December decides your fundraising target. That's why nonprofits need to start now

If you run fundraising for a nonprofit, you know December matters. In 2023, almost 918,000 Norwegians claimed a tax deduction for gifts to voluntary organisations, and the deductible gifts came to 5.6 billion kroner in total, according to Statistics Norway figures cited in a report from the Norwegian Association of NGOs (in Norwegian). The deduction only applies to gifts made by 31 December, and people tend to give at Christmas and when someone asks them at the right moment. I have not found Norwegian figures for how much of the year's giving arrives in December. In the US, M+R Benchmarks 2026 shows that 37 percent of nonprofits' online revenue came in December. Either way, your year-end campaign is decided by the work you do in October and November. Below is a work plan that starts in week 40 (Monday 28 September) and runs to New Year's Eve.

Why December carries so much weight

Several things pull in the same direction.

• GivingTuesday is on 1 December. The day has been marked in Norway since 2017, and Fundraising Norge is the national coordinator (in Norwegian). This year it falls on the first day of December, which gives you a natural reason to contact donors early in the campaign.
• The tax deduction has a deadline. In Norway, gifts to approved organisations are deductible up to NOK 25,000 a year, with a minimum of NOK 500 per organisation, according to the Norwegian Tax Administration's rules for 2026. Anyone who wants the deduction for 2026 has to give in 2026.
• Recurring donors carry the rest of the year. In the Givertrender 2023 survey, shared by Fundraising Norge (formerly Innsamlingsrådet), 51 percent of Norwegian donors said they give a fixed monthly amount. December is a good month to turn one-off donors into monthly ones.

The plan, week by week

The plan assumes a small marketing team and a CRM or donor system. If your team is larger, some phases can run in parallel.

Weeks 40-42: Data and segmentation

Start with the donors you already have. They cost less to reach and give more often than new ones.

1. Clean up the donor database. Merge duplicates, update consent records and check that email addresses still work.
2. Split donors into segments you can write to differently: recurring donors, last year's one-off donors, donors who have lapsed in the past two years, and contacts who have never given.
3. Pull out what each group gave last year, and when. That shows you which dates matter most for your organisation.
4. Set a target per segment, not just an overall target. It makes it easier to spot what isn't working in December while there is still time to change it.

Weeks 43-45: Donation page, Vipps and recurring giving

This is the technical phase, and it takes longer than most people expect. Changes to the website should be done before the content goes out.

• Test the donation page on a phone. Go through the whole flow yourself, from the link in an email to the receipt. Count fields and clicks. Anything not needed to record the gift and the tax deduction can wait.
• Make Vipps the first option. Vipps, the dominant Norwegian mobile payment app, launched recurring donations in February 2025, built together with Fundraising Norge, and Vipps Donasjoner 2.0 in February 2026, which handles one-off and recurring gifts in one solution and connects to CRM systems. Check which version you run, and whether donor data reaches your database.
• Give monthly giving a clear place on the page. Preselect a monthly gift where it fits, and show what a fixed amount achieves over a year.
• Get the tax deduction set up properly. Ask for the national ID number in a way that is easy to understand, and explain why you need it.
• Measure everything. Set up conversion tracking on the donation page now, so you have a baseline before traffic rises.

Weeks 46-48: The story and the content

Now decide what you want to tell. A Christmas appeal needs one main story that can stand being told five times across different channels.

1. Pick one specific person, project or place. People give to something they can picture.
2. Tie the story to an amount: what NOK 300 or NOK 1,000 does. Use figures you can document.
3. Build a content plan from 1 December to 31 December: emails, social posts, ads if you run them, and a front page that changes with the campaign.
4. Write the emails now. You won't have time in December.

[QA: add Magne's own example from a Christmas campaign, ideally about choosing the main story]

This is also the time to prepare GivingTuesday. Decide whether you want a separate target for the day, a matching donor (a company that doubles gifts up to a set amount) or a specific appeal that runs only that day.

Week 49: GivingTuesday, 1 December

Many donors have not heard of the day, so explain briefly what it is and why you are taking part. That also gives you a reason to get in touch with your donors.

• Send a short heads-up email on Monday 30 November.
• Send the main email on Tuesday morning, and a reminder in the evening to those who haven't opened or given.
• Show progress during the day, for example how close you are to the day's target.
• Thank everyone who gave on the same day. The thank-you is also the first step towards the next gift.

Weeks 50-53: The Christmas appeal and the last days of the year

2026 has 53 ISO weeks, so 31 December is a Thursday in week 53. The plan has to run all the way to New Year's Eve.

1. Weeks 50-51: Run the main story in every channel. Watch conversion and adjust subject lines and images based on what works.
2. Week 52: Email the people who gave last year but not this year. Keep the holiday sends few and good. Many people read email between Christmas and New Year.
3. Week 53: Send a tax deduction reminder on 29 or 30 December, and a short final email on 31 December. The deduction only applies to gifts made by New Year's Eve, so these are the most expensive days to go quiet.

Make sure someone is on duty over the holidays. If the donation page or the Vipps integration breaks on 30 December, someone has to be able to fix it that day.

After New Year: thank-yous and follow-up

January decides whether December donors give again. I have not found Norwegian figures for this. In the US-based M+R Benchmarks 2026, 24 percent of new donors gave again the following year, while 71 percent of monthly donors were still giving after one year. Measure it for your own donors, see "Three numbers to watch" below.

• Send a personal thank-you within a week, including what the gifts have gone to.
• Ask December's one-off donors in January or February whether they would like to give monthly.
• Check that the deduction reports to the Tax Administration are correct before the deadline.
• Write down what worked while you still remember.

Three numbers to watch

• Donation page conversion. How many of the people who reach the page go on to give? Measure it from week 45, so you can see whether your changes worked and whether December traffic turns into gifts.
• Share of new monthly donors in December. Count how many choose a monthly gift over a one-off. A monthly donor from December also gives in March and August.
• Share of new donors who give again. Measure it in January and again a year from now. It tells you whether the Christmas appeal gave you donors who stay, or only single gifts.

I work on websites, donation solutions and CRM for nonprofits at Frontkom, and much of that work sits in weeks 43-45 of the plan above.

Sources

• M+R Benchmarks 2026: Fundraising, M+R, 2026
• Verdifulle bidrag: betydningen av gaver til frivillige organisasjoner, Frivillighet Norge, 2025
• Om GivingTuesday, GivingTuesday Norge / Fundraising Norge
• Forskuddsutskrivingen 2026, Norwegian Tax Administration (Skatteetaten), 2026
• Vipps Donasjoner 2.0, Vipps, 10 February 2026
• Givergleden har økt i dyrtiden, Fundraising Norge, 18 March 2024

Transparency note: This article is based on the author's own analysis and experience. AI has been used as an editorial aid for language and structure.