Hey Reader,

Here’s a stat to keep in mind as you plan for year-end: In 2025, the average person on a nonprofit email list received 50 emails from a single organization. Of those 50 emails, 31 were appeals.

Now multiply that by every cause your donor cares about.

By December 31, their inbox looks less like a mailbox and more like the pile of holiday flyers on the kitchen counter.

A small community organization I worked with recently knew that pile well, even if they’d never put words to it. Their year-end plan was the one most of us have used: a Giving Tuesday email, then three appeals between Christmas and New Year’s.

“Every gift makes a difference.” A stock photo of smiling volunteers. Signed by the organization. They’d run it the same way for four years, and each year the results got a little softer.

So, before we sat down to write a single word this time, I asked the team to do something that would make them a little uncomfortable. Open your personal inbox. Search last December. Pull up ten year-end appeals and read only the subject line and the first sentence.

Then I asked them to read their own.

The development director went quiet for a second and said, “I can’t tell which one is ours.” That was the moment. Their emails weren’t bad. They were, you guessed it: the same.

The fix didn’t come from the fundraising plan. It came from their program coordinator. In a team meeting, she mentioned a man who’d come in every week since spring and, in November, showed up with a bag of oranges to share with the volunteers.

Small moment. Nobody had written it down. That story became the heart of their year-end campaign: one person, one moment, written by the executive director in her own voice, in a simple email.

The first one they sent leading up to Giving Tuesday didn’t ask for anything. It simply told donors what their giving had made possible this year. This time, donors replied!

Think about the holiday cards on your fridge. Most come and go. The ones that stay up longest include a handwritten line about something only that person would know. Your year-end email works the same way. You don’t stand out by being louder or by sending more emails.

You stand out as the one email that couldn’t have come from anyone else.

In practice, that comes down to three things:

1. Specific beats general, every time. “A man who brought oranges” sticks; “individuals in our community” slides right off. Pick one person or one moment and let it carry the whole email.
2. A person beats a logo. Send from a real name, write the way that person talks, and drop the heavy design. A plain email reads like a note from someone you know.
3. Gratitude before the ask. Send one email in mid-November that reminds donors what they made happen this year, with no donate button and no deadline.

When your appeal arrives later, it lands on warm ground rather than cold. For reassurance, run every email through one quick test: cover your logo and your organization’s name. Could this email belong to any other organization? If the answer is yes, it isn’t finished yet.

Here’s your one action item for this week. Send a quick email to your program team, or to whoever is closest to the work, and ask: “What’s one moment from this year you still think about?” Give them a few days. Then read every answer before you write a word of your year-end plan. Your best appeal is probably already in someone’s memory, waiting for someone to ask.

If you’re staring at your December calendar and not sure where to start, reply to this email. I read every response, and I’m happy to help you find the story that makes your year-end stand out.

Here’s to a standout year-end communications plan with fewer blurry emails and more good stories.

Links 💜

See how your email cadence, response rates, and revenue per subscriber stack up against peer organizations before you lock in your year-end plan right here: M & R Benchmarks 2026: Email messaging​

Here's a simple three-email timeline for the last days of December, including who to leave off your list if they've given recently.

Prompt of the Week ✨

Get an early start using this prompt using your favourite AI assistant. It starts with a few questions first, so the plan fits your organization instead of being one-size-fits-all.

Thanks for reading this far! See you in two weeks ✌🏼