Fundraisers, we can all breathe again! The biggest and most important fundraising period has ended… and, even better, donors showed up!
At a time when nonprofit missions are ever more urgent and in need of funding, it was a huge relief. And we won’t lie, we went into the 2024 year-end season with a sizeable dose of trepidation. Donors in the U.S. had been getting bombarded by a proliferation of political organizations. Americans’ views of the economy have been largely negative. We’ve grappling with a shrinking donor pool across the nonprofit industry.
But our success did not arrive by chance. It was the result of smart planning, real-time pivoting, and strong creative assets developed in close partnership with our nonprofit clients.
Looking more closely at year-end 2024, you might get a little motion sickness as the results roller-coastered. Many of our partners saw weak post-election results, a rebound on Giving Tuesday, followed by a nail-biter of a weekend before the tax deadline, and closing out with a very strong last two days of December.
We’re still digging into deeper cross-channel results and learnings, but one truth is clear: When programs are run with honesty and bring supporters closer to the causes they care about, donors show up — even in the most challenging of times.
Here are some of the results we saw across Blue State’s nonprofit portfolio:
- SMS drove huge gains; one partner is very close to making SMS a million-dollar EOY channel and several more doubled year-end SMS revenue year-over-year.
- There were huge jumps in midlevel giving, with multiple programs up between 30-60% year-over-year.
- Average gift amount jumped by 8% across audience groups.
What else can we learn from our initial results? Here’s a quick breakdown:
Election fatigue did not factor into giving as was once feared
One of the big concerns headed into the 2024 giving season was the potential impact of the presidential election on donors. And to some extent our research pre-Giving Tuesday affirmed the theory: 27% of donors surveyed reported that they planned on giving less during the year-end period. This presented a huge negative headwind, but with smart, emotive, and targeted messaging, most Blue State clients actually grew or stayed flat year-over-year, with many even seeing significant year-over-year gains in the final weeks of December.
A full-funnel approach helps boost already strong paid media returns
Across numerous clients we saw signs of a persistent trend: Paid media performance — and especially paid search — was strong. Now, we know that in major fundraising moments, it is essential to meet donors where they are — so this underlines (once again) the need for a holistic, full-funnel approach. But a full-funnel approach requires a multichannel reporting infrastructure and the ability to measure via more than just last click attribution. Many clients are now exploring how to increase branded search via advertising in other channels to drive awareness and demand; they are also coordinating paid and owned channels to drive the greatest return at the lowest cost. Without this level of insight, clients are risking 1) paying for donations they would have received at much lower cost through their owned channels and 2) not growing their files at an optimal rate, as budget is being over-assigned to existing donors, rather than “new money” and new donor acquisition. While this approach will make your ROAS numbers look stronger, ultimately it’ll significantly inhibit your ability to grow.
Mid-level donors continue to carry programs over the finish line
For organizations that saw positive revenue growth, larger average gifts were a primary driver of that success — meaning we continue to see mid-level donors filling in the gaps for lower-dollar donors. This mid-level expansion is a trend we’ve been tracking (and fueling) for a while now — as more donors enter their prime giving years, we should proactively drive these mass donors to higher levels of giving. Cultivating and retaining these donors is more important than ever, ensuring they repeat gifts of similar size in the future.
The SMS expansion continues
The gold medal for year-end 2024 goes to… SMS! This was one of the winningest channels with a median growth of 132%. We first spotted this exciting donor behavior during Giving Tuesday, with Blue State partners seeing upwards of 137% growth in SMS revenue year-over-year. And while SMS isn’t (yet) reaching the revenue numbers we typically see via email, it’s still a channel that deserves investment, especially when taking into account how crowded email inboxes are. So take note of SMS: We may become more reliant on this channel to get in front of donors in 2025.
The top 4 takeaways from 2024 (for now)
We’ll continue to build on these takeaways as we dig in on results and unpack even deeper insights, but for now, here are four 2025 resolutions based on initial EOY results:
- Focus on maintaining an engaged and committed email/SMS list throughout the calendar year, even as the world gets noisy. During year-end, your loyal donors will turn out despite what else may be going on in the broader world — but that only works if you’ve spent the prior year showing the impact, gratitude, and value of being a part of your organization.
- If (even indirectly) relevant to your organization, keep an open mind about what the incoming Trump administration might mean for fundraising. For social justice organizations, there’s still a lot of time for a second “Trump Bump” to come to fruition, but as of right now it doesn’t appear likely to match 2017.
- Continue to engage and build your mid-level donor base with an emphasis on retention. Especially as more and more donors enter their prime giving years, these mid-level donors will help weather any ups and downs that may come in the mass giving audience.
- Invest in a vibrant SMS channel as a viable supplement to email and paid – we expect to see even more growth here this year and in future years.
Want to learn more about how our cross-client insights can improve your 2025 fundraising program? Get in touch with us.