The Catholic Year-End Giving Playbook: From Matching Gift to New Year’s Eve

The end-of-year giving season is the stretch run to the World Series for Catholic marketers and fundraisers. The groundwork you laid from January to November can pay off in a big way in the last month and a half of the year—or not.

Year-end fundraising success all comes down to advance planning, coordinated content, and a multi-channel approach. It requires segmentation to speak to potential and existing donors personally and appropriately. It requires specificity and evidence of how donor dollars will change the world through your mission. It requires creativity to stand out from the white noise of this heavy fundraising season in an increasingly crowded market. 

I’ve spent nearly 20 years in Catholic nonprofits, at Mundelein, Catholic Extension, Word on Fire, and Real Life Catholic, usually leading a marketing team of one or two people. In this post, I lay out the year-end plan I’ve built over those years. I also shared these strategies in more detail in the webinar below.

Watch the full session: “Finish the Year Strong: Giving Tuesday & Year-End Fundraising for Catholic Nonprofits,” recorded live Oct 15, 2026, with Josh Canning and Hugh Macken of VMR Communications for Catholic365 and Catholic AdNet.

Treat year-end as a season

A lot of organizations put all their emphasis on Giving Tuesday or on December 31. Those are important days. But they’re part of a larger end-of-year season. Keeping with the baseball analogy, the stretch run starts the week before Thanksgiving and runs through New Year’s Eve. Plan your calendar appropriately.

If you’re reading this in November and feel behind, you probably have more depth on your bench than you realize. You already have content that can be enhanced or repurposed to demonstrate your mission to donors. If you have an email list, you have people you can steward toward a gift. It’s not too late, especially if you implement the tips below.

And you don’t need a big team. Most places I’ve worked, I’ve been a marketing team of one or two, even at some larger organizations. Everything below is something I’ve done myself. You need time and you need a plan. If you have those two things, you can have the best Giving Tuesday ever and set yourself up for end-of-year success.

Step 1: Decide on one tangible thing

Before you write a single email, decide on one specific thing your year-end giving will make possible. Be concrete: the number of meals served, a new program you’re launching, a fund you’re establishing. Donors want something tangible their gift is going toward, especially on Giving Tuesday.

Even if you’re raising for your operating fund, find a way to make it bite-sized. A lot of organizations offer a menu or a wish list so donors can see what $50 or $500 does.

This decision usually isn’t yours alone. If you’re the marketer or the fundraiser, you might need to talk to the COO or the board to settle it. Have that conversation now, so you can start creating content toward the goal.

Step 2: Secure a real matching gift

This is my number one tip for Giving Tuesday and year-end giving: Get a matching gift.

A match does a few things at once. First, it gives you a reason to reach out to a major donor or a group of donors before the year-end push begins. It doesn’t have to be one giant gift. You can pool a few larger gifts and say, “A group of our generous donors has come together to create a matching gift opportunity.” When you ask those donors, tell them the truth: their gift will go farther because it will encourage other people to give.

Then, when you take the match to your email list, everyone else feels their gift is going farther too, because they’re doubling their impact. It adds urgency, and it gives you a visible target to hit.

Be honest about the terms. Say whether the donor gives the full amount no matter what or only if you meet the match. And make it a real match. Some organizations dip into money they already have and call it a matching fund. Don’t. It should be new money from a donor or group of donors that everyone else can actually match with their contributions.

Don’t be ashamed of a small match. If you can scrounge up $5,000, that’s still $10,000 when your donors match it.

Plan the stretch goal before you need it. If you meet the match, move the goalposts. Better yet, ask your matching donor up front whether they’d add another $10,000 if you hit the first goal. Then you get to send the best email of the season: “Our donor was so pleased we met the match that they offered another $10,000.”

Keep it running. If you don’t meet the match on Giving Tuesday, keep working toward it through December 31. Late in the month, it’s fine to go back to people who already gave: “I know you already gave this season. It’s December 29, and we’re this close to our second match. Will you make another gift?” A lot of people will.

I’ve run matching gifts at Mundelein, Word on Fire, and Real Life Catholic, and I’ve never not made the match. For more on structuring one, see our Giving Tuesday strategy for Catholic nonprofits.

Step 3: Segment your list

If you don’t remember anything else from this guide, remember two things: the matching gift and segmentation.

People want to be spoken to as if you know how they relate to your mission. So start tracking how people come onto your list. If they join through a content campaign, tag them that way. If they attend an event, tag them. When they make a first gift, tag them. The more entry points and engagement moments you track, the more specifically you can talk to people.

