How to get your digital fundraising off to a winning start in 2025

What if there was a way to get a head start on your 2025 supporter recruitment and fundraising work and set yourself up for a calmer start to the year?

Crack this and you could be making the most of one of the most underrated times of year for building your supporter base, raising money and driving campaigns forward.

We’re sharing two valuable insights from our work with partners across the sector, and the thousands of data points we have on digital programmes including paid social, landing pages, email and supporter engagement.

People still give, but not many people ask

The Data Daisy Chain Donate Rate In post-action daisy chain pages the average donate rate is 0.9% Jan-Mar, compared to 0.75% year round Cash Email Donate Rate The donate rate in Jan-Mar is 0.2%, compared to 0.15% year round Average Email Gift Cash emails have an average gift of £41 Jan-Mar, compared to £32 year round Direct Donate Ads Ads have average ROAS of 307% in Jan-Mar, compared to 276% year round

Insight: People still give, but not many people ask. The Data Daisy Chain Donate Rate In post-action daisy chain pages the average donate rate is 0.9% Jan-Mar, compared to 0.75% year round Cash Email Donate Rate The donate rate in Jan-Mar is 0.2%, compared to 0.15% year round Average Email Gift Cash emails have an average gift of £41 Jan-Mar, compared to £32 year round Direct Donate Ads Ads have average ROAS of 307% in Jan-Mar, compared to 276% year round Data is from Forward Action's own benchmarks working with partners across the non-profit sector, 2023-2024. What you should do Try testing a new year digital fundraising appeal Is there an external moment you can hook this to? Cold weather, cultural moments? Or is there an internal story you can tell - new year goals, financial targets at risk? You'll need a strong narrative to show why now and where donations will go. Plan your digital channels mix Will this be a simple series of emails? Or will you add direct donate ads or two-step acquisition journeys like a petition/handraiser/value exchange product with a donate ask in the daisy chain? Think about what your audience wants Could you develop a digital value exchange product that taps into the new year mindset? We see donate rates spike when people get something of value first. Think healthy recipes, wellbeing toolkits, calendars, discount codes.

In action: Care4Calais

As well as a winter appeal running through November and December, Care4Calais continued to run direct donate ads through January, February and March.

In 2023 & 2024 combined they saw a staggering 486% return on ad spend during these months.

They focused on cold weather conditions and reactive news on attacks to refugee accommodation, and had tangible examples of how donations would be used.

Meta ad showing tents at Calais

In action: Action Against Hunger 

Action Against Hunger continued to run their Gaza-Israel Crisis petition through January – March 2024. It had a donation ask in the post-action daisy chain which saw a 2% conversion rate for cash gifts in this period. This is double our benchmark for this type of action.

The urgent and emotive nature of the action, as well as a fully tested and optimised post-action journey both contributed to this success.

Handriaser sign up page with call to action: Gaza-Israel Crisis, call on the UK gov to take action

Insight: You can recruit new supporters at a lower cost

Action Against Hunger continued to run their Gaza-Israel Crisis petition through January - March 2024. It had a donation ask in the post-action daisy chain which saw a 2% conversion rate for cash gifts in this period. This is double our benchmark for this type of action. The urgent and emotive nature of the action, as well as a fully tested and optimised post-action journey both contributed to this success. Insight: You can recruit new supporters at a lower cost The Data Cost per new lead The average cost per new lead was £1.58 Jan-Mar, compared with £1.81 year round

Action Against Hunger continued to run their Gaza-Israel Crisis petition through January - March 2024. It had a donation ask in the post-action daisy chain which saw a 2% conversion rate for cash gifts in this period. This is double our benchmark for this type of action. The urgent and emotive nature of the action, as well as a fully tested and optimised post-action journey both contributed to this success. Insight: You can recruit new supporters at a lower cost The Data Cost per new lead The average cost per new lead was £1.58 Jan-Mar, compared with £1.81 year round What you should do Get digital acquisition running early Make the most of lower advertising costs on platforms like Meta, and less competition from other organisations in January, February and March. Test different tactics Try petitions, handraisers, value exchange offers, games and quizzes. Build quick and basic prototypes first and compare data before investing in polished versions of the best performing. Make your post-action journey work hard People are most likely to take a second action such as donating, shopping, sharing or campaigning straight after their first. Your sign-up pages should ideally have a scrolling daisy chain of actions with AB testing built in.

In action: Dementia UK

Dementia UK had been running an ongoing acquisition campaign testing different handraiser framings since summer 2023.

After pausing in December, we restarted paid social ads the first week in January 2024 and achieved a cost per lead of £1.24 and recruited more than 7,000 email subscribers in the first three months of the year.

This journey had the bonus of converting signers to regular givers at a brilliant rate of 1.3% as well.

Handraiser page for Dementia UK with headine: In 2024, no family should have to face dementia alone. Agee?

We’ve got a small amount of space to work on new projects in December and January.

If you want to chat about strategy, creative or delivery, or just have questions about where to start, we are always happy to chat!

hello@forwardaction.uk