Strategic planning, Digital strategy

End-of-Year 2024 Digital Fundraising: Final Report

We have arrived in 2025 – with another end-of-year fundraising season in the books. And already in just the first few weeks of the year, nonprofits are busy with emergency response and critical campaigns to protect and support their communities. As we work alongside our partners in those efforts, analyses like these offer crucial insight into the next best strategies. This end of year, the learnings were many, so we’re eager to get them into the hands of nonprofit leaders.

Nonprofit fundraisers faced a broad array of challenges in 2024. Coming off the heels of a deeply consuming election, nonprofits worried that donor performance would show fatigue; extra competition at end of year (including an ever-increasing presence of retail) left email programs fighting harder; a December Giving Tuesday pressed fundraisers to move breathlessly from one major campaign to the next within the same month.

As an industry, we have done our best work when we come together to solve our challenges. Through pressure testing off one another, sharing takeaways, and collaboration, we are better able to support our communities when we combine experience and resources to lift each other up. At MissionWired, we’re honored to partner with nonprofits that share this vision, and our 2024 End-of-Year Report, which pulls together data from our more than 60 nonprofit partners of all sizes and sectors to inform our top results and analyses, is a celebration of the power that doing this work together can have on each individual mission or cause.

Taken in total, the impact of year-end fundraising efforts across our nonprofit partners is staggering:

Going into 2025, our partners are powered by this essential revenue to support their efforts to provide international and domestic aid, support health and education, and fight against climate change, hunger, and gun violence – causes we care deeply about and are honored to get to support.

So how did our partners maximize every opportunity to drive revenue and growth? And what are the strategies you can leverage to strengthen your campaigns in 2025? Our End-of-Year Report will dig into the data to bring you our biggest fundraising takeaways, from channel diversification like SMS strategies and paid advertising approaches to innovative donor acquisition sources and top-performing Giving Tuesday and end-of-year creative.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the trends and takeaways!


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CALENDAR MATTERS: REVENUE OVER TIME

Over the years, we’ve found that the particularities of a year’s calendar will inevitably impact the shape of day-by-day giving throughout the end-of-year season. This was especially apparent in 2024 – and led to learnings that can help shape strategy in the years to come.

1. A packed December for fundraising appeals shifted expectations and was a bit of a mixed bag.

Traditionally, we talk about Giving Tuesday results as offering an important preview into what end-of-year giving will look like for your organization – but we saw that the connection between the two major giving moments was not as uniform as previous years. While some of our nonprofit partners saw equally strong results on Giving Tuesday and end of year, others saw stellar performance on Giving Tuesday make their end-of-year revenue seem light or saw a softer Giving Tuesday ramp up to show-stopping results in the final days of the year.

Case Study One nonprofit saw a 123% increase at Giving Tuesday and a 7% increase at EOY Another nonprofit saw a 1.2% increase at Giving Tuesday and a 3.12% increase at EOY Responding to election news, one national nonprofit saw an 61% increase at Giving Tuesday and a 60% increase at EOY

This disparity in performance among nonprofits was likely due to the unpredictable impact that a December Giving Tuesday had on programs’ response rates – as well as each organization’s relevancy to post-election news. With both Giving Tuesday and year-end in December this year, it’s possible some donors found themselves curbing their giving or splitting gifts between multiple organizations. When we look at the data, we see that while about 25% of donors made a gift to their nonprofit of choice at both Giving Tuesday and EOY in 2022 and 2023, in 2024, that number dropped to 10%.

Since we’ll be seeing December Giving Tuesdays again for the next two years, consider ways to shape your campaign to lean into the quirks of the calendar: whether that’s building out a month of giving campaign or creating mid-month moments like flash matches or additional seasonal campaigns to take some of the pressure off of the very last days of the year.

2. Weekends matter in the final stretch – and in 2024, they shifted extra weight onto Dec. 30 and 31.

With year-end falling on a Tuesday in 2024, many organizations saw slower results over the weekend leading up to Dec. 30 before things started picking up on Monday and Tuesday. While this seems like a shifting trend from 2023, which saw a softer Dec. 30 and a spike on Dec. 31, what remains consistent is the impact of the weekend in the final stretch of the year.

Last year, organizations were able to make up the gap with an incredibly strong Dec. 30 and 31.

