4Site's Year-End Fundraising Playbook

Prep your list and tracking

Deliverability

Confirm your sending domains pass Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) checks, suppress hard bounces, and move long-inactive supporters into a re-engagement series or off the list. Gmail has required authentication from bulk senders since February 2024, and Microsoft began enforcing similar rules in May 2025.

Don’t buy email lists this late in the game. Email is not direct mail, purchased lists carry spam traps, and getting off a blocklist is slow work you don’t want to start in December. Uploading purchased names to ad platforms isn’t a workaround either, since Google’s Customer Match policy only allows data you collected yourself. Before any list goes to an ad platform, check your own compliance with the privacy laws that apply to you.

Consider

• Whether every domain that sends your year-end email passes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
• Whether anyone plans to import or upload a purchased list

Audit checks

• Every sending domain passes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks
• Supporters with no email engagement in the past year are suppressed or in a re-engagement series
• No purchased or rented names are in your email platform or your ad audiences

Tracking and testing

A gift that comes in untracked stays untracked. Run a test gift through every path now, from an email click, an ad click, and your homepage. Consent banners often break tracking by blocking the tags your ad and analytics reporting depend on, and our Privacy Policies and Consent Mode playbook covers the fixes.

Tag every link. Engaging Networks can add UTM parameters to your email links once you enable its Google Analytics integration. Google Ads works differently, since auto-tagging adds its own Google Click Identifier (GCLID) instead of UTMs, but double-check your settings to make sure this data gets passed through.

Name your links in-email so you can compare them later if your eCRM has this capability, with one pattern for the hero image, buttons with and without a dollar amount, the header, and the footer. In January you’ll see whether anyone clicks the second button, or whether the hero gets clicks that never become gifts. Plan tests with the same discipline and test only what would change your workflow or content in future campaigns. A subject line test is pointless if neither result changes how you write subject lines.

Consider

• Whether your consent banner blocks tags your ad and analytics reporting depend on
• Whether UTM parameters survive every redirect between an email click and the donation form
• Whether each planned test answers a question you’ll act on

Audit checks

• A test gift from an email link and one from an ad click both show the right source and campaign in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
• Every link in your year-end emails follows one naming pattern
• Every year-end test has a written hypothesis and names the decision it will inform

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Freeze pages and schedule early

Code freeze and outage plan

Keep your donation pages stable. We aim for a code freeze by mid-November, with a soft two weeks to wrap up loose ends, and after that nothing ships that changes every donation page at once. If something must change, it goes to individual pages with a way to roll it back, and November is no time to debut an email block you’ve never tested. But remember, a freeze only works if leadership agrees to the date before anyone asks for an exception.

Then plan for the day something breaks anyway. Put an uptime monitor on your top donation pages and send the alerts to someone’s phone. We’ve used UptimeRobot for years, and its free plan is open to nonprofits. Write the response plan before you need it. If a page goes down right after an appeal goes out, who decides, who fixes it, and do supporters get an apology email or does the team wait it out? Decide which mistakes earn a correction while you’re at it, since a broken donate link does and a typo usually doesn’t.

Consider

• Whether everyone who can request changes knows the freeze date and what counts as an exception
• Whether a page-level change can be rolled back in minutes
• Whether an alert about a down donation page reaches someone’s phone at 9pm

Audit checks

• A freeze date for sitewide donation-page code is on the calendar, and leadership has agreed to it
• Your top donation pages have uptime monitoring that alerts at least two people
• A one-page plan names who decides, who fixes, and what supporters hear if a page fails during a send

Email production and scheduling

Year-end email breaks at the handoffs, when a late change turns into a missed link, two emails that contradict each other, or sends that go out of order. Before the season starts, write down how a change request moves from ask to approval to a rebuilt email, and name the person who says yes.

Schedule early, especially in Engaging Networks. On GivingTuesday and December 31st, sends wait in a queue, and Engaging Networks advises scheduling ahead so yours goes out on time. Engaging Networks has told clients the queue runs first in, first out, and in our experience editing a scheduled email moves it to the back of the line, so finish edits before you schedule. You should also avoid the top of the hour to stand out in the inbox and avoid queuing issues, so schedule for 10:07 instead of 10:00.

