Ep. 177: 7 Lessons from a Record-Breaking Year in Fundraising
EPISODE 177
7 Lessons from a Record-Breaking Year in Fundraising
About the Episode:
If you believed the headlines this year, you’d think generosity was shrinking. Inflation up. Layoffs everywhere. Grant budgets tightening. Every sector talking about a downturn and uncertainty. But inside my world (thousands of podcast listeners, email subscribers, clients, and community members), the story was completely different. This year was record-breaking! Record-breaking campaigns, major gifts, digital fundraising wins, growth for my clients, and for my own business.
In this episode, I share the seven biggest lessons that created growth in a year everyone expected to be hard, lessons about donor behavior, clarity, courage, visibility, momentum, risk, and the kind of leadership that drives revenue even when the headlines say otherwise. If you want a roadmap for your next year (one grounded in data, psychology, and lived experience), this is the episode to bookmark.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Why donor behavior outperformed negative economic headlines
How fast, clear digital sprint campaigns outperformed long, traditional fundraising plans
Where donor friction still kills revenue (and what to fix immediately)
Why decisive, courageous action beats cautious planning in a slow economy
How confidence compounds (and fear compounds) in fundraising leadership
Why do the biggest revenue days happen at the very end of a campaign
The relationship between bold visibility, clear messaging, and attracting the right donors
Why criticism is a normal (and often healthy) sign of growth
The importance of letting go (donors, systems, or staff) to make room for the next level
Why you must stop putting donors in boxes and upgrade based on relationship, not assumptions
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“People didn't stop giving. They stopped giving to organizations that weren't communicating clearly, that weren't communicating bravely, that weren't communicating often enough.”
“December still carries the most revenue every year.”
“If you are the executive director of your organization, it is time for you to step into your CEO energy and step out of asking mom and dad for approval.”
“Growth always asks for courage and not caution.”
“You have to be visible if you want to help more people, more communities.”
“This year wasn't record-breaking or the most generous because conditions were perfect; it was record-breaking and generous because leaders chose that clarity of messaging and that courage in fundraising.”
Episode Resources:
Stop Parenting Your Board: How to Recruit, Retain, and Lead Like a CEO with Sabrina Walker Hernandez
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
Double Your Donations - Raise More From Your Laptop Without Chasing Grants or Galas
Easy Emails For Impact™ - Turn Your Inbox into an Income Stream
Donations on Demand: Build a $5K Email Campaign System in 30 min/week
The SPRINT Method™ - Fundraise Like a Pro, 5 Figures At a Time
Connect with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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*Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Christina Edwards 0:04Today, I'm sharing lessons from a record breaking year. So I'm going to share lessons that I've learned professionally in my business this year, which has been a record breaker and so many of my clients has have also learned in their own organizations, many of them have experienced record breaking growth this year. And the truth is, if you only paid attention to the headlines this year, it would be so easy to believe that due to the economy, due to other outside circumstances, generosity was shrinking, inflation, climbing, corporate layoffs, shrinking grant budgets. Every sector talking about uncertainty, every sector talking about negativity, consumer confidence dipping right. The story everywhere was people aren't giving.
Christina Edwards 1:02
and yet, inside my world, which has 1000s and 1000s of podcast listeners, email subscribers, social followers, you'd see the opposite was happening. You'd see that my clients are experiencing some of the strongest fundraising campaigns they've ever had. Multiple organizations I work with have broken through revenue plateaus that have held for years. We're seeing shorter, smarter digital campaigns outperforming those long, cyclical, kind of mundane campaigns that won't ever end.
Christina Edwards 1:41
and many clients experiencing more major gifts this year than any other year before. So how did this happen? What are the lessons from my own business, from my clients organizations? That's what I put together in this episode. It's my reflection of what actually created that growth, that success. So we're going to dig into seven lessons from a year where everyone thought it would be hard and turned out to be a record breaker in growth, in funding and in impact. How did we do it? How what were all of those record breaking ways?
