Kickstart Your Year-End Giving Strategy

Elevate Your Year-End Strategy

As we prepare to celebrate God’s incredible gift—Jesus Christ—people have a profound opportunity to respond with generosity. A strategic approach during this season ensures a focus that honors Christ and maximizes the ability to fund your ministry plan. This is the season when givers are often the most generous, enabling you to accelerate your mission, elevate your impact, and change lives.

As a church leader, this guide will elevate your year-end giving strategies, inspire giver participation, and amplify the impact of your mission-driven work.

This guide will explain essential principles, proven strategies, and actionable insights tailored to the unique landscape of today’s thriving churches. Whether you’re a seasoned leader looking to refine your approach or a newcomer eager to establish a strong foundation, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and tools necessary to navigate the complexities of any effective year-end giving strategy.

Getting Started

Year-End Giving for Ministries

Why Year-End Giving Matters

Many churches experience fluctuations in giving throughout the year. Year-end giving can help strengthen your financial health, ensuring you have the resources needed to continue your transformative ministries. This season drives generosity like no other time of year. The last few days of December alone can provide the funds you need to ensure your ministry stays strong. A clear strategy focused on transformative ministry is key.

Why You Need a Year-End Strategy

For most churches, the end of the calendar year is the finish line for meeting your yearly ministry plan objectives and funding goals. Fully resourcing the work God has called your church to ensure your programs and ministries receive the funding they need. A successful year-end provides your church a vital opportunity to plant seeds for future ministry and grow your ministry impact.

Making Space for a Year-End Giving Strategy

Finding time for a successful year-end giving strategy can be challenging, given staff demands during this busy season. Here is an easy change you can make to significantly ease the administrative burden faced by churches that have not yet made this change.

Change your fiscal year to match your ministry year.

Here is a short list of why so many churches have made the shift.

Your church ministry year and church funding plan/budget match. By starting your fiscal year in July or August, your ministry plans and ministry funding will match. Gone will be the days your youth, children’s, mission, etc. leaders plan and launch a new ministry year with only funding through December.
Your largest giving month occurs in the middle, not the end, of your budget cycle. Most churches receive about twice as much giving in December as the monthly average. Year-end giving is also the most difficult to project. Moving your fiscal year eliminates the anxiety of waiting until the last moment of the year to know if you have a surplus or deficit. If your year-end is unexpectedly good or disappointing, you have six months to adjust spending.
Reduces the Summer Giving Slump. Churches that have not moved most givers to automatically recurring giving typically experience lower giving in the summer months. This can often set off anxiety and even panic among your finance team. A July-June fiscal year tends to mitigate this as the new giving year launches in July, with regular giving returning in August.
January and February are the most effective times to conduct an annual estimate of giving campaign or generosity teaching series directed at growing givers’ generosity. For most churches, the best time to speak to generosity for new and younger members is in January and February. Fall is a very busy time for most families making attendance better in January. If your church does receive annual estimates of giving, these same families have a much better picture of the financial situation in January/February than they do in October. Too many churches still cling to October and November for a generosity focus. This dates back to when churches regularly “fully pledged the budget” and before modern software made flexible reporting periods quick and easy.
More accurate budgeting and forecasting. When churches use January/February to focus on growing giving, your finance team will have the actual increase in giving from January to June on which to build the July-June budget. This method should also create a reliable giving surplus each year, as the giving bump seen in January and February ideally builds until the year-end in June.
You can choose the fiscal year that best fits your church’s needs. While I have used the common July-June fiscal year example, your church can choose the period that best meets your budgetary needs. If your denomination requires your report on a calendar basis, fear not. All modern software can report for any period. You set the dates for January to December and run the report.It’s not too late to start in 2025. Most churches that are shifting from a calendar year to a fiscal year, approve a short budget (January-June 2025) and then approve a July 2025 to June 2026 budget.

With the extra time not spent in the fall making a budget or conducting an annual giving effort, you will have time to develop an effective strategy to capture more of the year-end giving your members and regular attendees are already planning to give; much of which does not end up in your offering plate. Americans consistently report that 67% of their giving is spiritually motivated, but less than 30% is given to the church.

