy an item, or they come as far on your donation form online to make a gift, and then they exit out of the page.

One of the things we worked really hard on, as you know, on FlexFormz, is to reduce that abandonment rate, make it so simple, take the barriers down, reduce the fear, increase the benefit. None of this is more important than at Year End. And Aaron, you touched on it. This also applies to direct mail as well. I was around in the early days of direct mail for nonprofits, and one of the first things we discovered through testing and looking at the data is that your reply slip, if you will, made a huge difference in the success or failure of your fundraising. Too often, and especially as we’re trying to do so much in a digital age, we throw the kitchen sink at the reply slip and we make it so cluttered.

It’s like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this or I don’t have time to deal with all of this. So we have a different kind of analog abandonment rate there, making it simple, making it direct, making it clear. And I would just say the hybrid. If you’re not doing it you really ought to be having a QR code on that printed reply slip to bring you over to that online form because you can get an immediate gift. I’m not talking about just the flow of money to you, which is quicker, of course, but it reduces that gap of abandonment. It captures the gift while the person is most interested in it. So all of these details inside a larger campaign strategy are critically important.

Paola Espinosa:

I know were talking about messaging, but what about timing? Because when it comes to Year End Giving, what you say matters, right? But when and how often you say it’s perhaps even more critical. Right?

Aaron Sandoval:

Huge.

Danna Arnold: 

Absolutely. As a big planner myself and a big fan of planning and structure, I always tell my clients, you know, one of the best things you can do is to map out your year end strategy early and not October early, you know, July, August early. So, you know, having a calendar based strategy of like when are we messaging, when are we thinking, when are we informing throughout the year and then most especially what our cadences at the end of the year, when are we going out, what are we going out with? So it just helps also, you know, having that panic of building a campaign on the fly late, you know, starting in October, trying to get everything in and getting all your resources. And we all know that can be sometimes a big challenge in itself.

Jim Killion:

Yes. You know, calendaring is critically important and I can testify that nobody’s more obsessive about that than Danna. But to good end both for family and for clients. Think about it. It’s pretty easy to have some hooks here to hang our thinking on. We have Thanksgiving and then the after Thanksgiving is Giving Tuesday and then we have Christmas and we have Year End. But there’s details in there that really matter. Are you saying thank you clearly, sincerely and in a non organizational language way on Thanksgiving. That is an important beginning to your season. You’re just Thursday to Tuesday away from your first major effort for that Year End giving on Giving Tuesday. So regardless of your fundraising plans, be sure you say thank you. Well, Giving Tuesday we’ve talked about.

Then there’s a cadence about other communication, both direct mail and online, including not just email, your homepage banner, your social media, your paid media, all of these things need to come together. Way back when I first started in this, we, a colleague and I developed the December 24 letter and it was a personal reflection from the leader of the nonprofit on Christmas Eve, mailed and postmarked first class on December 24 and received in that kind of dead period between Christmas and New Year’s it became for many of our clients the number one income producer of the year. Why? It was relational, it was respectful, it was warm and it really was as close to one as we can get. You can still that digitally. It’s a little less personal because it’s not something I can hold in my hand that’s been signed.

But think about what are we saying on Christmas Eve or on the 26th, 27th. Don’t just wait for the 31st. Fill those gaps with from the heart opportunities to give that rhythm which every calendars may be slightly different. There’s nothing terribly sacred except to make sure you are there on Christmas or a New Year’s Eve morning. You’ve got to be there that last day.

Aaron Sandoval: 

One of the things that I have always found interesting in the it is you’ve got these book days, right? You were referring to Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday and then on the other end you have Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve and you have this, it’s called desert. In the middle you have early December. What do you do in early December? And and really touching into what you’re talking about, really showing that gratitude to the donors. That’s a wonderful window to take advantage of. It’s a great time to be able to talk about the impact, right? To use stories to remind donors how their past gift have made a difference in this year. You can tell stories of lives that have been touched, you can tell stories of situations that have changed for the better, all because you, the donor have been a part of this.

