Do you interact with donors, grantors and board members during the holidays?
You should. 30% of all charitable giving occurs in December. Intentional interactions with stakeholders during the holidays can make your donation and advocacy goals a reality.
There are variations to the assets you might use to engage donors during the holidays. One of our favourites is a Holiday Wish List. A nonprofit wish list is a perfect resource to outline your needs, encourage donors, and create a clear path to direct charitable action.
To make your asset creation easier, we outlined the elements of a nonprofit holiday wish list and created a template you can easily adapt to fit your needs.
Nonprofit Holiday Wish List Elements
Organization summary
Summary includes organization name, headquarters and mission statement. The summary should be 2-5 sentences long and is a good opportunity to share the vision of your organization. Some organizations choose to write this section as a letter from a well known leader in the organization for added personality.
Review of 2019 impact
The impact review element of your holiday wish list acts proof of your organization’s good work. The review often includes what projects were completed with donations in the past, and encourages stakeholders to contribute to your impact. This section is most impactful with bullet statistics, points, or stories from beneficiaries.
Wishes
Your wishes are the gifts you want from donors, we encourage organizations to have a minimum of 3 categories of wishes: in kind, social gift, or monetary gift.
In-kind: physical gifts or services your organization needs, this might be food for a pantry, an electronic, or expertise.
Social gift: is a non-monetary act like sharing a post, recruiting stakeholders to your newsletter or sharing your wish list, social gifts are a great opportunity to engage donors that might not be positioned to donate right now.
Monetary gifts: traditional cash donations.
Wish outcomes
Wish outcomes section is your review of impact in reverse. It is 1-3 sentences on what your organization aims to achieve if granted its wishes.
Next steps
After people take an act on digital content, they prefer something to close the experience. This might be a button to share their good deeds on social media, a simple thank you online, or a note on what is to come for your organization in 2020.
Engage donors with your own wish list with our Free Holiday Wish List Template [PDF]