Test everything you reuse, including merge tag fallbacks, every link, and any old block in current email clients with a tool like Email on Acid or Litmus. If your team still builds in Email Classic, Engaging Networks began retiring it in September 2026, and our tips for moving to Marketing Tools can help. Use AI to draft if it helps, then read every word. We’d bet this is the year an AI-written appeal gets screenshotted and passed around for the wrong reasons.

Consider

• Whether one person owns the year-end send calendar and approves every change
• Whether peak-day sends are scheduled days ahead instead of the morning of
• Whether a person reads every line of AI-assisted copy before it’s scheduled

Audit checks

• Your peak-day emails are built, tested, and scheduled before the week they send
• Scheduled sends avoid the top of the hour
• Merge tags have fallback values and render correctly in a seed-list test

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Segment your sends

Sending in engagement tiers

For your biggest sends, send the same email in waves, most engaged supporters first. Opens and clicks from the first wave tell inbox providers the email is wanted, which helps every wave after it reaches the inbox. Reverse the order and an email almost nobody opens starts to look like spam before it reaches the people who would have opened it. Gmail recommends starting with engaged users when you raise volume, and Engaging Networks tells senders to prioritize recent clickers when warming a domain.

Space the waves as far apart as you can. A full day between tiers is ideal and rarely possible on a giving day, so we usually leave two to three hours. Build the tiers from clicks and recent actions rather than opens, which can mislead on their own, and in Engaging Networks, Email Engagement Scores give you tiers without building them from scratch.

Consider

• Whether your biggest sends go out in engagement tiers or all at once
• Whether “engaged” means clicks and actions rather than opens alone
• Whether the gap between tiers gives inbox providers time to see engagement from the first wave

Audit checks

• Your GivingTuesday and December 31st sends go out in at least two engagement tiers, most engaged first
• Tiers are built from click-based engagement, such as Engaging Networks Email Engagement Scores

Exclusions and a snooze option

Look at your exclusions as hard as your inclusions. Someone who gave last week, a monthly donor, and a major donor who has never given online shouldn’t get the same appeal as everyone else. Build exclusions as reusable blocks (recent donors, standard fundraising suppressions, everyone you never email) and combine them for each send, so nobody rebuilds segments by hand and forgets one.

Refresh them right before each send. In Engaging Networks, a scheduled email’s audience query runs just before it sends, but saved segments and profiles inside the query don’t refresh on their own, and scheduled profiles update the night before. Rerun them, or someone who gave this morning gets tonight’s appeal. Pause automated series during campaign sends too, or keep the people in them out, so nobody gets a welcome email and an appeal on the same day.

Then, give overwhelmed supporters a way to stay before they unsubscribe. M+R’s 2026 Benchmarks found nonprofits lost 12% of their email subscribers to unsubscribes over 2025. Alongside a reduced-frequency option, offer a “snooze email” from November through December that pauses every email until January. Our Unsubscribe Page Optimization playbook covers pause options, and the one-click unsubscribe in your email headers still has to work instantly.

Consider

• Whether recent donors, including people who gave today, are excluded from the next appeal
• Whether monthly and major donors have their own year-end plan
• Whether your unsubscribe page offers something between “fewer emails” and “unsubscribe”

Audit checks

• A saved recent-donor exclusion is applied to every year-end appeal and refreshed right before each send
• No supporter gets an automated series email and a campaign appeal on the same day
• From November through December, the unsubscribe page offers a snooze until January, and snoozed supporters rejoin automatically

Resends and follow-ups

Base each follow-up on what the supporter did with the last email. Resend only to people who didn’t open or didn’t click, and write to each group differently. Someone who clicked and didn’t give was interested and got stuck, which calls for a different email than someone who never opened.

Leave room in the calendar to resend your best performer with a new subject line or fake forward to the people who missed it, and you get more out of proven copy with less writing. For one resend, test a version formatted to look forwarded from your executive director. Use behavior wherever you can, since recent clicks, pages visited, and actions taken tell you more than giving history, and conditional email content lets one email show different content to each of those groups.

Consider

• Whether resends exclude people who already clicked or gave
• Whether people who clicked without giving get a different follow-up than people who never opened
• Whether your calendar holds open slots to resend the season’s best performer

Audit checks

• Every resend excludes supporters who already clicked or gave
• At least one December slot is reserved for resending your best-performing appeal with a new subject line

Soft asks and other channels

Not every email has to be an appeal. November and December newsletters should still carry a clear way to give, and supporters who opted out of fundraising email can still get a campaign progress report with a donate button.