When I worked at Mundelein, I wanted to grow the email list, so I started recording homilies that the rector, Fr. John Kartje, gave to the seminarians. He is by no means well-known outside of the Chicago area, but he’s a brilliant homilist. I ran Meta ads with a short clip of him inviting people to sign up for Rector Reflections, and the campaign went bananas. I was getting new leads for less than a dollar, and the list grew from about 3,000 to 27,000.

Every one of those subscribers got a Rector Reflections tag in Mailchimp. Then I could watch the tags pile up. Someone would sign up for Rector Reflections, then our summer online Bible study, then a Father’s Day campaign, and then Giving Tuesday came and that person became a donor. Sometimes it took two years. 

On Giving Tuesday, I sent the Rector Reflections segment its own email: you’ve been enjoying these reflections, please help us keep them coming by helping us meet our match. People who’ve been enjoying quality content from you for two years are ready to be asked. But you have to ask them in that context to connect those dots in their head.

The core segments I use:

• Subscribers
• Engaged subscribers (they’ve joined content campaigns or attended events)
• One-time donors
• Recurring donors
• Lapsed donors, which gives me two of my favorite fundraising acronyms: LYBUNT (gave Last Year But Unfortunately Not This year) and SYBUNT (gave Some Year But Unfortunately Not This year)
• Major gift prospects and major donors
  
  

Each group needs a different message. Non-donors get urgency. Donors get gratitude first (and always), then the ask: show them what their last gift made possible before you ask them to make the next thing possible.

Recurring and major donors get insider love. They’ve already shown a commitment to your mission, so they should feel like part of the community. This is where a lot of organizations lose the plot, including some I’ve worked for. Calling your monthly donors the Aquinas Circle is a fine start, but you have to build an actual community around the name: a quarterly Zoom with leadership where they hear news that hasn’t been announced yet, or a way to pray together, like a livestreamed rosary or prayer intentions sent to a religious community your organization is connected to.

Always collect first and last name when someone signs up. Some people worry it adds friction, but that has not been my experience, and it means so much more to call someone by name when you’re asking them for money. Most email platforms also let you swap whole paragraphs in and out by segment, so you can write one custom message in a section that only certain segments see instead of building six versions.

Step 4: Build a giving page that gets out of the way

Put the donation form high on the page. People usually arrive on your giving page because you already asked them somewhere else. They don’t need another paragraph of explanation, an embedded video, and a testimonial before they find the form.

That doesn’t mean the form is the only thing on the page. An IT director once told me, “Don’t be afraid of the long scroll.” Put fundraising priorities, testimonials, and stories below the form for the people who want to keep reading.

Build separate pages for separate channels. If I’ve read your two-page direct mail letter and scanned the QR code, I don’t need the whole story again. I want to give. A separate page also lets you track where gifts come from. If you’re running paid ads, don’t send that traffic to the same donation page everyone else uses. Spoiler alert: Meta overstates its results a lot of the time. When you reconcile what Ads Manager says against what came in, the number is usually much smaller. UTM and donation platform tracking methods can help, but if you want to be sure, nothing beats a page and a form that people only reach from that specific channel.

List the other ways to give. Everywhere I’ve worked, a stack of checks shows up at the end of the year, and we hounded the mailbox every day. Put your mailing address on the giving page so someone can write the check while they’re thinking about it. Donor-advised funds are a fast-growing giving mechanism, especially in December when people need to distribute what’s in them, so include your EIN. Add stock gifts, and put a bug in people’s ears about planned giving.

Check it on your phone. More than half your traffic is probably mobile. Pages that look great on the desktop where you built them can break on a phone.

Step 5: Send emails that cut through the noise

At the end of the year, everybody is asking for a gift. You need to stand out.

Send a plain-text email from a real person. Change the sender name to someone specific in your organization, write it like a personal note without the usual graphics, and use a plain-text link instead of a button: “The end of the year is upon us. We’ve appreciated your support. Would you make another gift? Click here to give.” I’ve done this to great effect. People are so used to polished, designed emails that a plain one looks personal.

Try unusual subject lines. Some organizations go all the way to “RE: your gift.” If that’s too much for you, try “A message from [your leader],” “Please read this,” or including the subscriber’s first name. We’re all a little egotistical and seeing our name will get our attention. (Just make sure your data is clean and you have the right name!)

Send a testimonial email with no hard ask. Tell one person’s story and let it carry the message.

On Giving Tuesday itself, send three emails: the ask in the morning, an update midday, and a last chance or stretch goal at the end of the day. That cadence has worked for me everywhere I’ve worked.