Final Stretch Revenue by Day

In calendar years like these, when the weekends fall so close to those final days of year-end, the big days themselves – Giving Tuesday and Dec. 31 – really matter, and revenue by day saw the usual spikes on key dates climb even higher:

Making the most of these major giving days can help maximize results. Among our partners, organizations that leaned into day-of upgrades, such as increasing match multipliers and featuring celebrity ambassadors, saw their messages stand out.

REACHING YOUR AUDIENCES: TRENDS ACROSS CHANNELS

In major moments like year-end, when volume is high and competition for attention is at its fiercest, taking a holistic approach to your fundraising strategy across channels is essential to reaching your audiences effectively. From Giving Tuesday to Dec. 31, many of our nonprofit partners found success trying new angles and avenues to connect with donors. While performance will vary from one unique program to the next, here’s what we saw across channels 2024’s year-end giving season:

3. Email revenue was flat or down for many. Programs making shifts in their strategy are getting ahead of the curve.

In the six years we’ve been tracking email volume, 2024 marks the first year we’ve seen average email volume across November and December level out, with an average of 42 emails per organization for the second year running:

Average Email Volume in November and December

With many organizations seeing stagnation in their email revenue YOY, one ongoing conversation has centered around the key question: How should we be thinking about email? The channel is still an essential and core part of fundraising programs as it’s driving a large percentage of digital revenue, but many aren’t seeing it drive the kind of year-over-year growth we’ve become accustomed to in the last few years.

So what should you do about email? Here are a few of our recommendations as you look ahead to 2025 planning:

  1. Make sure email is working for you and your file. Optimize your program through a robust testing plan to ensure it’s fueling your fundraising program as it’s often still a large driver of online revenue. At the same time, look to diversify revenue sources with other channels like SMS.
  2. It can be easy to fall into the trap of adding more volume to make up for revenue. But make sure to examine your file trends for the best cadence possible for each segment that maximizes long-term file health.
  3. Lean into the way email can uniquely tell a longform story with cultivation content. And take advantage of the flexibility of the channel for really designed and graphic-heavy content to stand out from the crowd.
  4. Get creative with segmentation and speaking to different audiences differently. Email is still absolutely key for high-value audiences like mid-level, who should receive content tailored to their level of giving.

One nonprofit we partner with responded to seeing softer results over email at Giving Tuesday by making strategic segmentation changes while keeping their send volume consistent year over year. The new approach played an important role in helping them end the year more than 20% ahead of 2023. For other organizations, leveraging data-informed models like The Digital Co-Op helped maximize efficiency over email by connecting them with the very best audience for their appeals – what’s more, The Digital Co-Op is launching a new solution, The Mid-Level Co-Op, to help connect nonprofits with high-value supporters. Stay tuned for more news on this!


Join our expert strategists for a webinar on Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the future of nonprofit email fundraising! RSVP now for “What Should Nonprofits Do About Email?”


4. Whether launching a new SMS program or scaling up an existing program, texting helped nonprofits drive YOY growth.

While growth over email may have been challenging for many organizations last year, nonprofits that diversified into other channels like texting saw those efforts make up the difference to drive overall year-over-year growth. Across our partners leveraging SMS at end of year, we saw that successful strategies often varied by the relative size and maturity of the texting program.

Nonprofits moving into SMS for the first time this end of year were able to tap into the incredible boosts in revenue that adding this impactful channel to a fundraising program can drive. One organization we partner with stood up an SMS platform 10 days before year-end – and saw the channel raise $27K to drive a 1,282% return.

Among our partners who’ve been texting for years and have already built up a mature and robust program, leveraging data-informed models to connect with the strongest possible audience for their mission helped drive year-over-year growth and strong returns. For a number of major nonprofits, MissionSMS was critical to hitting their revenue goals:

  • For one nonprofit, using MissionSMS in their end-of-year text campaigns helped them achieve an immediate ROI of over 140% and drive over 600 gifts.
  • Another program beat their SMS reforecast goal by 188% and raised 96% more revenue over 2023 with the help of leads delivered by MissionSMS.
  • For a third nonprofit partner, a text campaign powered by MissionSMS between Dec. 30 and 31 returned over 100% immediate ROI and added 894 new donors to their list.

5. Paid search continues to drive strong results with strategic optimization.

Over the last five days of the year, we saw once again that paid search really took off for nonprofits. In fact, our advertising team managed $1.6M in paid media investments to raise back $4.2M for our clients’ causes by optimizing keyword and scale strategies over paid search.