Mix in actions. In M+R’s 2026 Benchmarks, advocacy email drew a 1.4% response rate against 0.05% for fundraising email, and 0.34% of the people who took action went on to give on the post-action page. Those are gifts you never asked for directly, and when an issue is in the news we’ve seen advocacy sends raise real money. Make your thank-you pages ask for a second action too.

Coordinate with mail and text. M+R participants raised $0.66 by mail for every $1 raised online, so plan email, mail, and text dates together, and mention a mailed piece in email only to the people who received it. If you grow your text list during the season, check your own compliance with the consent and registration rules for text messaging before you launch.

Consider

• Whether November and December newsletters include a clear way to give
• Whether advocacy actions and thank-you pages offer a next step toward giving
• Whether email that mentions a mailed piece goes only to people who received it

Audit checks

• Your November and December newsletters include a donate button
• Post-action and thank-you pages carry a secondary giving or sharing ask
• Email, mail, and text dates for December are in one shared calendar

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Improve donation pages and forms

Message match

The donation page should tell the same story as the email that sent the donor there. Every season we still click through appeals where the email is about rescuing animals and the page has moved on to climate policy. Match the headline, image, and ask from the email or ad to the page it links to, or at least keep the page generic enough not to contradict the email.

Cover the people who skip the email, too. Run a sitewide banner with the same message during the campaign. Expect donors to search whether you’re legitimate before they give, and build a page that answers it with your registration, financials, and ratings, so the result they find is one you wrote. Our Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) playbook covers writing pages that search engines and AI assistants quote.

Consider

• Whether each donation page repeats the headline, image, and ask from the email that links to it
• Whether visitors who come straight to your homepage see the campaign
• Whether a search for your name plus “legit” or “scam” brings up a page you wrote

Audit checks

• Each year-end email links to a page or form variant that matches its story
• A sitewide banner promotes the campaign from GivingTuesday through December 31st
• A page on your site answers whether your organization is legitimate, with registration and financial details

Donate button redirects

Your main Donate button should link straight to the live donation form, so check whether it does. It often points to /donate, which redirects to a platform page, or to an old campaign page that redirects again. A hop to a different domain means a new lookup, connection, and security handshake, which Google’s PageSpeed guidance flags as a particular penalty on mobile. In our testing, one redirect like that can add one to three seconds on a phone, and Google found 53% of mobile visits are likely to be abandoned when a page takes longer than three seconds to load (2016 research Google still cites). We’ve seen a fast donation page hidden behind a chain of old redirects, and the fix was just updating links.

Redirects can cost you data, too. JavaScript and meta-refresh redirects can drop the referring URL, and a redirect that doesn’t pass along the query string strips UTM parameters and click IDs, which Google Ads warns advertisers about.

One redirect we’ll defend is a full-site takeover for your final 48 to 72 hours that sends every visitor to the donation page. Do it kindly, with a visible link back to the page they came for and a cookie so nobody gets redirected twice. We wouldn’t do it any other week of the year.

It’s a risky move for search. Google’s interstitial guidance warns that when every URL redirects to one page, Google can only crawl that page, so the rest of your site can drop out of search results while the redirect is live. For a takeover this short, we think the risk is worth it. Use a temporary redirect, and don’t exempt Google’s crawler, which counts as a sneaky redirect under Google’s spam policies.

Consider

• Whether your header Donate button points straight at the live form
• Whether UTM parameters and click IDs survive every redirect between the email and the gift
• Whether a peak-day takeover gives visitors a one-click way back

Audit checks

• The Donate button in your site header links to the live donation form with no redirects
• A test click from an email reaches the form with its UTM parameters intact
• Any full-site takeover uses a temporary redirect, runs only during your final 48 to 72 hours, and shows each visitor the takeover once

Donation form features

If you have a match, show donors what it does. Add a dynamic calculator block to your donate pages that multiplies the selected amount to show that a $20 gift will have a $60 impact with the active 3x match. On Engaging Networks forms that takes a small script, and some platforms build it in, such as Fundraise Up’s donation matching.

Personalize the ask for returning donors. Next suggested gift sets the form’s amounts from each donor’s own giving history instead of your default ask string, and it’s one of the simplest personalization moves we know.