And so it’s a wonderful window to have that storytelling time, the time to really engage people knowing that you have the other elements that are going to be natural, right? You’re going to have the Christmas, you’re going to have the New Year’s but in those early days of December, it’s a wonderful time to really tell the story of the impact the donor is having.

Danna Arnold:

What I found to be really effective during that kind of desert period is to test and look at different segments. So first time donors, non donors, new audiences, they might need a little bit more education and so kind of using that time of speaking to them in a way of why year end is important and how this helps in the upcoming year for the organization. So you know, those are some key times that is good for testing without, you know, the urgency of the December 31st deadline. Jim, I’ll let you finish your thoughts.

Jim Killion:

Yeah, thank you, Danna. That’s good, that’s good. The two kind of different points I was going to Jump in on that you both triggered. And one is I said earlier we don’t get a lot of new donors that time of year doesn’t mean we don’t try. But you might say, well why are we doing social media, much less paid media, the people or the ones who actually are most impacted by that are your current donors. So you’re really not there at that point so much as prospecting, as encouraging and collecting from your current donors. If you start looking at that data, all of which is not one to one traceable by the way, you have to look more deeply into your analytics to see where that’s coming from. It makes a big difference.

I’ll save my second thought for a little bit of some summary thinking here in a minute. But Aaron, Danna, any more thoughts?

Aaron Sandoval: 

Yeah, you know again, when you think about communication at the year end, I’d love to encourage organizations. Think of all the tools you have in your toolkit. Think of the different methods you have at your disposal to really communicate what you’re trying to communicate. How you share the impact, how you share the opportunity for people to give your website. You need to be front and center Year End at your website. Make sure your homepage main banner is talking about year end giving. Use light boxes. They work really well. They are an opportunity for a donor to get really focused messaging from you and it’s a great opportunity for them to click immediately into a donation in a donation form. Email campaigns, you can schedule emails throughout the whole season and we talked about different things you could do at different times.

Jim, you referred to organic and paid media, social posts. I mean those are all tools to reach people in different places where there might be. One thing that we have experienced and been experimenting with is website countdowns, right? Where you have a countdown to Year End where you have an opportunity to say there’s still two days, 14 hours 27 minutes after the countdowns going. It brings in a visual sense of urgency to be able to make an impact this year. Use specialized landing pages, right? Drive to landing pages from your paid media, from your social media, from email and take them quickly to a donation form as well. So there’s a lot of tools you can use this year and use all of them. That’d be my recommendation.

Jim Killion:

And speaking of that, make sure that you don’t have too many suggested giving amounts on your form. We’ve tested again and again. If you have more than three suggested giving amounts, not counting a fill in the blank for your own amount, you are diminishing your results. Too many choices keep people from making a choice. Also, make sure, particularly because we’re talking digital right now, or I’m thinking digital right now. Make sure you don’t undershoot your gift amount in that array. Don’t be afraid to have something like $75, $150, 5000 if you have an appropriate stretch gift amount, put it there. Or a challenge to your donors that are capable as well as that. Alongside that, I guess I should say think about segmentation. Danna, you talked about that earlier. Think about segmenting off your donors whose average gift is north of $1,000.

And don’t put a suggested giving amount at all. Just give them a single line. You can also, if they haven’t given monthly gifts, but they give large gifts, take the monthly option off. Give fewer choices, more choices, less response. Fewer choices, greater response. So think about the behavior of your donors and make sure you’re online form, which is so easy to customize. Especially with FlexFormz which is designed in five minutes you can create a new form. Make those choices logical and compelling to your segment.

Paola Espinosa:

So let’s summarize this podcast. What would be your takeaways for this episode?

Jim Killion:

Well, I think we’ve talk about a lot of things in a short amount of time, but for me, kind of picking and choosing from what everyone has said and from my own experience, 1. You need a calendar. You need to not talk on top of yourself, but you need to not let too many gaps form. Many of your donors are receiving 100 emails per day or more. If you’re not there, particularly when other voices from other nonprofits are bombarding your donors, be sure that you’re heard. Don’t be shy about sending email, but at the same time make sure your messaging is calendared as well. Don’t keep saying the same thing. If it’s the same message, find a different way to say it.