One of our partners began scaling up over paid search early, ahead of Giving Tuesday, and found that the strategy helped them drive a 26% year-over-year increase in gross revenue at Giving Tuesday. This strategy also fueled their program for a strong month of results in December – helping them raise nearly $1M over paid search during the course of the month.

Another nonprofit partner doubled their paid advertising revenue YOY while driving a 723% return on advertising spend! By adjusting their keyword strategy over search, they brought the conversion rate up from 1% to 35% YOY.

END-OF-YEAR STRATEGIES THAT MOVE THE NEEDLE

What kinds of program-wide strategies are the leading nonprofits leveraging across channels to maximize the impact of their major fundraising efforts? These are the key approaches driving powerful growth for our nonprofit partners:

6. Sustained acquisition from sources like The Digital Co-Op are supporting program growth at every level.

In a challenging fundraising environment, growing your audiences is essential to holistically fuel your donor pipeline – and it can have a powerful impact on your end-of-year campaigns. Last year, we saw members of The Digital Co-Op drive year-over-year growth at Giving Tuesday and end of year by leveraging a few key list growth strategies:

– One nonprofit invested in modeled reactivation with The Digital Co-Op in the two weeks ahead of Giving Tuesday and saw their investments pay back 235% by Dec. 31.

– Another organization that has been continuously investing in list growth through The Digital Co-Op for more than three years, honing their strategy each year, saw 73% of their revenue come from Co-Op acquired leads at Giving Tuesday and 53% at end of year.

– For 20 nonprofit members of The Digital Co-Op, list growth investments from August to November leading up to end of year helped them achieve conversion rates 85% higher than industry average.

As many nonprofit programs are seeing an ever-shifting paid media landscape impact acquisition results, consider opportunities to diversify your acquisition channels and try a modeled approach to list growth and targeting.

7. Remaining nimble – and adjusting strategy mid-campaign – helped programs see stronger results.

In December, our Giving Tuesday Report highlighted the impact of remaining nimble and staying at the ready to respond to results in real time. This deeply impactful strategy continued to hold true through the rest of the year-end giving season. For our partners’ end-of-year campaigns, successful adjustments in strategy looked like expanding or adjusting audience targets and decreasing return thresholds in an effort to capture more volume. By adjusting segmentation to include lapsed donors or unengaged prospects, or increasing investments in areas like paid advertising or SMS, these programs were able to tap into the power of a moment that offers less risk for more reward.

8. Innovative creative approaches deepen connections, communicate urgency, and uniquely illustrate your program’s mission.

As a season of widespread giving, end of year is a powerful time to introduce yourself to new donors and remind your existing audience why they care so much about your work and mission. Each year, we work closely with our nonprofit partners to hone their creative strategy, putting tested tactics to work to increase connection, engagement, and response.


This year, we saw our nonprofit partners develop top-performing creative both through creative innovation and by leaning into and maximizing some existing best practices:

Strike a balance between urgency and storytelling

We saw deadline-driven emails warmed up by personal stories and compelling graphics and longform narrative emails accented with eye-catching matches. By balancing a clear call to action with personalized content, these campaigns helped to deepen supporters’ connections to the mission while still driving response.

Conservation International
Guiding Eyes for the Blind

MATCH ALERT: Emphasize matches everywhere

This year, creative that included match language everywhere – and we mean everywhere – were more effective at driving response. From subject lines to email copy to topper graphics, repetition and a focused attention on the chance to increase the impact of a donation drove top-performing content.

Americares
TechnoServe

Movement is still driving gifts – now with a personal touch

As more and more programs incorporate movement into their fundraising creative, we’re seeing an uptick in graphics accented with hand-drawn elements and annotations – a trend we at MissionWired have been excited about for a while. We’re thrilled to see this creative approach continue to appear in top-performing campaigns.

Feeding Westchester

As you build out your most effective and innovative strategies for 2025, we hope this look back at the top results, trends, and insights will offer something new to consider.

And we’d love to keep the conversation going! There’s always more to say about end-of-year fundraising than we can fit into a single report, so if you’d like to share a trend or discuss how these strategies can apply to your unique program, we hope you’ll reach out to us at [email protected].

We hope you’ll stay tuned for more from MissionWired – from trends and takeaways in direct mail campaigns at year-end to more insights and exciting fundraising resources to come!