Then make it easy to give again next year. Many year-end donors give only at year-end, so offer to make the gift annual, with a checkbox on the form or a prompt after submit. ENgrid, our open-source framework for Engaging Networks pages, has a frequency upsell that by default asks one-time donors to make their gift annual. Test the checkbox against the prompt and keep the winner.

Consider

• Whether your form shows donors what a match does to their gift
• Whether returning donors see ask amounts based on their own giving
• Whether one-time donors get an easy way to make their gift annual or monthly

Audit checks

• When a match is live, the form shows the matched total for the selected amount
• Returning donors arriving from email see personalized ask amounts
• The form or the step after it offers one-time donors an annual or monthly option

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Create urgency honestly

Match boosts and deadlines

Hold something back for the last day. If your GivingTuesday match doubles gifts, announce a 24-hour boost that triples them for the final day, and tease it a week or two ahead. The teaser warms up your list and gives you a reason to invite text sign-ups so supporters hear the news first.

Don’t expect the bigger multiplier to do the work, though. In Karlan and List’s field experiment with tens of thousands of past donors, announcing a match raised revenue per letter by 19% and the share of people giving by 22%, but 2:1 and 3:1 matches raised no more than 1:1. In multiplier terms, going from 2x to 3x or 4x added nothing on its own. A summary from the Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) notes the effect varied a lot by audience. A boost works because it adds a deadline, and the match itself has to be real, documented, and described the same way everywhere.

Gamified creative can earn a click when you need a different look. We’ve built a spin-the-wheel pop-up, borrowed from e-commerce, that always stopped on the real match multiplier. If you try one, make it read as a reveal.

Consider

• Whether you can gamify your match reveal creative
• Whether teaser emails invite supporters to opt in to texts with approved consent language

Audit checks

• Every match claim states the real end date and any cap
• Your compliance contact has reviewed match language, text opt-ins, and gamified creative before launch

Countdown timers and lightboxes

A countdown creates urgency when the deadline is close. Hold it for the final day or two, make sure it shows the right time remaining in each visitor’s time zone if possible, and check it on a phone.

Email countdown timers need more care. Some free services hand you an embed that works through testing and the first send, then swap the timer for a billing message once views pass a threshold. Read the pricing before you embed one, or use a provider you trust. Many of our clients use Nifty Images.

Target lightboxes instead of firing them at everyone. In our experience, blanket pop-ups convert poorly and make the site harder to use, so target by page, traffic source, or campaign moment. Then schedule all of it, so nobody is up at midnight on December 31st swapping creative. Our free 4Site Promotions Plugin schedules promotions down to the minute and works with Engaging Networks and EveryAction forms.

Consider

• Whether countdowns appear in the last day or two before a deadline
• Whether lightboxes target by page, source, or campaign moment instead of firing for everyone
• Whether timers and lightboxes start and stop on a schedule

Audit checks

• Countdown timers show the correct time remaining in the viewer’s time zone on mobile and desktop
• Your email countdown provider’s plan covers the views your largest send will generate
• Year-end lightboxes and timers start and stop automatically

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Follow through in January

Early-January giving

Gifts keep arriving after December 31st. People miss the deadline, feel a little guilty, and give in the first days of January, and in our reporting that bump usually lasts two or three days. Swap your year-end banners and pop-ups for a January version on January 1st, and keep it up for the week.

Drop the expired deadline and match language for new creative. A New Year’s resolution frame works, and so does a results email that tells supporters what the campaign accomplished and leaves a quiet way to give. Supporters who didn’t give can get a thank-you for being part of the community this year, with a passive ask.

Consider

• Whether your site switches from year-end to January messaging on January 1st
• Whether expired deadline and match language is gone from every page, pop-up, and automated email
• Whether your first January email reports results and leaves a quiet way to give

Audit checks

• A January version of your donation page and site banner is built and scheduled before December 31st
• No page, lightbox, or email references an expired deadline after January 1st

Welcome and re-engagement series

Year-end brings a wave of new donors, and most never give again. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project put 2025 retention for new donors at 18.9%, and M+R found 24% of new online donors gave again, against 66% of returning ones. Give new year-end donors a welcome series that starts after the holidays and spends its first 90 days helping them understand the work and get involved, without asking for another gift. Our Supporter Onboarding playbook maps that series.

