Your 2025 Growth Strategy: End-of-Year Takeaways
Last week, we celebrated the accomplishments of our nonprofit partners in their end-of-year campaigns by digging into the data to share back results, trends, and innovative strategies in our 2024 End-of-Year Digital Report. In the face of a wide range of challenges in 2024 – from a deeply consuming election to extra competition for attention to an unusual December calendar – nonprofits still managed to drive growth by remaining nimble, diversifying across channels, and investing in modeled acquisition and targeting to find their best audiences.
Nonprofit members of The Digital Co-Op led the way in finding innovative solutions to industry problems this end of year, leveraging its powerful models to optimize their email lists, scale up over SMS, and grow holistically with an eye on the long-term health of their file. So we’re thrilled to be able to share the incredible impact of The Digital Co-Op for nonprofit members at year-end.
Here’s a snapshot of how The Digital Co-Op powered year-end results for members:
$6.5 million
$6.5 million raised through Co-Op Acquisition
$3.8 million
$3.8 million raised through Reactivation by The Digital Co-Op
$10.3 million
…for an astonishing $10.3 million raised in total from Co-Op-delivered leads at EOY
- Eight organizations that made investments in The Digital Co-Op between August and November saw an average return of 341% by Dec. 31.
- Twenty nonprofit members saw their list growth investments between August and November power conversion rates 85% higher than industry average.
- MissionSMS helped one member return over 100% immediate ROI and added 894 new donors to their list in a single text campaign between Dec. 30 and 31.
The fundraising challenges of 2025 are already well underway, as nonprofits rise up to protect and support their communities – and smart, data-backed strategies will be essential for helping world-changing organizations connect with supporters to continue their necessary work.
With this imperative top of mind, we’re taking a closer look at what our top end-of-year takeaways mean for nonprofit members of The Co-Op and how these insights can inform your planning in a new year:
With email volume and revenue showing stagnation, programs making shifts in strategy are getting ahead of the curve.
For the first time in six years, our End of Year report saw average email volume across our nonprofit partners level out, with a number of organizations seeing email revenue flat or down year over year. While email is still an essential and core part of fundraising programs and is still driving a large percentage of digital revenue, many aren’t seeing it drive the kind of year-over-year growth we’ve become accustomed to in recent years.
The Digital Co-Op can help you stay ahead of the curve when it comes to rethinking your email strategy. Here’s how:
- Use precise, data-informed segmentation to optimize your file. In challenging giving environments and high-competition moments like end of year, it’s essential to make sure you’re targeting your best prospects, identifying your best upgrade potential, and giving your audiences the best personalized appeals possible. Modeling gives you access to the audience insights that will give you your best chance of success.
- Reactivation modeling has been helping nonprofit Co-Op members identify the most promising lapsed supporters to reach out to with messaging that invites them back into the fold. This past year-end season, one nonprofit member invested in modeled reactivation with The Digital Co-Op in the two weeks ahead of Giving Tuesday and saw their investments pay back 235% by Dec. 31.
Email is still absolutely key for high-value audiences like mid-level, who should receive content tailored to their level of giving. And there’s good news from The Digital Co-Op on the subject: We’re about to launch a new solution, The Mid-Level Co-Op, to help connect nonprofits with high-value supporters. Leveraging the very same advanced machine learning tools, our new Mid-Level Co-Op will do something no acquisition source has done before: identify and bring proven mid-level donors onto your file. We’ll have lots more to share about this soon, so stay tuned!
P.S. Join our expert strategist on Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. ET for a webinar discussing more innovative email strategies and the future of nonprofit email fundraising! To secure your spot to attend “What Should Nonprofits Do About Email?” register here:
Nonprofits that diversified revenue sources by launching or scaling up over SMS saw strong results.
Across our nonprofit partners, we saw an 86% increase in SMS campaigns on Giving Tuesday – and at end of year, average SMS sent per program saw a 22% increase. Whether launching new programs for the first time or scaling up existing texting programs, it’s clear that more organizations are looking to SMS to achieve year-over-year growth for their fundraising campaigns.
Among our partners who’ve been texting for years and have already built up a mature and robust program, leveraging data-informed models to connect with the strongest possible audience for their mission helped drive year-over-year growth and strong returns. For a number of major nonprofits, MissionSMS was critical to hitting their revenue goals:
- For one nonprofit, using MissionSMS in their end-of-year text campaigns helped them achieve an immediate ROI of over 140% and drive over 600 gifts.
- Another program beat their SMS reforecast goal by 188% and raised 96% more revenue over 2023 with the help of leads delivered by MissionSMS.
- For a third nonprofit partner, a text campaign powered by MissionSMS between Dec. 30 and 31 returned over 100% immediate ROI and added 894 new donors to their list.
Whether you’ve already tapped into the incredible revenue boosts that adding this revenue channel to your program can offer and are looking for resources to take your SMS program further or you’re looking to stand up a brand-new SMS program, consider MissionSMS your resource for finding the very best audience for your mission over text.
Nonprofits leveraging sustained acquisition investments are supporting program growth at every level – for the long term.
In a challenging fundraising environment, growing your audiences is essential to holistically fuel your donor pipeline – and it can have a powerful impact on your end-of-year campaigns. This year, nonprofit members leveraged the Co-Op to drive year-over-year growth at Giving Tuesday and end of year with a few key strategies:
- One nonprofit member has been investing in sustained, consistent list growth through The Digital Co-Op for more than three years, honing their strategy each year. In 2024, they saw 73% of their revenue come from Co-Op-acquired leads at Giving Tuesday and 53% at end of year.
- Eight organizations that made investments in The Digital Co-Op between August and November saw an average return of 341% by Dec. 31.
- For 20 nonprofit members of The Digital Co-Op, list growth investments from August to November leading up to end of year helped them achieve conversion rates 85% higher than industry average.
We’re eager to keep the conversation going around how these list growth and targeting strategies can help you solve for challenges in 2025 – reach out to your Co-Op contact or send us an email at thedigitalcoop@missionwired.com to get planning.