End of Year. For nonprofits, this is an intense sprint between Giving Tuesday (the charitable alternative to Cyber Monday) and the all-important tax deadline of December 31st. During those two months, most nonprofits raise an outsized percentage of their online revenue, so there’s a whole lot at stake.

There’s also a whole lot to learn. Year-end fundraising is a crucial opportunity to spot trends, experiment with new techniques, and take away important lessons that’ll boost fundraising success in the year ahead.

Blue State Digital combines artful storytelling, relentless optimization, and nimble technology to unlock the giving power of your community. We’ve been proud to partner with thousands of causes and campaigns over the last ten years—and have helped raise $1.65 billion in donations along the way. And this year, on average, our agency clients raised 15% more in the 2013 year-end fundraising season than in 2012. So it’s a good time to reflect on what’s working.

Our campaign roots mean we thrive in a fast, agile, collaborative environment where we are always experimenting, testing, and evolving our work to achieve extraordinary results for our clients. And each year, we learn more as new technologies, expectations, and behaviors evolve.

We’ve spent the last two months looking back and packed the results of our analysis into the Blue State Digital 2013 Year-End Fundraising Report, with key insights that will help you gear up for a generous year ahead. Quick highlights:

  • EOY = $$$, so start planning today
  • People still read email, and it drives them to give
  • Be straight with people; direct asks work best this time of year
  • Go mobile or go home; over 44% of email opens occurred on mobile devices
  • Make it easy and obvious to give: lightboxes, splash pages, and BSD’s award-winning Quick Donate feature are driving BIG conversions

The end-of-year fundraising season is less than nine months away. Are you ready to make the most of it? Download the Report to discover steps you can start taking today to gear up for a happy and generous 2014: evaluate, grow your list, test, plan, iterate and most importantly, say hello to Blue State Digital.