Good Marketing Brief

Your year-end channel mix, mapped out

Rachel Burris Rodriguez on Oct 15, 2026, 8:15:00 AM

GivingTuesday is seven weeks away, and channel competition is already heating up 🔥 —$10.8 billion in political ad spending is projected for the midterms, so Q4 inbox and ad inventory will be crowded.

This week is about building a year-end channel mix that holds up under that pressure: where to focus your paid media, how the fastest-growing giving vehicles fit into your strategy, and what charity: water did on National DAF Day that’s worth borrowing before the season gets fully underway.

 

The take-home template

Before you finalize your year-end channel strategy, this report gives you the data to make the case for where to focus. U.S. giving grew 5.7% in current dollars in 2025, but monthly giving grew 12% and now accounts for 27% of all online revenue, and bequest giving grew 19.7%.

Sustainers, mid-level programs, DAFs, and planned giving are each outpacing the overall benchmark, and the report makes a strong case for treating them as connected pathways rather than separate initiatives. The action plan at the end includes specific steps for building that kind of system before the year closes out.

Snackable snippets

The performance data to shape your year-end mix 📖

Paid search delivered the highest return on ad spend of any channel in 2025, and Meta remained the dominant paid channel for direct fundraising. With $10.8 billion in political ad spending projected for the 2026 midterms, Q4 inbox and ad inventory competition will be intense. Media Cause recommends concentrating year-end fundraising budget in channels with proven conversion track records, moving stewardship and non-cash asks earlier in the fall, and giving the two weeks around Election Day a wide berth for major appeals.

The generation doing the most for new donor acquisition 📖

Gen Z donors are doing more than any other generation to bring new people into giving. Nine in 10 took some action in the past year to recruit someone else, and half gave through a creator campaign, often to a cause they’d never heard of. Most of them participated before they gave, and 48% now discover causes by scrolling social media, up from 36% earlier this year.

 

How AI helps peer-to-peer teams personalize at scale 📖

Peer-to-peer campaigns produce more audience segments than most teams have time to write for. First-time participants need guidance, team captains need coaching, high performers need recognition, and inactive participants need a nudge back in. Most teams end up sending the same message to everyone because writing five versions isn’t realistic. AI can close that gap by turning a single prompt into a first draft you can adapt by segment, milestone, and tone.

For your inspiration folder

 

charity: water sent a plain-text email on National DAF Day that opened with a single story about a supporter who emptied his entire donor-advised fund after learning how many people were drinking unsafe water.

The core message was simple: You’ve already set this money aside to give away, and now you get to decide what it does. The email included a video from founder Scott Harrison showing what DAF gifts have made possible across 20 years and 22 million people served. It offered a $100,000 match on all DAF gifts, linked to a dedicated landing page, and invited donors to simply reply for help submitting a grant recommendation.

 
Topics: Nonprofits

See all