Why Givers Like to Give at Year-End

For a successful year-end strategy, it is essential to understand why givers choose this time to show their generosity so that you can shape your communication to be “giver-centric” written with a focus on what is meaningful to the giver. Year-end giving is about more than just financial support—it’s a moment for people to engage in God’s work, express gratitude, and contribute to the ongoing impact of the church.

The Christmas season and the end of the calendar year brings out a spirit of giving in people, unlike any other time. It is a time when people are the most generous. Focus on intentional engagement with givers between Giving Tuesday in November and the last day of December. It is not whether your members will be giving but if they will be giving to your church.

Before starting your year-end planning and goal setting, it is vital to understand the many and varied reasons why people give and why year-end is so essential. Here are a few important facts to keep in mind.

Giving in the United States has been remarkably consistent for the last 50 years at about 2% of disposable income and gross domestic product.
Giving to the church has fallen by half over the last 40 years.
Competition is rapidly increasing for a pool of giving that, while not falling, is also not growing; since 2012, the number of 501(C)(3) organizations has increased by 27%, and there is nothing to suggest a change in this trend.
Givers consistently report belief in the organization’s mission, their relationship with staff and volunteers, and their ability to connect their giving to measurable outcomes with transparency. These are the top three reasons for choosing one organization over another, including the church.
The importance of year-end has less to do with a person’s motivation for giving and more to do with its timing. The end of the calendar year prompts increased giving primarily because people must act by December 31 to achieve their giving goals and to receive preferential tax benefits. It is also when most people receive bonuses and profit sharing, when business owners make earnings distributions, and when people pay more attention to gains in their portfolios and may become aware of next year’s salary increases. The influence of Giving Tuesday and well-crafted year-end giving appeals also increases awareness of giving opportunities.
Tax benefits are important, but virtually any nonprofit or church can provide the same benefit. The key is making the case that investing through your church will best achieve your members’ motivation to create change in the world. Gone are the days when church leaders could focus only on why give; we must now answer the question, why give to our church? This is most effectively done when we connect generosity to spiritual growth and giving to impact.

The bottom line is that your members choose to give for a combination of these reasons. It’s your job to disciple them on the spiritual underpinning of generosity and to learn what the Holy Spirit is making resonate most strongly in them.

ACHIEVE YOUR YEAR-END GOAL

Year-End Giving Impact

Year-end giving has a massive impact on funding. In 2023, Americans gave $557 billion to charity. Of that amount, 31% of giving happens in December, and 12% occurs in the final three days of the year.

End Strong, Start Strong

Churches frequently see twice their average monthly giving in December. Crafting and implementing a successful year-end strategy is pivotal to end the year fully funded.

A strong year-end giving season increases your church’s ability to look at the future with hope. Beginning the new year with a hopeful perspective paves the way for exploring opportunities to expand current ministry projects or enhance mission opportunities, all while fostering a vibrant and joyful culture of generosity.

Turn Year-End Giving into Monthly Giving

A year-end giving strategy that connects with people, supports ministry, and highlights impact has the power to re-engage the hearts of lapsed givers who haven’t contributed in a while, inspire people to make their first gift, and deepen the generosity of everyone. This can have a lasting impact, creating a ripple effect that extends far beyond the immediate holiday giving season, positively influencing giving habits and engagement in the long term.

People give generously to organizations they feel connected to and trust. If you see year-end giving as an opportunity to nurture relationships, you experience generosity that is truly next level. Don’t underestimate the significance of meaningful connections over simple transactions.

Converting sporadic donors to recurring donors is a keystone of an effective ministry funding strategy. Always offer donors an easy path to sign up for automatically recurring electronic giving. Be sure your online giving platform and/or webpage not only provides recurring giving but does so by clarifying that it is the preferred option. Setting your default to recurring giving is a helpful strategy for churches.

Enhance Your Year-End Giving Strategy

Digital Generosity and Online Giving for Year-End

To enhance your year-end giving strategy, ensure it incorporates a digital communications plan and online giving. More and more church members prefer contributing through websites, emails, or social media platforms. Define clear goals and establish a timeline for your digital strategy.

A successful digital engagement strategy will boost the effectiveness of your overall year-end strategy. Concentrate on these five key areas.

