For nonprofits, 30% of annual giving occurs in the month of December, but year-end giving campaigns like #GivingTuesday aren’t just peak-time for donations.

For all those who've ever faced these challenges, this downloadable #GivingTuesday campaign planning workbook (above) is for you!

At NationBuilder, we help organizations go further by developing new and existing supporters into leaders in their own right.  

There’s an old saying -- “success leaves clues” -- and much of the time, the clues to successful fundraising are found in the way we tackle challenges. As Community Strategists, we’ve learned from thousands of customers’ successes and challenges.

Here are five of the most common challenges we've see nonprofits struggle with in executing an effective fundraising campaign, and strategies to address them.

Challenge: My organization’s message gets lost in the fray.
Solution: Tell a compelling story. This can be done in a myriad of ways: highlighting something that makes your organization unique, effectively communicating your mission or articulating the purpose of your campaign. Our story building guide might be a helpful place to start.

Challenge: It’s hard to tell how well we’re doing beyond dollars.
Solution: Identify clear and trackable goals. Goals can absolutely be specific but they can also be high level. They can be as specific as I want to raise $10,000 dollars, or as broad as “I want to build deeper relationships with new supporters.”

Challenge: I don’t know how to activate my supporters.
Solution: Make specific and targeted asks. By taking the time to tailor your asks to your supporters based upon their engagement history, interests, location, age, etc you’ll have a much higher conversion rate. Research shows that segmenting lists or personalizing messages can lead to more than a 40% improvement.

Challenge: I don’t know how to reach new supporters.
Solution: Identify and develop your leaders. 92% of Americans trust friend referrals over any other form of marketing and 4.7% of your support base is responsible for 100% of your word of mouth. Building a strong peer-to-peer fundraising pipeline is key and can lead to long term, sustained engagement.

Challenge: It’s hard to keep my supporters engaged for the long run.
Solution: Follow up with every action. The biggest wasted opportunity is when someone takes an action and then receives no follow up. Treat all levels of engagement -- whether someone is donating $5 or $5,000 -- as an opportunity to express gratitude, but also an opportunity to move someone up the ladder of engagement.