Fundraising tips to consider at Christmas

Christmas is an important time for charities. The season of goodwill means donors are usually feeling generous and predisposed to give, but in order to benefit from this charitable spirit, organisations need to get their names and causes out there. 

Christmas campaigns and appeals are difficult to get right. A balance needs to be struck between appealing to the public and not overwhelming them, especially at a time when they may be struggling themselves and when lots of other organisations will be competing for attention, too. 

This is where the Christmas Giving Insights report can help. Produced by fundraising platform Enthuse, the report has pulled together data from the last two years to determine patterns behind charitable giving during the Christmas days, including which days receive the most donations online (spoiler: Christmas Eve is one of them!). 

The report revealed that the charities should focus on December as the most important month in their winter appeals, with both November and January following similar patterns of giving as the rest of the year.  

Enthuse found that donations steadily increased during December 2019, only to fall off significantly on Christmas Day and stay at those levels for the remainder of the year. Donations raised on Christmas Eve in 2019 comprised 7% of what was given that month.  

But in 2020, 4.6% of December donations came in on that day. The report notes that 2020 was slightly different, and despite different parts of the country being in varying degrees of lockdown, giving was much more consistent across December.  

This, Enthuse suggests, is likely to be down to people giving earlier due to less opportunity to take part in leisure activities due to COVID-19 restrictions and therefore having more disposable income than usual during the month.  

The research revealed that weekdays are far more popular for donations than weekends. While this is true all year round, in December, weekends are much more limited, with time dedicated to shopping and seeing friends and family.  

With the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, the report expects patterns to move back towards 2019 levels, when weekday donations averaged 3.5% of the total raised in December. Donations on the weekends were one percentage point lower. The number of donations rises during the week. The most donations are received on Friday, but what a difference a day makes – Saturday receives the least. 

The best time for donations, according to the report, is between 10am and 1pm – on average, these three hours account for a fifth of donations being made during one day in December 2020. But Enthuse also advised keeping working hours in mind now many of us are back in the office. In August and September 2021 – when offices started to reopen – donation times peaked between 8am and 11am, and again in the evening, between 6pm and 9pm.  

The report also touched on the importance of Giving Tuesday, an annual event that has been adopted by UK charities from their counterparts in America and which traditionally takes place on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.   

Giving Tuesday, which is on 30 November this year, has grown greatly in importance since its inception in 2012. In 2020, Giving Tuesday raised £20.2 million – a 43% increase on 2019. Enthuse points to the convenience of the 2021 date, noting that the last day of the month is often payday for workers who may feel more inclined to donate as a result. 

Christmas may be just around the corner (38 sleeps in fact, and counting!) but there is still time for charities to make the most of their appeals. In fact, we say Christmas starts earlier every year – let the planning for the 2022 campaigns start here.