September gives you something you’ll have a lot less of in November: time.
It’s the perfect moment to step back, look at what worked, get your strategy in place, and give your team enough breathing room to build a thoughtful year-end campaign. A little prep now can mean a lot less scrambling later.
Here are six places we’d start.
1. Don’t start with the campaign. Start with last year’s data.
Before you decide what’s going to work this year, look at what actually worked last year.
Don’t only pull year-end revenue. Dig into the full picture:
- Which emails drove the most clicks and conversions?
- Which audiences responded?
- Which messages fell flat?
- Where did people drop off?
- Which channels actively contributed?
- What did you test that you’d do again?
Your past campaigns already have a lot to teach you. Take a look before starting from scratch.
2. Start collecting your best stories now.
Don’t wait until December to start looking for your year-end impact stories.
Start talking to program teams. Ask fundraisers what they’ve been hearing from donors. Look back at the moments from the year that show your organization’s work in action.
And don’t only look for the big success stories, collect the human moments that help people understand why the work matters every day.
3. Give your audience something more relevant than Dear Friend.
If everyone on your email list is getting the exact same year-end message, September is a good time to rethink that.
Your longtime donor, first-time subscriber, monthly donor, volunteer, and lapsed supporter all have different relationships with your organization. They shouldn’t get the same story or the same ask.
You also don’t need to create dozens of hyper-specific segments. Start with the audiences where a little more relevance could make the biggest difference.
The goal isn’t just to send more emails. It’s to send emails that feel like they’re meant for the person receiving them.
4. Don’t forget about the place where people actually give.
You can spend months perfecting your campaign and still lose people when they get to your donation page.
Before year-end hits, go through the experience yourself. Try it on your phone. Ask someone who doesn’t work at your organization to walk through it. Look for anything that feels confusing, clunky, or unnecessary.
Is it clear where the money goes? Are the suggested giving amounts helpful? Are there too many steps? What happens right after you give?
Your donation page is part of your campaign. Treat it like one.
5. Build the system before you need all the pieces.
Year-end can mean a lot of creative: emails, social posts, ads, landing pages, and more.
Rather than designing each piece from scratch as you go, establish your core messaging and visual system now. That gives your team a foundation to build from when the pace picks up.
6. Get your tracking in place before the traffic hits.
Year-end is not the time to realize your analytics aren’t set up correctly.
Before campaigns launch, make sure your website, Google Analytics, ad platforms, and conversion tracking are all connected and working the way they should. Test your donation conversions, form submissions, landing page activity, and other actions you actually want to measure.
That way, when the campaign gets moving, you can see what’s working, what’s not, and where your dollars and efforts are making an impact.
Give yourself room to do it well.
By the time year-end giving kicks into high gear, you want your team focused on executing, learning, and responding, not scrambling to figure out the basics.
Use September to dig into the data, find the stories, make the strategic calls, and get your systems in place.
A little planning now can give your team a whole lot more room to think when it matters most.
