THE STRATEGY

As we dive into 2026, for many the next big campaign is already well underway – and the first weeks of the year have already challenged nonprofits with more uncertainty and difficult news. Nonprofits doing the critical work to rise up and continue to protect and support their communities need smart, data-backed strategies to connect with supporters and raise the resources to power their necessary work.

The Digital Co-Op was created for moments like this – to help you solve your biggest list growth challenges and find the best audience for your mission. To identify the best list growth and targeting practices for your unique organization in 2026, we’re taking a closer look at how our top end-of-year takeaways can inform your acquisition plans in the new year.

Strategic acquisition investments ahead of year-end giving are a powerful engine for strong returns and revenue in December.

Nonprofits that used the summer and fall months to grow and prepare their lists ahead of year-end saw the strategy pay back at Giving Tuesday and end-of-year. This was especially the case in 2025, when a challenging economic landscape made it all the more essential for nonprofits to ensure they are turning to their largest, best audience in key moments.

The Digital Co-Op helped its members achieve quick returns this end-of-year, with nine organizations that invested in acquisitions between August and November seeing full payback by year-end. One nonprofit member of The Digital Co-Op saw their October investment in email list growth ahead of year-end drive a 4.5X return by Dec. 31.

As texting matures and competition increases, data-informed optimizations are crucial to continued growth over SMS.

With volume ticking up across digital channels and more nonprofit programs moving into SMS to break through, competition is growing. While nonprofits moving into P2P text for the first time at end-of-year are still seeing a valuable bump in revenue, existing SMS programs needed to earn their year-over-year gains by optimizing everywhere.

MissionSMS is a powerful acquisition tool that leverages The Digital Co-Op’s state-of-the-art modeling and vast data lake to identify the audiences most likely to give to your specific nonprofit mission over text. For a number of major nonprofits, MissionSMS alongside email list acquisition was critical to hitting their revenue goals:

• For one nonprofit member, leveraging MissionSMS at end-of-year helped them achieve a 128% return in December – and, by investing in acquisition throughout 2025, they managed to drive powerful returns throughout the year, with one January buy paying back nearly 300% by year-end.
• Another nonprofit member saw their January and October investments in list growth achieve full payback in 65 days, with their January investment returning over 400% by end-of-year. In December, texting powered by MissionSMS drove a 130% return.

The key to driving strong email performance in 2025 was precise, data-informed segmentation.

After unexpected softness in email performance in 2024, this year-end we did not see that same decline in the powerhouse digital channel and instead saw performance hold steady. Across MissionWired partners, email drove 13% more revenue year over year, while volume remained nearly the same as in 2024, with only a 0.4% increase. For many, the key to this performance turnaround was strategic choices to optimize segmentation.

Nonprofit members of The Digital Co-Op were able to increase the precision of each email and its audience to drive growth in the midst of competition through modeling: targeting their best prospects, identifying their best upgrade potential, and giving audiences the most personalized appeals possible.

• Reactivation modeling has been helping nonprofit Co-Op members identify the most promising lapsed supporters to reach out to and invite back into the fold. One nonprofit partner invested in reactivation modeling ahead of Giving Tuesday and drove a 10X return by Dec. 31.
• Our sister co-op, The Mid-Level Co-Op, is helping its members identify prospective donors with the potential to give at higher tiers. This end-of-year giving season, prospects identified by the Mid-Level Co-Op drove a 2X higher average gift than standard acquisition prospects.

In a year like 2026, we know you’re eager to build an efficient acquisition plan to help drive immediate and long-term growth for your program. And we’re excited to keep that conversation going! To chat more about how these list growth and targeting strategies can help you solve challenges in 2026, reach out to your Co-Op contact or send us an email at thedigitalcoop@missionwired.com.