Step 6: Let donors and beneficiaries tell the story

Of course you love your mission. You work there. When someone else tells the story, people listen differently.

The people you serve make powerful messengers, and so do other donors, especially monthly donors. They’re often your real champions, and they usually have a specific reason the mission matters to them. Their stories can change hearts.

Put testimonials everywhere: under the form on your giving page, on a testimonials page on your website, in email messages, in direct mail, and in your thank-you messages. I use a tool called VideoAsk that lets you embed a short video invitation. Someone clicks it, and their phone or computer camera turns on so they can record their story in audio, text, or video.

You can also ask directly. If you know a donor has a great story, reach out: “I don’t need another gift. I’d just love it if you recorded a short video about why you give.” At events, don’t be afraid of a phone video. Sometimes the less polished it looks, the better. Nobody pictures you shuttling donors to a studio, and if you’re recording in the mission field itself, you’re telling the story of the mission at the same time.

For more on getting your story in front of people, see our post on Catholic media relations.

Step 7: Make your channels work together

Don’t make your channels compete with each other. Try everything, but reach each donor the way they want to be reached.

Respect a donor’s wishes. Some donors will write “do not mail me” on a reply card. Some only want to hear from you once a year. Honor that. If you keep sending direct mail to someone who asked you not to, they won’t keep giving. At year-end, it’s easy for all of this to devolve into a number you have to hit at all costs. Send another email. Pull the lever again. But these are people who chose to give their own money to help your mission bring others closer to Christ. Even at Word on Fire, with millions of people on the email list, I tried to treat every gift like the first gift the ministry ever received. The first dollar you ever received and the $1,000 gift on Giving Tuesday both came from a person who cared enough to pull out their wallet. Don’t lose your sense of gratitude over the highly personal decision that a donor is making.

Direct mail still works for Catholic audiences. A lot of people assume it’s dead because it’s paper. I started a monthly direct mail program at Word on Fire that raised more than $1 million every year. A full appeal letter with a reply card and envelope will convert with an audience that is still writing paper checks. I’m less bullish on postcards, which ask an older audience to pull out a phone and scan a QR code. (Some people don’t know how to do that, and they’re not going to learn on your postcard.) Test them if you want.

Text messages work, used appropriately. We used them at Word on Fire and Real Life Catholic, especially on Giving Tuesday or for other special campaigns and moments, and they drove significant donations. A text can be an ask, a thank you, or just a spiritual encouragement. Don’t use it exclusively for donation requests.

Retargeting ads are better for subscribers than donors. Have you ever had the experience of making a first-time gift to an organization and then being chased by them across the Internet as you suddenly see their giving ads everywhere? If they already gave, don’t keep asking in other locations.

Ringless voicemail (tools like Slybroadcast) leaves a voicemail without ringing the phone. Use it to ask, thank, or update, or make it a perk of your monthly giving society.

Don’t spend your limited time on organic social. It doesn’t get very far organically anymore, though it can still reach new audiences on some social channels. If you make a video, make sure you can also use it in paid ads, on your giving page, and in email, so all that work doesn’t end its life with three likes.

Point from one channel to another. If you sent a letter, your email should say, “I sent you a letter about this.” The whole organization should look like it’s talking to itself—and knows how it’s talking to its donors.

Your 2026 year-end giving calendar

After December 31, start building next year’s donors

The email list is the most important thing you can grow. You can have a million YouTube subscribers and no way to reach them except posting a video and hoping it shows up in their feed. A million people on your email list are a million people whose inbox you can reach. Follower counts are closer to a vanity metric now that the algorithm decides what everyone sees—and it’s usually not even the accounts that you follow.

Advent and Lent are the lowest-hanging spiritual fruit on the calendar. If someone in your organization can write reflections, run some ads to get people to sign up for them. At Mundelein, I had seminarians write Advent and Lenten reflections. The offer was reflections from future priests, and the give button at the bottom said to support their education and formation. The offer tied directly to the mission, the leads were good, and the conversion path to donor was clear.

The same goes for a podcast or video series. Don’t rely on people finding the next episode on their own. Ask them to sign up by email so you can send each episode, and they’ll be on your email list when Giving Tuesday comes around.

Where to start this week

Download our free Year-End Giving Checklist. It’s a one-page version of this plan you can print and keep on your desk.

At White Tree, we bring this experience to Catholic nonprofits, schools, ministries, and apostolates planning their year-end season: matching gift strategy, segmented email sequences, giving pages, and the list-building that feeds next year. If you want a second set of eyes on your plan, start with a Catholic marketing audit, and subscribe to The Catholic Marketer for more.

Let us help you finish strong this year!