Your campaign has reached its end date, and hopefully, it’s goal as well. But that doesn’t mean your work is complete. A campaign that ends without the proper steps being taken afterward can lead to disorganization and can even potentially discourage donors.
But, taking the necessary steps to make sure you have your campaign tidied up will help you better reflect on your campaign, follow up well, and even help you run better campaigns in the future.
Here are 6 tips to ending your fundraising campaign on a high note.
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1) Transfer Funds To Your Bank
While this may seem like an obvious step, when your campaign comes to an end, be sure to log in to your donation processor and make sure all funds are transferred into your account.
On CauseVox, we have two donation processor options you can use: PayPal or Stripe.
With Stripe, funds are automatically transferred into your nonprofit’s preferred bank account on a rolling basis. However, you can check when your next scheduled transfer is in your dashboard.
With PayPal, you’ll need to login and request your funds be transferred into your nonprofit’s preferred bank account. Typically, it can take 3-5 days after you request a transfer for the deposit to be completed.
By transferring your funds right away, this will help you easily report the outcome of the campaign internally and to your donors, while speeding along the process of putting those funds to good use.
2) Thank Your Donors And Report Impact
While your donors should have received their donation receipt that includes a thank you after the campaign reaches its end date it’s worth it to thank them again.
Reach out to all the donors via email to say ‘thanks for participating.’ In this email, you’ll also want to include a summary of the campaign so that the donors know exactly what they were part of accomplishing.
Here are some ideas of what kinds of metrics you can include in your email:
- How many donors they supported with. (Creates a sense of community)
- How much was raised and if the goal was met
- How many items are being donated because of the funds raised, if applicable
- How many people will be helped because of the funds raised
- Where the funds are going exactly (country, region, town, etc.)
Here’s how World Bicycle Relief communicated their impact numbers to their community:
With these metrics in mind, begin crafting your thank you letter that will show donors you care about their partnership in creating an impact with your organization. Need some ideas on how else you can thank donors? Take a look at our post 20 Unique Donor Thank You Ideas.
3) Share Success Stories On Social Media
It’s likely that you shared your campaign on social media, particularly on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and these audiences saw and responded to your posts. Don’t leave them hanging afterward! Letting your campaign fizzle out on social after your end date will leave people to assume that nothing came of the campaign.
Letting these audiences know your campaign has officially ended and doing several posts relating to impact and shout outs to key donors will show your communities you appreciated their participation on social platforms.
Here’s an example of a post from Timberline Lodge that helped wrap their campaign up:
The more information you can give your supporters about the impact of their donations, the better. Consider doing it through a few different mediums such as:
- A photo of the funds in action
- An infographic showing how the funds are being used
- A video from your team talking about how the funds are being used
- A motion graphic video showing statistics to communicate the impact
4) Send Out Your Rewards (If Any)
If you decided to have a rewards-based campaign, in an effort to keep the trust of your donors, you should try and mail out the rewards no later than 10 days after the campaign ends. In this way, you’ll be able to quickly make sure all donors get what they need and meet donor expectations.
Whether you’re sending a download or gift card through email, or if you’re mailing a physical gift, you’ll need to export your donor data from your platform Need the full list of the exported fields from CauseVox? Learn more about exporting your donation data.
CauseVox also a brand new Zapier Integration in Beta! Zapier is a free tool that allows CauseVox to share data automatically with your other software that you use. This will make following up with donors after your campaign ends easier and faster.
Our Zapier integration connects your fundraising campaigns on CauseVox with 750+ other online tools that you use (ex. Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Google Sheets, Salesforce, etc). Learn more about our Zapier Beta here.
5) Host A Debrief Meeting With Your Team
One of the essential elements of wrapping up your campaign communicating with your team and the rest of your organization about the results.
Using the donation data from your campaign, put together a full report on your end to distribute to your team noting items such as:
- Funds raised
- Number of new donors
- A donor list segmented by your preference
- The expected impact created by donations
- Number of social shares, if possible
- Number of active fundraisers, if applicable
- Average donation size
- Regions of concentrated donors
- Sex and age of donors
Tip: As a best practice, this donor information should also be uploaded into your own nonprofit CRM or transferred via Zapier.
When you have your data compiled and distributed to your team, it’s time to call for a debrief meeting.
While you may view your campaign as an overall success, it’s likely that there are some ways you can improve your strategy for next time. Get your team together to discuss what went well and where there’s room for improvement. You’ll likely gain some perspective from your team and you’ll come away with a list of things you can prepare for next time!
Need a good way to structure your debrief? This debrief format developed by Virginia Satir can help your conversation be productive.
6) Follow Up And Donor Engagement
A few weeks after your campaign has been completed, try sending out an email to your donors segmented by your preference but especially recognizing first-time donors.
In this follow up email to donors, it’s a good idea to share the story of someone who has been impacted by the funds raised from the campaign, which shows the heart behind the campaign and will remind them why they donated in the first place.
However, don’t just share a story, invite them to act again. You could ask them to sign a petition, sign up to receive more updates, volunteer, or become a fundraiser for your next campaign.
What also may be worthwhile is to include a survey which will help you determine your Net Promoter Score, which will help you figure out what impression your campaign left on your audience and if you can count on them to advocate for your organization.
Leaving no loose ends after your campaign comes to a close will not only help you stay organized, but it’ll help make follow up easy and lay the groundwork for the success of your next fundraising campaign!
Using these 6 tips for ending your fundraising campaign on a high note, you’ll be able to successfully wrap up your campaign for your team and your donors.