So let's dig into Lesson number one. This is a good one. Headlines are loud. Donor behavior is quiet and generous. So this year was full of Generosity is down think pieces, lots of stats, lots of think pieces, lots of thought leaders, lots of water cooler talk lots of Debbie Downer. Talk about how hard it is. I actually can think of two different circumstances, I ran into a nonprofit leader, and this leader was basically, I said, How's it going? How's, how's your world been? And she gave me this response, like, well, you know, like, like, we can all agree how hard it's been. It's been it's been tough. It's been a tough year, and it was so interesting because she left no room, no crack of sunlight, no door open, for the possibility that that's not true for everyone. And I think it's really important to just listen to this episode. And if you're one of the people who are like no Christina, it's been really, really, really hard. This isn't an episode for you to feel worse. This is an episode for you to see the crack of sunlight that I'm cracking in, right? I'm, like, opening the curtains of like, oh, this other other thing over here is happening. So like, come over here. So listen with that lens.
Christina Edwards 3:38
So it's much easier for me to go find an article about how hard this year has been than it is to find an article about how amazing, how thriving, how game changing this year has been for organizations. That's the internal data. Like the internal data is showing a completely different story than the external headline. So in inside campaigns, I'm actually seeing donors showed up bigger than ever, more than ever, faster than ever. They gave more when the messaging made sense. They gave faster when the Ask was direct and not buried. They gave generously when they felt included and impacted in the work. E commerce tells a similar story.
Christina Edwards 5:14
so in 2025 this year, Black Friday sales rose 9.1% 9.1% year over year, $11.8 billion was spent on Black Friday alone. So we are not allowed to say just globally, everything's a sad story, and we have the latest Black Friday numbers to prove that. And the clients that I work with are seeing this similar growth. They're seeing the growth translate because, remember, donors are consumers. Consumers are donors. So people haven't stopped spending. Maybe they've been become more selective, more intentional and more distracted, aka, they need more touches, more touch points. Donors behaved in that same way. People didn't they didn't they didn't stop giving. They stopped giving to organizations that weren't communicating clearly, that weren't communicating bravely, that weren't communicating often enough boring out, right?
So let's move into Lesson number two, slow economies, reward clear and fast action. So one of the biggest through lines that I'm seeing is how quickly donors respond when the call to action was simple, compelling and specific. We need that urgency. That urgency has to be baked into your fundraising to see success. Short campaigns, I call them sprints outperform, long drawn out plans, long drawn out campaigns, email first strategies continue to convert at the highest level. Email needs to be the backbone of your digital fundraising strategy. Donors reply within hours instead of weeks. Meanwhile, the organizations that are hesitating, that are stuck in draft modes, that are stuck in one more pass through a committee, one more pass through the exec, one more pass through the board before pressing send, waiting for that perfect moment. They are struggling. They are seeing the slow resorts results. They are at the water cooler, cooler right now, lamenting about how hard it is, looking at another click bait headline going, Yep, see it is hard. It's hard out there. And you really have to watch, watch again what you're taking in, because what you see will grow. So if you see a clickbait headline and then you read it, and you're like, yep, generosity is down. You will look for it. Your brain is efficient. It will go to work for looking for evidence that that is true. Versus, I want you to listen to this episode and you're like, Okay, Christina is talking about, she has 1000s, 10s of 1000s of people in her ecosystem, if they are seeing success. Where is that true? How can that be true for me too? I
Christina Edwards 8:28
retailers show us that same thing. One click, purchases have surged. And I will say, personally, I have noticed this in my own consumer habit, if I have to log in to my account, I'm less likely to make the purchase. So I want you to think about where did I shop recently? And I was like, please have a guest checkout option so I don't have to give you. I don't have to remember my login. We're going to just use Old Navy as an example. I don't want to have to remember my Old Navy login. So even that is friction. It wasn't friction for me two years ago. I was like, well, I'll figure it out now. I'm like, I want to log in. I want I don't want to log in. I want to transact. I want to buy whatever as a guest. And I want it to happen in as few clicks as possible. And donors expect the same thing, and y'all are sitting on some donation pages that are absolutely not passing that litmus test, and you are losing money because of it. You are losing money because and the the the stronger you hold tight to those old, outdated tools, the harder it will be to grow your funding.
Christina Edwards 9:39
We're also seeing mobile buying hit new highs. What are we seeing in our sector? We're seeing the same thing true. So that mobile experience is really, really important. So in fundraising, that hesitating, that friction, costs so much revenue this year than the economy ever did. So if you're like, yeah, it's been hard, then you need to look at your tool. You need to look at the entire. The entire flow of your checkout process, and say, Is this part of the piece? Is this an easy thing we could change that could have a high ROI, a high benefit?