Tell a different story, put some data in there, or just go warmly from the heart, especially as I said, around Christmas Eve and right after. But make your calendar, make it variety, make it purposeful, and don’t be your own worst enemy. I think we’ve touched on it earlier as well. There’s a time for storytelling, there’s time for a simple direct ask. There’s time to use statistics, and there’s time to use just heartfelt emotion. Make sure you don’t just have one of those that you continue to repeat. Calendar those bring some variety to it all along the way. Remember, even though you’re busy and even though your gift volume is high, don’t lose sight of the need to quickly and appropriately acknowledge and appreciate your donations as they come in. If you’re falling behind, that’s not a good thing.

You don’t donors to have to contact you the 5th of January and say did you get my gift? I didn’t hear anything. Unfortunately, more and more things happen like that and with a variety of giving methods, especially for some of your older donors who may be giving through directly from an IRA or somebody giving through a donor advised fund. These alternate ways, if you will to give sometimes don’t get acknowledged in the normal strength. Be sure you’re saying thank you appropriately. Think about that as well in terms of something we haven’t mentioned yet, a short video message from the leader of your organization as a part of either a landing page, maybe even your homepage, but also in an email that triggers that.

Think of ways to continually and uniquely express what it is you’re doing, why they donor can trust you, why their gift will make a difference, and then thank you, thank you. If you’re not already tailoring your online donation immediate thank yous to what they gave to you need to fix that. And again, that’s something that every platform doesn’t have. But for example, with FlexFormz, every donation form can have a distinct Thank You message. Don’t make it sound like they could have given that gift in July when you just talked about the urgency of the year end. And then finally remember there is a simple classic formula for broad based fundraising success. And that formula is we need X dollars by Y date or Z activity will or will not happen.

So you’re making sure that the need is clear, the timing of that need is clear, and the consequences of either helping meet that need or the need going unmet will have.

Danna Arnold:

Thank you Jim. For me, one of the things that I think about and would like for everyone to take away from listening here is that Year End giving isn’t just about year end, it’s everything you do all along the way. And one of the key things is I mentioned FlexFormz and having a clear, easy way for the donor to give that’s so crucial. So if any of you want to learn more about FlexFormz, there’ll be a link in the show notes and it’s flexforms F L E X F O R M Z dot com. If you want to learn more. We’re happy to demo it and show you everything it can do for your organization.

Jim Killion:

I have to add in there that with FlexFormz there’s no setup fee and there’s no monthly fee. There is only a 1% fee with each giving transaction, so there’s every reason to test it. It will not cost you to test it against your current form or I think once you see it, you’re going to realize, including the back office features that most accounting and finance departments and nonprofits end up loving. Lots of reason to consider FlexFormz with a Z, not an S, as you said.

Paola Espinosa:

Thank you so much Jim, Danna and Aaron. This time was full of deep knowledge, practical ideas and great conversation. Perfect for the given season ahead.

Danna Arnold:

Thank you for having me.

Paola Espinosa:

Oh, you’re welcome. It’s so good to have you here.

Jim Killion:

Thank you all so much.

Paola Espinosa:

We hope today’s episode gave you practical ideas and encouragement to make the most of the year and giving. At Digizent, we believe that good fundraising is rooted in relationships and that a great donor experience begins long before December. If you’re ready to take your digital strategy to the next level, visit Digizent.com to learn how we can help. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on the Doing Good Lab podcast.

Aaron Sandoval: 

We’ve talked about a lot of ideas in this episode, everything from email to calendars to messaging. And I’m sure you are making a list and checking it twice of all the things you need to prepare for Year end giving. But let me tell you, we have our Year End gift for you. We’ve put together a Year End giving checklist for you. Something that you can download and print and immediately put into action. So download your free Year End Giving checklist. That’s our gift from Digizent to you. You can get digizent.com/podcast there’s a link in the notes of this episode. Let this that guide your campaign planning and execution for this year end.

For more information and resources, please visit digizent.com/podcast