Website

Your website serves as the central hub for your year-end digital strategy, with a significant portion of giving coming through this platform. To effectively engage givers and potential givers, consider enhancing your website by featuring stories of transformation from ministries on the homepage and calls to action for donations. A striking banner or bar at the top of your homepage, in a contrasting color to capture attention, can encourage generosity. Craft a concise, compelling call to action with a link to the giving page. Update the main image to align with your year-end strategy.

Landing Page

Create a landing page for year-end giving to simplify the digital giving process. Leverage your website for general contributions and dedicate an entire landing page to year-end giving. Use this landing page in targeted outreach via emails, social media, and texts. Remember to post a clear and compelling call to action on the landing page. Ensure mobile compatibility and streamline the donation form fields for easy giving. Reassure givers about the security of the donation process on this page.

Emails

Email is a powerful tool for engaging members and regular attendees with compelling stories and opportunities.

Throughout your year-end strategy, elevate the frequency of your email outreach. Start with initial emails even before Giving Tuesday, gradually escalating the cadence as the year draws to a close. Sending daily emails in the last week of December is appropriate. Conclude your effort with a comprehensive update and gratitude email in early January.

Resend your message to recipients who have yet to open or engage with a critical message after 72 hours. Doing so can often increase your open rate by up to 50%.

Remember to segment your email recipients for personalized messages to enhance engagement and interaction.

Social Media

Social media is an important component of your year-end strategy. Promote giving across all your social media channels, Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc. Encourage donors to share your posts with their audience.

It is best to use authentic images with social media, not stock ones. Create photos that match your message. Your members also love watching videos. Find ways to make them creative while telling a story. Include a call to action in the video. Finally, add relevant hashtags and create one specifically for your year-end strategy.

Text Messages

Text messages have a higher engagement rate than email and social media. Make sure you have permission to text them. You can send SMS (text-only messages) or MMS (messages that include an image).

Keep the text message concise and personalize it. Messages with different types of content should be sent between Giving Tuesday and December 31. You can send stories, updates, videos, resources, etc. Every text message should include a call to action, so include a link to your year-end giving landing page.

Deepening Relationships through Communitcation

Engaging Givers and Personalizing Outreach

Personalized engagement develops meaningful connections and, in turn, increases generosity. When churches personalize messages, they develop trust by showing that we listen, understand, and respond. Sending the right message at the right time to the right person makes a difference.

Regularly share stories of how generosity makes a difference by highlighting personal testimonies within ministry areas. For example, send the experience of a child who experienced transformation to a segment of parents within the children’s ministry. Send the story of a person touched by an outreach ministry to those deeply involved in community service and outreach. This demonstrates in real life how each gift contributes to God’s work. It is compelling and inspiring. This is a strategy you should use all year round. Maintaining clean data and developing meaningful connections all year long will give your church a head start on the year-end giving process.

Data-Driven

You must collect the correct data to personalize messages and increase giving engagement. Start with basic information such as name, donation amount, and the dates they give. However, more is needed. Collect more meaningful information about your members’ behaviors and interests. Do they prefer specific ministries or programs? Do they engage more frequently with videos or articles? Are they moved by a hand-written note, or do they feel most comfortable with a personalized text or phone call? Use your giver’s preferred form of communication. If you are not sure, ask them. Always personalize every communication channel, including handwritten notes, phone calls, mailings, emails, etc. Never send a “Dear Member” communication.

Segmentation

Before sending a message, look for ways to segment your givers to add additional personalization and impact. Segmentation creates a subset of givers based on one or more criteria, such as engagement or giving levels, demographics, geography, needs, shared interests, recurring or non-recurring giving, other behavioral characteristics, or preferred communication channels.

Segmentation helps you build loyalty and trust, as people receive communications that matter most to them in the format they engage most. Tailoring your messaging to their preferences is particularly critical at year-end because you are addressing people when they are most likely deciding where to give their year-end gifts. Remember, most givers plan to give at year-end, so you primarily compete for the giving they already intend to make. This is particularly true for high-capacity donors, who typically support 5-8 different organizations each year in a material way. For many of your high-capacity givers, the church is not in their top couple of giving choices.

Foster a Sense of Community

People who share similar interests form communities. People who are in a small group or who are actively serving in a ministry give over three times that of a person who only attends worship 1-2 times per month.

While not uniquely a part of a year-end strategy, generosity is most impacted by engagement in small groups that create a caring community, foster spiritual growth, and promote serving. As you plan for your year-ending giving strategy, don’t fail to promote small group and serving participation.