Lesson number three, compounding confidence beats compounding fear. So this lesson directly came from my own year. I took risks that stretched me. I ran my business overseas for part of the year. I had Wi Fi challenges, right? I had all of these different variables that were risky, that weren't cozy, that weren't comfy, and they were worth it. I supported clients across time zones. I have people in my programs who don't come to live calls, and that's challenging because I want to see their beautiful face. I want to see them I want to see them in real time, and they are still getting incredible results asynchronously. And that took expansion on my part. That took belief and confidence in them and in me, that we could do this together. I let myself focus on really the next six to 18 months, instead of trying to script the next decade. Sometimes we get so tight in our expectation of our business, of our nonprofit, that that restriction can create more tension in day to day operations. So for me, thinking for thinking and planning for the next six to 18 months is my sweet spot. I let myself focus on those that that period, I gave myself the freedom to evolve. I don't have to compare myself to other coaches or consultants. I don't have to compare myself to some sort of outdated industry standard. I get to write the rule book. I get to create I get to give myself that freedom. I get to sunset things. One of the things I sent that set this year was I used to teach a GivingTuesday workshop live for many, many years, that used to be a product of mine. I gave myself the freedom that it wasn't going to be a priority product this year. Now, I had an offer to support people on GivingTuesday, but it wasn't going to be a live workshop. I
Christina Edwards 12:04
The result of that, what grew from there was my confidence. What grew from there was my trust in my own frameworks and my own systems, my willingness to bet on myself and my clients, my ability to act without needing every detail pre planned. I saw the same thing play out with the leaders that I coach, the ones who took courageous and perfect action rather than waiting for permission. Why, other than waiting for everybody is, yeah, that's a great idea, buy in and approval. Were the ones who broke through those fundraising plateaus that fear compounds when you wait and the confidence compounds when you move. It compounds in your action. That action creates that momentum.
Lesson number four is such an essential lesson. It might be my favorite one, I'm not sure, in this, in this episode, and it's this, like it ain't over till it's over. It ain't over till it's over many, many years ago, I remember I learned from one of my coaches in running an online business that this philosophy, and it's one that stuck with me, because in my world, I do a lot of live launching right? And so we'll have like, cart close at a certain date and time. And I remember she would say, keep your energy up and keep your belief up, because you will see the most often times sales come in in that last day and even in those final hours. And a lot of times, what she saw, and what I see in many of my clients, is they give up. They They basically silently quit on the last few days of the campaign, because they haven't had the response they expected. But really everybody was just going to come those last few days or those last few hours, right? So those final weeks of the year for you, that's December, still carry the most revenue every year. I say this every year. The data confirms it again. The last week of December, post Christmas is still one of the strongest fundraising windows of the entire year. December 31 continues to be one of the biggest giving days. It ain't over till it's over. It mirrors retail behavior too late December retail spending hit highs, right? Highs every year we see that actually, it's like counterintuitive. No, people won't spend after Christmas, wrong, wrong. People make those emotional decisions late in the season. They start buying for things they might need in in the future year, right? They wait for that moment, not the moment you think they should have given. You think they should have donated, right? And when you have that belief, and when you channel that momentum, if it ain't over till it's over, that will, that will be the force between you hitting your campaign goal and you not hitting your campaign goal. And the reason why I love this lesson so much is because when you run your spring campaign, which, let's say, is, you know, March. First through March 10, I want you to remember this, it ain't over till it's over. So on March 9 and march 10, you are hitting it with the energy of day one, with that energy of it's happening. It's done. We hit our goal that is going to carry your revenue growth when you have that belief baked in
Christina Edwards 15:31
that is the belief that I've had baked in in my own launches this year, is I don't worry about day one or day three of a certain sales cycle or a certain enrollment cycle, because I know I'm going to hit my goal, and I carry that energy throughout, and it makes the entire process a lot more enjoyable and a lot more possible that I do end up hitting my goals.
