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The New Year Means New Opportunities to Connect with Donors

*Your reward for reading on...some good tips and funny New Years gifs!


By Kerri M. Stancil


Published, Monday, January, 6, 2025


Each year that ticks by presents greater opportunities to connect your mission to donor intent. In 2025 we are primed to step into meaningful messages and engagement opportunities which allow a bigger audience and deeper understanding of the important work delivered in our nonprofit and small business missions. I know your next question is – well yes, but how? – my desire is to lay a few ideas out that will inspire you to take actionable steps to create further engagement and depth in your yearly donor communications and stewardship.


Reintroduce Organizational Messaging & Mission


Take the first one – three months of the new year to reintroduce your organization, the mission, or state your updated message and work you plan for 2025. This message can be a refurbished communication from the past year, or it can be brand new, focusing on new projects or milestones. There is no one form of communication that is more advantageous than another, but internally, it can be a great opportunity to try something new. If 2024 felt a bit stale by the time you hit December, shake things up, use old strategies like staggering messages, or internally tiering communications to send out a video message, or an opportunity for supporters to go public with their investment in your organization with a social media toolkit. Start small with rolling out a new communication tactic and see what the response is, then tweak your plan to either integrate that strategy or exclude it going forward based on donor reaction.


Remain vigilant with your core supporters, foster their support, and harness their excitement for your organization’s work and bring new donors closer to your community of supporters. There is an old adage – your next best donor is within your current donor pool – there is some truth in this, but I would add that your next best advocate for your cause is also there. New board members, new social media supporters, new sustainers, or new employees, they all exist within your network that moved with you into the new year. Tap into that and connect with these folks in new and meaningful ways.



Reflect on & Highlight Donor Impact (at varying levels) on the Organization's Mission in 2024


Take a look back at 2024, and by January if you have not already produced a thank you message either via email or video, discussing the impact you achieved in partnership with your donors, do that! While it is important to refresh messaging and communications efforts, it is just as important to acknowledge and thank the accomplishments that have gotten you to 2025 with your donor’s support. If this is the first time you are embarking on a thank you message like this, it may feel difficult or feel like a postmortem of the past year. Just know that once you implement this messaging the first time, the next year it will become a welcomed tool to communicate achievements, and this beginning of year strategic tradition will begin to feel more initiative-taking and a natural part of your donor stewardship plan. Leadership will be expecting to see your copy come across their desk for approval, internal partners will begin to anticipate your messaging and have items ready to contribute. If this is not your first year implementing a message like this, kudos, you’re ahead of the game and you may find focusing on the next 3-6 months of communications activities more beneficial and the place that you start working on, rather than the lookback message in the first month of 2025.


If your communications team is not in a position to prepare a video thank you from your CEO, or if there is resistance to this reflection and thank you effort, start small and build. As donor relations professionals we are here for the long game, building year over year in staffing, ideas, creativity, communications planning, and stewardship. One item I’ve included in past positions has been a small push to transfer support to action – is sharing their work and support of the organization in a public forum. This might be a link to a review at the end of the message, a social media toolkit, a link to give more or a one time (smaller) gift to a specific cause the organization is introducing in the new year, or even a link to engage with new content or articles written about your organization.


Forecast Communications Efforts Planned for the New Year & the Impact One Donor can Make Through Engagement in the Organization's Mission


To continue from the last section, I encourage you to forecast the plans you have to connect with donors. You do not have to give details of the internal donor engagement and communications plan out but give key updates and opportunities that they can expect to see coming months of the new year. There is a certainty inherent with forecasting, less messages will land in the junk folder, there is a hope and positive anticipation that comes with forecasting, and it also keeps us honest in our work. What I mean is, you have your internal deadlines for copy approval and layout and the like, but when you forecast messaging and engagement opportunities to donors, you create a meaningful obligation to yourself that you know – Sandy from California will love this next communications piece, I told her it would be arriving in a couple of months, I owe it to her (and other donors) to ensure it makes it to print/email/video. Forecasting personalizes our work, and like a writer who pens a song with a specific artist in mind, it is a welcomed guiding star to envision the donors you’ve gotten to know enjoying a new message or update on the work they enable through their support.



Create Donor Communications & Stewardship that Includes Opportunities for Donors to Give More & Get Involved - In New & Different Ways from 2024


Just like any other year you’ve worked in the donor relations field, always use the opportunity and hope that comes with the new year as an opportunity for an increase in support. Re-evaluate your donor community to get a better understanding of what drives giving, of those folks who have the financial potential to give more, or even what you think a discrete group of donors within your network might really enjoy seeing or hearing about. Are there donors that appreciate kitschy social media photos in their messages? Has a donor previously shown appreciation for the personalized weekly emails you send when you see a news story that speaks to their “why.” Seek to truly engage and understand your donors and what makes them excited to hear more, you will not be disappointed in the reaction, and you most definitely will be surprised by the want to hear from you and your organization more.


If you enter the new year with less inspiration than you would like, make part of your plan for 2025 to educate yourself on new ways to engage and inspire donors. Attend a webinar on new tech, take advantage of your organizations educational funding to attend a worthwhile conference, create a brief for new tools for engagement, and work each day to get more inspired and put some new years energy behind your communications efforts.


Always lead with the value that drew you to the organization, and the fact that to be seen and appreciated for your impact and your why’s is at the heart of truly being seen. In the end, this truth holds personally for donors and ourselves, professionally as donor relations professionals, and as organizations making a difference with their work.


Remember - A New Year is the Reset Button to Communications, Stewardship, Impact & Commitment


Always remember that the turning of the calendar to a new year is just a reset button for you and your organizations communications, project goals, stewardship opportunities, and a want to re-commit to the thing that got the donor interested in your mission in the first place. There is (and always) has been a hopeful kind of magic that comes with a new year, use your position and communication strategies to honor that on your donor’s behalf. Create meaning and closeness with your messaging, reinvigorate commitment through imagery and new technologies that make it easier to connect, and most importantly, remember that the work we do as donor relations professionals is so integral to fundraising which makes it imperative to approach each new year with a fresh take on communicating with our donors in the hopes of bringing them closer to the organizational mission.





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