Here are three opportunities that people experience in small groups that contribute to generosity:

Community and Relationships: Small groups create a sense of belonging and close-knit relationships within the larger church. When people feel connected and invested in each other’s lives, they are more likely to contribute to the community’s well-being, including financially.
Personal Accountability: Smaller groups have a higher level of personal accountability. Members are more likely to engage in discussions about stewardship, generosity, and personal faith, which can lead to a deeper understanding of giving as an act of worship.
Generosity is often a natural outflow of spiritual growth. Small groups focus on discipleship, helping individuals grow in their faith and understand stewardship as a spiritual discipline. They encourage consistent and joyful giving.

Enhance Engagement

Giver engagement means more than donating. It is important to offer opportunities for givers to get involved. Offer a time to go caroling or ask them to help decorate the church for Christmas. Often, volunteers become givers.

Not all engagement needs to be in person. Encourage givers to engage with social media posts. The more they get involved, the deeper the relationship you develop between giver and ministry. As the giver begins to trust your ministry, they will become more committed as the relationship strengthens. When the year-end giving season comes, they are more likely to show their generosity.

The First Day for Year-End Giving

Giving Tuesday’s Influence on Year-End Giving

The Giving Tuesday movement continues to grow. Millions of people participate each year, raising billions of dollars. Giving Tuesday has become the first day for year-end giving, so begin the year-end strategy strong on this day. Much of the promotional work is already done for you, so take advantage of it. Use these strategies to leverage Giving Tuesday for your year-end strategy.

More Than One Day

Giving Tuesday started as one day. Now, that one day has become weeks of promotions and opportunities to be generous. We recommend beginning Giving Tuesday promotions weeks before, and you can continue to send messages one week after Giving Tuesday. Be sure to send a thank you message to everyone who donates and include an update highlighting how their generosity is making a difference.

Once Giving Tuesday is over, don’t stop communicating. Continue to send informative, inspirational, and invitational content and stories through the last day in December. This will keep people engaged, and you will build stronger connections.

Horizons recommends using integrated funding and Next-Level Generosity based on the idea that it is not one thing that creates a culture of generosity but rather an integrated strategy of best practices that focuses on annual, capital, and special giving year-round.

Need, Goal, & Story

While it’s tempting to start writing an appeal right away, you should first decide which need to promote with your givers. You may have many great giving opportunities but only focus on one for Giving Tuesday. Reviewing the performance of past Giving Tuesday efforts can be useful in helping you decide.

You can choose a program, a ministry, a scholarship, or any area your supporters care about. Appeals for undesignated giving for operational purposes tend to be less effective on Giving Tuesday. Giving that primarily benefits people outside your church tends to receive the highest level of support.

Remember that you are competing with the entire nonprofit community. The most effective nonprofits are generally focused on highly appealing needs with measurable outcomes for the giver’s investment. Make sure there is a clear and easy-to-understand connection between the gifts you are asking for and the impact that they will bring about.

Next, turn your attention to the goal. How much do you want to raise? How many new monthly donors do you aim to have? The goal you choose should coincide with your needs. Measurable goals focus your efforts because you can ask at each decision point, “How will this activity or investment of resources help us to achieve our specific goals?” Each year you engage in this process, your goal-setting will become more and more effective. Don’t stress about getting it perfect in the first year.

A compelling Giving Tuesday strategy needs a great story to highlight your impact. These life-changing stories add a personal and emotional touch to your messages. They help people better understand your mission and imagine and visulaize their role in extending your impact.

Stories are most effective when they focus on a single life that was impacted or will be impacted by a giver’s investment. Once you have told the story of one changed life, you can zoom out to share how many more stories you have and call attention to how a gift will create even more.

Get Organized

Now that you have your plan, goals, and a story-centered message, it’s time to prepare everything you need to execute your strategy. Complete each step to ensure you are ready:

Get started at givingtuesday.org.
Utilize online engagement platforms that provide easy and secure donation options.
Develop a landing page with a mobile-friendly giving form and link to that page from your home page. Include that link in your email, text messages, and social media updates.
Choose images from your ministry, including ones for your stories.
Create email templates and write copy for each touchpoint.
Write text messages and social media posts and schedule them to send.
Implement a strong call to action on each channel that informs, inspires, and invites potential givers to act.