Okay, lesson number five, big risks lead to big rewards. This may make some people nervous. This may make some board members or some leaders a little nervous, like we're not allowed to take big risks. Come on, be sensible. Christina, but across the board, the biggest revenue jumps came from leaders willing to try something different. Some launched short campaigns instead of long cultivation cycles. Some ditched the gala. Some reconnect with donors they had avoided for years because they said to themselves, I've already tried that. Donor is done, dusted, lapsed, gone, goodbye. No. Some activated new partnerships. Are ambassadors using the Social Street Team® Method that we teach inside the club. Some sent more emails than they really felt comfortable with, and it worked to the tune of 9x over their last campaign, 9x more funding, raised some stop waiting on committees and moved ahead with aligned decisions. If you are the executive director of your organization, it is time for you to step in to your CEO energy and step out of asking mom and dad for approval. Your board's job is not to approve every dot, dotted i and crossed t, that is not their job. Go look into their job. Go listen to our board episode, board dynamics episode with the late great Sabrina Walker Hernandez. She will walk you through that, but you should be stepping into your fundraiser, your CEO energy, those taking those big risks. I took those big risks to this year, and every single one of them paid off. This year reinforced what I deep believe, deeply believe, which is that playing it small doesn't keep you safe, it keeps you stuck. Growth always asks for courage and not caution. So where can you step into that courageousness in these final few weeks of the year.
Christina Edwards 17:54
Lesson number six, clarity in your messaging attracts super fans and critics. Yes, critics, this was a year of deep clarity and courage in my messaging, and I got sharper about who I served, the stories I tell, what I stand for, what I don't stand for. And with that clarity in my messaging came more super fans, more people who were like, Oh my gosh, I've been listening to the podcast, or, you know, I've been on your email list, or this is exactly what I need. Thank you so much. I cannot wait like I would get people who joined my programs who were like, hell, yeah, so excited. And I also got more critics this year, by far and away, more naysayers, more Debbie downers, more, hey, just so you know, type energy, more mansplaining, more. Just rudeness. More pushback. More people on emails and DMS and webinars, just weigh in, give me their two cents when I didn't ask for it.
Christina Edwards 19:12
there's a joke. I don't know who to attribute it to, which is, this isn't an airport. You don't need to announce your departures here. And I got a lot of people who were like, I feel a certain way. I ruffled some feathers. They announced their departure, and it's because I had a lot of old school fundraisers. A lot of old school leaders kind of project the frustration or discomfort they felt like this cognitive dissonance of of what I'm teaching challenges their identity and norms, right? And it's hard when you're like, Wait, I've always been doing this thing over here, and what you're saying is totally different. And that's not okay, you know, as they're like, typing into the you know, post, right? Like, kind of angrily stomping on the keys, right? And it doesn't feel good when criticism, like when you receive criticism, but I no longer. Mistake it for truth, and that's the difference, is I actually expanded my capacity to hear someone disagree with me. Doesn't feel good, it's not great, and it's not like a day ruiner. It's okay. Actually had multiple times where I would pick my kids up from school and I share the good, I share the good, and I would also share the bad. Of like, yeah, I can kind of like a mean email today, and I would talk to them about that and like, what that's like, and why that's okay, and why that's part of this, and how I handled it. And it ended up being like me letting them in to a window of the business that it's that that is, that is part of it, that is the currency to my success, is I'm going to have people who are like, hell yes, which means I'm going to have people who are hell no, and that's true for you too. You're going to have donors who are like, hyper excited and just hyper connected to you, and you should, you should have super fans, and you're going to have people who are like, oh, like, I don't think you should send another email about this. I think you should fundraise once a year. I think you should do your gala right. You're going to have people that disagree with you, and just because they disagree with you doesn't mean that's right. You're in your business. You're in your organization, not them. So it's having the filter to go. Is this just somebody venting, or is this like criticism worth you know, I want to receive and kind of reevaluate, so someone having a bad day might aim it at the nearest target. And for a lot of the criticism I received, I was like, Okay, this is just somebody who's, like, having an outsized reaction, as if they got, like, cut off in traffic or something. And this isn't personal at all. They had a bad day. They're taking it out on me, and I'm going to exit them from my world. Because something that's really important to me is, if you're in my world, this is a place where we have mutual respect, we have mutual kind of understanding, and that's okay, like and so not everyone should stay in your world, and the same is true for your your audience, of followers, donors, subscribers, just your full ecosystem.
Christina Edwards 22:16
And if I could sum it up here, I would say that criticism doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It's just the cost of being visible. And visible is essential to your organization's growth. You have to be visible if you want to help more people, more communities.
