Good Marketing Brief

Test your year-end donor path before the appeals go out 🔎

Rachel Burris Rodriguez on Nov 5, 2026, 8:30:01 AM

The next few weeks usually send more people to your donation page than any other stretch of the year, so it helps to walk through that path the way a donor would.

This week covers a website session this afternoon, a checklist for testing that path from the first click to the confirmation page, a simple scorecard for your events, and a benchmark report to compare your 2026 numbers with the rest of the sector.

The take-home template

Mid-year revenue hit a 10-year high on the smallest donor file since 2019, and RKD Group’s benchmark report digs into why. The analysis covers 219 nonprofits and a decade of giving history, with results broken out by cause and eleven measures you can compare against your own. It closes with a Q4 action plan and a framework for longer-term growth. It also helps you see how much of your own year reflects the wider sector.

Snackable snippets

Walk your donor’s digital path before an appeal goes out ðŸ“–

Donors experience your campaign long after the appeal. This checklist follows the whole path. Start by making sure your dates, goal, and match terms read the same on every page and profile. Then make a small test gift from a phone and read the receipt and confirmation page the way a donor would. 

 

The secret to year-round engagement & conversions ðŸ“–

Giving season sends a spike of people to your website, and most of them leave without a trace. Feathr’s Super Pixel is a snippet of tracking code that shows who is engaging with your content and what they do there, including anonymous visitors. Someone who spent four minutes on your donation page is telling you something even without a name attached, and you can serve ads to that audience across the web. Install it across the donation form and event pages before traffic picks up.

The event scorecard to run before the next one ðŸ“–

Every fundraising event deserves a check-in once in a while. The Chronicle of Philanthropy lays out a simple way to do it. Name what the event is for, then score it on staff time, volunteer hours, hard costs, and money raised, and compare it against your other events. It also separates fundraisers from friendraisers.

For your inspiration folder

Feeding America gives employer matching its own page, and the whole thing is built around the donor’s next step. It opens with a headline about doubling your impact and a button that takes you straight to a tool that looks up your employer. Below that, the process is laid out in three short steps. Look up your employer, send in the request, and the match follows once it’s approved.

The FAQs cover the questions donors are most likely to have. If your employer isn’t on the list, you can still ask HR. If you already gave this year, you can still request a match. The page also notes that an earlier request gets the money to the organization quicker, and it lists the organization’s EIN, which gives donors what they need to complete an employer form.
Topics: Nonprofits

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