Show Gratitude

Expressing genuine appreciation for any gift, regardless of the amount, is essential. Your Giving Tuesday and year-end giving strategy builds relationships, even if they do not materialize in a gift this season. Generosity development is a long-term strategy.

If you are still determining a giver’s preferred method of thanks, default to handwritten thank-you notes, personalized emails, or videos to each donor, highlighting the impact their contribution will have. You don’t have to write a long or polished thank you message. However, you need to make sure it is personalized and heartfelt. The more authentic, the better. Continue to foster ongoing engagement by providing updates on the progress made with their support.

Opportunities for giving

Strategies for a Successful Year-End Giving Strategy

The success of year-end giving depends primarily on factors you can control. What strategies should you use? Let’s explore the critical elements to success to improve the effectiveness of your year-end giving. Your plan should emphasize cultivating relationships with givers while expressing your needs and impact.

Plan Early

Don’t wait until November to start planning your year-end giving strategy. Starting too late will cause the strategy to feel rushed and result in more errors, all of which will affect your success. In the early planning stage, discuss and assess past year-end giving strategies. What worked? What didn’t? What challenges did you encounter?

Look at both quantitative and qualitative data to make informed decisions. Talk to your team at every level to gain their insight into the issues and opportunities for your strategy.

During early meetings, begin brainstorming ideas for the strategy, including the goals and creative approach. Create a timeline for each step leading to the implementation of the strategy.

Consistent Communication

Year-end generosity happens because of the relationships you build throughout the year. It

involves a constant stream of information, inspiration, and invitation. Moving closer to December, you’ll want to increase your communication frequency. It is okay to send emails once a week from November through December because the focus is on the story of impact followed by a call to action. Almost everyone who supports your church loves to hear stories of success. Yes, they know there is an appeal at the end, but if the call to action is written in a giver-centric format, it is simply an invitation to move as they are inspired. There should be no pressure, anxious neediness, guilt, or manipulation.

Send a couple of direct mail appeals in December, one early and one later. During the last week of December, you can send an email a day. With the proper segmentation, you can even send more than one message daily, especially on social media.

Define the Theme and Messaging

Focus on one need or one project. Asking your givers to do too much or follow too many threads in an appeal will cause confusion.

Use stories to connect members to those they help. Stories provide a tangible example of the ministry’s work and the giver’s generosity. Stories evoke emotions, create empathy, and make your ministry relatable to your supporters.

A Multi-channel Approach

Along with increased communication, you’ll want to take advantage of every effective channel available. Data shows churches that use multiple channels have a higher conversion rate and see greater giving amounts. Even if people only give through one channel, they see messages in different places that remind them to give.

A multi-channel approach doesn’t take much time to implement. Write the longest appeal first (oftentimes, this is the direct mail appeal) and then adopt and adapt it for each unique channel. Use as many effective channels as possible to amplify your message to a wider audience.

Provide Multiple Generosity Opportunities

It is not enough to send your year-end message through different channels. You should also offer various ways for donors to contribute, including online donations, text-to-give options, peer-to-peer, matching gifts, recurring giving programs, donor-advised funds, voluntary IRA distributions, and mandatory distribution options.

To avoid overwhelming givers with too many giving options at once, it is best to look at their patterns of generosity and then segment the donors based on their preferences and likelihood to give. Another option is to include the most common method, usually online, and introduce a different method in each subsequent appeal. A link to your webpage or a special landing page for other giving options can also be effective.

Grow Generosity and Achieve Your Mission

Are you seeking to maximize the spirit of generosity within your church or faith-based nonprofit? Explore Horizons Stewardship’s disciple-focused solutions. With a proven track record of empowering organizations to grow disciples and fund ministry, Horizons Stewardship is here to help you navigate the complexities of effective stewardship.

Our experienced professionals are ready to partner with you, providing personalized guidance and innovative strategies tailored to your unique needs. Whether you’re embarking on a capital strategy, seeking to enhance annual giving, wanting to engage younger generations, creating a strategic plan, or focusing on board training or organizational health, our comprehensive range of services will equip you with the tools and insights needed for success.

Don’t miss out on taking your organization’s vision to new heights. Reach out to Horizons Stewardship today and let us help you unlock the power of generosity within your community.