Lesson number seven dovetails perfectly into this growth means people will leave and more people will come. This is a big one, and this is one that can be like, hard to really reckon, hard reconcile, hard to really fully see. As a lifelong entrepreneur, I have so many memories of clients coming and going, especially when I had my agency and clients going, would be painful, right? Everybody's supposed to stay forever, wrong, right? That's just our kind of wiring. Is, you know, it feels terrible to feel to have somebody go, because it feels like rejection. But the truth is, some people will leave, some people will go, lots of people will come, some people will come back. And that's all part of it. That's all part of it. So for me, this is one of my, like, biggest learnings. As my work grew, as my impact and my business grew this year, some people drifted out of my orbit, and that's okay. Some people had different priorities. Some people weren't fully aligned right with that next chapter. Some people wanted to work with me in a different way than I offer now, and that's okay. Some people came back. I had somebody email me today. They emailed me, and it's been over 20 months. They even, they even joked. They're like, I think it's been 20 months since, since I last reached out. Let's talk, right? Don't give up on the people who take 20 months and don't tell yourself that it takes 20 months to get another donor or another client, that's the lie. And so when I have this more abundant mindset, that's what I see, and that's what I create in my business. Because I somebody joined one of my programs today, and I went into my CRM and she's been in my ecosystem for a couple of days. That's it. A couple of days. The same is true for your next donor. Don't give up on those lap Zoners, but don't tell yourself that that's how long it takes to get a new donor. A don't new donor takes a really long time. None of that's true. You
Christina Edwards 24:51
and I see the same in so many organizations, the donors leave, the donors return. Donors upgrade. Sometimes y'all put donors in a box. This is what they're capable of giving every single year. And you put them in a box, they didn't put themselves in the box. And so I love this idea of like, just loosening the constraints of the $500 donor or the $5,000 donor, right? What if that $5,000 donor has the capacity to become a $50,000 donor? What if your $500 donor has the capacity to become a $5,000 donor? And what if your $5 a month donor has a possibility of becoming a $500 donor? Right? You're putting people in a box based on their first donation or their second donation, instead of actually getting to know them, actually becoming connected with them, and the same has been proven true for my business. I never look at somebody who said, Who buys a $9 digital product of mine and says, that's their that's their top that's their ceiling, because I have proven I have seen over and over again, somebody can come into my world from a free a free training or a $9 digital product and end up spending $9,000 with me or more. So remember to like let those rules just loosen.
Christina Edwards 26:15
Remember that even internally, as an organization, the staff you have, the support you have, the board you have right now is probably going to be different than the board you have five years from now, if your organization grows. So let me give you an example. The staff and board you have when you have a $500,000 operating budget is going to be different than the one that you have at two and a half million dollars. Okay? There are board members that you love right now love and they may not stay with you. They may not grow with you at the two and a half million dollar level. And the biggest reason I see that that's true is because their philosophies will be different. They will be stuck right if they don't have that growth mindset, they will be putting you in that box. And so sometimes that means that you will have new board members come in, and those new board members could be so much even stronger board members than the ones you have today. But when we hold too tightly to these donors, these board members, these staffers, you don't leave room for the ones that could absolutely change the trajectory of your organization internally, I've seen the same thing. I've seen the same thing happen where I'm like, Well, if I don't have this internal support, I'm going to be in trouble. Or what am I going to do without so and so if they've left my organization, maybe a certain support person inside my organization. And I learned this from another one of my coaches, where it's like this or something better, which is actually a manifestation tool of you know, there could be so many possibilities of people who can help me in my business I haven't even dreamt up yet. So let me not hold too tightly to the way that I have it right now, because there may be the perfect support person out there, or there may be some other, I think of my own Podcast Producer, before I had her right, there are different people in my world that I'm like, Oh, I didn't even know how great I could have it. And you're over here going, it has to be this board, or it has to be this staffer, if this one thing, no, it's like, let yourself grow because startups do the same thing. We often see startups iterate. We see them have different support, different marketing, different internal board, right, things like that. And so that growth kind of rearranges the room. And I
Christina Edwards 28:46
that can be a good thing and that can be a good thing. So let's close it out. This year wasn't record breaking or the most generous because conditions were perfect. It was record breaking. It was generous because leaders chose that clarity of messaging, that courage in fundraising, that consistency, that connection with their donors, right, even when the noise said other ways, even when so many people said, Gosh, it's so hard out there. the year isn't over, and neither is your opportunity to grow. So if this episode resonated with you, you want support in implementing these strategies in real time. That's what my programs are built for. I cannot wait for you to send me a message. Let me know how those final few weeks of the year went. Remember, it's not over till it's over, and I'm supporting you in the next year. I'll see you in the next one. You.