Holiday Donor Communications: A More Strategic Approach

It’s no secret that I don’t love nonprofit holiday cards.

I know, I know. Call me the Grinch. Except I’m not the Grinch! I love the holidays. I love gratitude. I love donors. I just happen to think we can be far more strategic with our time than spending months producing a generic card that arrives alongside greetings from your donor’s insurance agent, dentist, financial advisor, favorite retailer, and everybody else who has their address.

And make no mistake: you are not the only nonprofit in your donor’s life.

That old rule of thumb—that donors typically support five to seven organizations—holds up pretty well. The 2025 Bank of America Study of Philanthropy found that affluent donors gave to an average of five organizations in 2024; earlier data put the average among affluent donors at seven.

Then there’s the volume of communication. Research shared by AFP found that the average American charitable donor reported receiving nearly 18 nonprofit mailings and emails in a typical week.

Now let’s look at November and December—the busiest months in the nonprofit calendar year for giving and communications.

Add the holiday cards. Add the year-end appeals. Add Giving Tuesday. Add the “TEN DAYS LEFT!” messages. Add the “THREE DAYS LEFT!” messages. Add the “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO MAKE A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE GIFT!” email at 11:47 p.m. on December 31.

And then, somehow, we slide a Happy New Year card into the middle of all of it saying, “We’re so grateful for you!”

Can we give the donor a minute to breathe?

I know how this movie ends because I’ve lived it. By the time some of you read this, holiday card season will already be underway.

When I worked in higher education, I could start working on holiday cards around back-to-school time. Seriously. While everybody else was getting ready for football season, donor relations was beginning the annual holiday-card odyssey.

First come the lists. Pull the portfolios. Send them to gift officers. Wait for the gift officers to review them. Follow up with the gift officers. Wait some more.

Then come the designs.

Would you like the building with a light dusting of snow? Perhaps a cardinal perched thoughtfully on a pine branch? Maybe a tasteful “Happy New Year” with a restrained amount of sparkle?

Then come the vendor deadlines. The printer deadlines. The spreadsheets. The inevitable last-minute additions. You don’t want to use mailing labels because they look tacky, but you can’t completely outsource the addressing because you just know the list is going to change.

Somebody jams the office printer.

Eventually, you’re sitting on the floor with colleagues or student interns having a stuffing party; everybody is getting paper cuts, and someone has started a very serious discussion about whether the envelopes can go through the Pitney Bowes machine because surely a holiday card needs a real stamp.

And not just any stamp. We need the snowflake.

All of this for a card that may contain a preprinted message and a preprinted signature.

Friends, that is a lot of work for a piece of paper.

So, my holiday card rule is simple. If you want to send a holiday card, I’m not going to tackle you on the way to the mailbox. But I would apply one very simple rule: Can you add a personal message that demonstrates a real relationship with this donor?

And I don’t mean:

Dear Colton,

Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a happy New Year!

Warmly, Organizational Leader

That’s still a generic holiday card.

I mean something like:

Dear Donor’s Preferred Name,

I hope you and Spouse’s Preferred Name (do you even have it?!) enjoyed Thanksgiving with the kids in Tucson. I’m excited to hear about the cruise you’re taking in March, and I’m so glad you’ll be back to campus for the spring board meeting. I look forward to catching up then.

Until that time, best wishes and happy holidays!

That is a relationship touchpoint.

Here’s my litmus test: Would you feel comfortable asking your CEO, president, executive director, dean, or other senior leader to personally write that note because the relationship is important enough to warrant their time?

If the answer is no, you shouldn’t send it.

So, who should actually get a card? Pull a report of donors your top organizational leader personally met with during the previous year. And I mean actually met with: your database should have a visit or contact report recorded.

Then have the fundraiser responsible for each relationship draft a sentence or two based on what happened during that interaction.

Now your CEO isn’t staring at a stack of 500 cards wondering who these people are. They’re adding personal notes to a manageable group of donors with whom they have established relationships.

Now, I can already hear some of you: “But our CEO LOVES the holiday card!”

I hear you.

Most of the pushback I hear about changing holiday cards comes down to some variation of:

“We’ve always done it.”

“Our president expects it.”

“Our CEO likes doing it.”

“It’s an important donor touchpoint.”

Okay! Then let’s assume generous intent here—something my therapist has worked very hard to teach me.

Don’t take the touchpoint away. Make it work harder to earn its keep.

Tell your leader that rather than asking them to sign hundreds of generic cards, you’re going to give them a smaller group of donors for whom their involvement can be truly meaningful.

Or change the population entirely.

What if first-time donors received the card? Imagine making your first gift to an organization (a gift of $100) and receiving a handwritten note from its president at calendar year-end. What would that do to your affinity for that organization?