In our experience, January is also the best time for a re-engagement series. After two months of appeals and updates, a supporter who opened or clicked nothing is telling you something. Send a short series with a subject line that admits it (“We didn’t hear from you this season”) and ask whether they still want your email. Engaging Networks recommends opting out the people who don’t respond, which protects next year’s deliverability.

Consider

• Whether new year-end donors enter a welcome series that starts after the holidays
• Whether that series informs and involves people before it asks again
• Whether a re-engagement series is ready for supporters who ignored every year-end email

Audit checks

• New donors from November and December enter a welcome series by mid-January
• Supporters with no opens or clicks across the campaign get a re-engagement series, and the ones who don’t respond are opted out

Campaign debrief

Schedule the debrief before the campaign starts, and hold it in January once the first numbers are in. Bring everyone who touched the campaign and ask what broke, what slowed you down, and what you’d change. By August when you’re planning the next year, nobody remembers the specifics of what you wanted to change.

Bring the link-level results. If your links were named consistently, you can see which buttons and images led to gifts and which got ignored. Then fold the one-off page changes from the code freeze back into your templates, and write the decisions down where next August’s planner will find them.

Consider

• Whether the debrief is on the calendar before the campaign starts
• Whether link-level results show which buttons and images led to gifts
• Whether one-off changes made during the freeze get folded back into your templates

Audit checks

• A January debrief is scheduled with everyone who worked on the campaign
• Last year’s debrief decisions are written down and shared with this year’s team

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Frequently asked questions

When should a nonprofit start preparing for year-end fundraising?

Year-end fundraising preparation should start in August for the technical work and no later than early October for everything else. August is the quiet month for list cleanup, authentication, and tracking tests. By November, sitewide donation-page code should be frozen and peak-day emails built and scheduled.

How does Engaging Networks decide which emails send first on GivingTuesday?

Engaging Networks has told clients its email queue runs first in, first out on heavy sending days, so emails scheduled earlier send earlier. In our experience, editing a scheduled email moves it to the back of the line. Schedule early, finish edits before you schedule, and pick a time off the top of the hour.

Is it a problem to email supporters we haven’t contacted in months during December?

Emailing long-quiet supporters for the first time in December puts your deliverability at risk, because a sudden jump in volume to people who rarely engage can push your mail toward spam. Engaging Networks lists suddenly re-emailing stale lists as a deliverability pitfall. Warm those audiences up in October with smaller sends, and leave anyone who still doesn’t engage out of your peak-day sends.

Can we upload a purchased email list to Google or Facebook ads instead of emailing it?

Uploading a purchased email list to ad platforms is not a safe workaround. Google’s Customer Match policy only allows customer data you collected yourself, and other ad platforms require you to hold the rights to any data you upload. Before any list goes to an ad platform, purchased or your own, check your own compliance with the privacy laws that apply to you.

Do we need permission to text donors during GivingTuesday?

Texting donors comes with its own consent and registration rules, separate from email’s, so check your own compliance before you launch a GivingTuesday text drive. Keep records of who opted in and how, and have your compliance contact review the opt-in language.

Should we pause automated email series during year-end campaigns?

Automated email series like welcome and renewal emails should pause while campaign appeals go out, so no supporter gets both on the same day. Most email platforms let you pause a series or keep the people in it out of a campaign send. Restart the welcome series after the holidays for the new donors you just brought in.

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About the authors

Bryan Casler is Vice President of Digital and AI Strategy at 4Site Studios, where he leads digital strategy, AI tooling, and client delivery. He has spent more than a decade on Engaging Networks administration, ENgrid, and the infrastructure behind nonprofit email and fundraising. Reach him at bryan@4sitestudios.com.

Stef Jones is Senior Director of Strategy at 4Site Studios, where she leads analytics, user experience (UX), and conversion work for nonprofit clients. Her focus is Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager implementation, donor journey tracking, and testing programs that connect website performance to fundraising results. Reach her at stef@4sitestudios.com.

Sydney Moyer is Director of Digital Strategy at 4Site Studios, where she works on email strategy, supporter journeys, and testing for nonprofit clients. She wrote our Unsubscribe Page Optimization and Supporter Onboarding playbooks. Reach her at sydney@4sitestudios.com.

Wynn Hawker-Boehnke is Director of Strategy at 4Site Studios, where they focus on conversion rate optimization, search and AI visibility, and personalizing the digital experience for nonprofits. They wrote our Website Performance and UX playbook. Reach them at wynn@4sitestudios.com.