Or what if you selected donors to a major organizational priority and tied the greeting directly to the work they’re making possible? Think about your Greatest Needs Fund or Chancellor’s Strategic Initiatives Fund. What if those VIP Donors received a card thanking them specifically for trusting in your leader’s vision?

It’s a “yes, and” opportunity.

If you can’t eliminate the program, make it more strategic.

And everybody else? Go digital. If your organization simply cannot imagine December without sending a greeting to the broader donor population, that’s fine too.

But call it what it is: a broad-based communication.

Let your marketing team create a beautiful e-card or a short thank-you video from your organizational leader. Keep the message warm and brief.

Then look at what happens.

Did people open it? Click it? Reply to it? Did you receive meaningful responses?

If you’ve already started this year’s physical-card process, this is probably the easiest off-ramp. Shrink the physical list to the people who can receive truly personal messages and move everyone else to the digital greeting.

You can always evaluate what you learned before next year.

And please don’t tell me, “Our donors say they love the cards.”

Of course they do! They’re nice people!

If someone sends me a Christmas card and then asks whether I liked it, I am probably not going to say, “Actually, Colton, I thought your choice of cardstock was a terrible investment of organizational resources.” (Though PLEASE believe some donors will, and honestly, I find that level of candor refreshing!)

Anecdotal appreciation is not the same thing as evidence that the tactic works.

Now, if you have great data, KEEP DOING IT. This is important.

If you have compelling evidence that your holiday card program is accomplishing what you intend it to accomplish, keep doing it.

And then email me immediately because I genuinely want to know how you measured it!

I’m only half joking.

Everything we do in donor relations should ultimately help us build relationships that retain donors. So, theoretically, we could compare the retention of donors who receive handwritten cards with those who don’t.

Except there’s a problem.

Most traditional holiday-card lists are already heavily weighted toward major and principal gift donors. Those donors tend to have longer relationships with the organization, receive more touchpoints, maintain greater involvement, and a variety of other reasons that influence their continued giving. It becomes very difficult to isolate the holiday card and say, “Aha! That is what did it.”

That doesn’t mean the card has no value. It means I have yet to see compelling evidence that justifies treating it as an untouchable annual tradition.

But here’s the question that really gets me: What could you be doing instead?

Holiday card madness arrives at exactly the same time donor relations professionals could be preparing some of the most meaningful communications of the year.

Penelope Burk’s Donor-Centered Fundraising research has long emphasized two touchpoints as the key to donor retention: sending donors prompt, meaningful acknowledgment after they make a gift and providing a report demonstrating what their gift accomplished before asking for another one.

So instead of spending August, September, October, and November chasing holiday-card lists, what if you used some of that time to create a broad-based impact report for your greatest-needs fund?

That kind of work gives donors something far more valuable than another seasonal greeting. And if you’re going to invest in another donor touchpoint, why choose the exact moment when every other organization is trying to get their attention, too?

That brings me to one last thing: stop fighting to be heard at the loudest time of the nonprofit year. 

What about engaging with donors during the summer?

What about honoring each donor’s giving anniversary?

What about celebrating Charter Day with your university’s donors?

What occasion belongs specifically to you?

Or, better yet, what occasion belongs specifically to the donor?

Holiday cards aren’t inherently bad.

But “we’ve always done it” isn’t a strategy. So this year, give yourself permission to be brave. Stop doing it.

Or say, “We’re going to do it differently this year and here’s how.”

Shrink the list. Personalize the message. Change the audience. Go digital. Move the touchpoint to another time of year. Give your leader better opportunities to express gratitude. Invest the time you save in demonstrating impact to donors who may not otherwise receive that attention.

And if you have hard data showing your traditional holiday card program is driving donor retention?

Please keep doing it.

And seriously, please email me! I want to see it!

Take Your Donor Communications Further

Your holiday communications are just one part of the donor experience. If this season has you taking a closer look at how, when, and why you're communicating with donors, keep going.

Want to see how your current communications measure up?  Put them to the test with DRGrader, our free tool designed to help you evaluate your donor communications and identify opportunities to make them stronger.

Ready to build a stronger donor communications strategy? Join us in Boston, November 4–6, for the Four Pillars Conference where we'll spend a full day diving into the Four Pillars of Donor Communications: Information, Persuasion, Gratitude, and Impact. You'll learn how to create communications donors actually want to consume and share, eliminate communications that aren't working, make the donor the hero of your work, and turn your communications into a more intentional part of the donor experience.

Written by Colton Withers Colton Withers is a former frontline fundraiser turned donor relations professional who has survived enough holiday card list-making, printer jams, stuffing parties, and snowflake-stamp debates to know there has to be a better way. As a consultant and strategist, Colton helps nonprofits use their time, data, and donor communications more intentionally to build stronger relationships with donors.