SIGN UP OPEN FOR THE FREE HOLIDAY CHALLENGE 💥
YEAR-END FUNDRAISING CHALLENGE
From Start to End, Collaboratively Create Your Holiday End-of-Year Campaign — Get Over Fear of Making the Ask and Generate Flexible Funding for Your Nonprofit
Partners & Sponsors
A FREE challenge from now until end-of-year for nonprofit and social impact leaders to start your Year-End Season of Giving campaign with confidence, engage deeply with your audience, and raise more for your cause ... all in a bite-sized, step-by-step inspired approach that cultivates joy.
WHO: Nonprofit impact leaders and stewards who want collective inspiration + knowledge to create an innovative year-end campaign.
WHEN: The challenge opens for you when you join. Interactive podcast and live check-in sessions are every Thursday and Friday.
WHAT: Weekly live group conversations and demos for collaboration; asynchronous videos and templates organized in 4 modules: Strategize, Build, Storycraft, and Invite.
WHERE: Zoom & our course portal.
HOW: Get instant access to Challenge materials, set up a FREE fundraising account on Givebutter or Donorbox, and optionally make a small Accountability Deposit that you'll win back upon your campaign launch.
With short trainings, strategic recommendations, and live discussions, you’ll build your campaign step-by step. Kick off your year-end fundraiser with confidence.
Along the way, you’ll gain a stronger network and strategies you can use long after the challenge.
What you get:
Strong Motivation ⭐️ from the instructors and group.
Handy Checklist ✅ to help you complete and celebrate each step.
Recorded Trainings 🎦 with proven frameworks and templates to grow your impact through fundraising, money mindset, asset mapping, storytelling, event design + ... at your own pace.
Live Weekly Check-Ins 🙌🏽 to transform powerfully and move forward steadily, embedding new concepts into your real work with other great participants.
Hands-On Campaign Support 🌱 to grow your 2025 Holiday Season of Giving fundraiser with confidence.
Demos of Top Fundraising Platforms 🍎 to choose what's best for your organization's ability to harvest the fruit of your efforts.
Live Podcast Interviews 🎙️ with inspiring changemakers where YOU will have a chance to talk about your organization too.
Donation Prize 🏆 for those who start their fundraising campaign within the upcoming Season of Giving!
Private Coaching Session Option ⚡️ to energize you with clarity on your goal.
"Thank you so much — it was incredibly energizing and packed with valuable insights! I really appreciated your thoughtful guidance and the hands-on approach to getting a campaign off the ground." — Joana
Interactive, Live Podcast Interviews
As a participant in the Challenge, you'll get 🎟️ invitations to live, interactive Resilience Roundtable podcast conversations on key topics in philanthropy. So much fun and energy here! Challenge participants get to interact in live Q&A audiences and introduce their organizations.
The course portal library includes recent recordings on key topics including: Fundraising with a Strong Theory of Change, Short-Form Video Storytelling, Deepening Relationships by Mobilizing Your Resources, and Creating an Online Auction with a Give-Get Principle.
Shana Peete
CEO & Attorney, Center for Excellence in Nonprofits
"Stewarding Donors in Stressful Times + Top Lessons on Givebutter Platform"
Angelica Suarez
Capacity Building Coach & Impact Strategist, Resilia
"Connecting in Moments That Matter via a Powerful Donor Stewardship Calendar"
Danilla Sands
CEO, United Disaster Relief of Northern California
"A Behind-the Scenes Look at Increasing Giving 3X-5X with a Donor Match Campaign"
PLAYFUL FOCUSED SUPPORT
Frequently Asked Questions
Expand the questions below to find out the answers!
What will I get DONE during the Year-End Fundraising Challenge?
Those committed to taking action will walk away with:
Week 1: STRATEGIZING: Strong Preparation as a Foundation
1. Your Money Mindset Mapped
2. Your New Powerful Decision Made about Your Money Relationship
3. Your Donor Journey & Mission Sketched
4. Your Blue Ocean Statement Written about Your Unique Mission, Vision, and Values
5. Your Ideal Donor Persona Defined
EXTRA — Your Theory of Change Created
Week 2: BUILDING: Your Campaign & Your Relationships
6. Your Campaign Goal & Donation Tiers Defined
7. Your Short Custom URL Published for Ease of Sharing Your Published Campaign in Conversation
8. Your Resource Mobilizer Inventoried for Audience Engagement & Relationship Deepening
EXTRA — How to Create a Matching Donor to 3x-5x Donations
EXTRA — How to Make Fundraising Easier with an Auction aka Holiday Store
Week 3: STORYCRAFTING: Your Powerful Impact Story
9. Your Story Told about Your Organization & Campaign in a Handy Template Framework
EXTRA — Your Featured Video Planned Out with a Short-Form Video Expert's Advice
Week 4: INVITING: Audience Broadening and Deepening
10. Your Asking-for-Money Script Ready to Customize
11. Your Campaign Outreach Content in Email, Texting, Social Media, Conversations, Presentations, Online Groups & Networks, Podcast Interviews
12. Your New Social Impact Peers Connected Together and Ready to Share Your Campaign
Lastly, you'll get a Prize Donation that boosts your energy when you've come to at least 3 of the 4 live discussion sessions, publish your campaign, share it with your audience, and start bringing in the first couple of donations.
Through the middle of December, you'll have access to weekly Office Hours to help you keep going with interacting, persisting, and celebrating.
What PRIZES can I win?
⭐️ A feature in our enewsletter — such as a video interview — with your fundraising campaign link to invite donations.
🎉 A prize donation put right into your new Givebutter or Donorbox campaign after it's published within this upcoming Season of Giving, shared with your audience of 100 or more people, and has a couple donations starting to come in from your network (which you want to have anyway!).
☕️ A handmade mug to keep you cozy while doing your campaign outreach in the upcoming Season of Giving.
Why is there an optional Accountability Deposit?
What we've found is that it often takes a little extra push to do something courageous. When you put money down on yourself (for example $50 or $100), you're believing in yourself and challenging your intentions and goals to come true.
The way we've set it up is that you're actually doing is creating a prize donation for your campaign. When you initiate your campaign, share it with at least 50-100 people in your audience (or enough to start getting donations), and then have the first couple donations showing in your fundraising campaign, you will win the deposit back as a prize donation dropped into your campaign with a celebratory comment from us on your Donor Wall that encourages others to give.
What do I have access to AFTER finishing the 4 challenge modules?
🎥 The Funded Founder short-form video storytelling course to build a loyal supporter base
⏳ Weekly Year-End Check-Ins through the holiday season (do these while completing the modules as well)
💰 A Prize Donation from your optional Accountability Deposit to celebrate your courage and efforts once you launch your new campaign, and potentially an additional prize donation from a generous funder.
Why do this group challenge instead of hiring a consultant to create a campaign for me?
It's more fun to do this collaboratively in a group setting and much less expensive. You can still designate a team member or a board member to do it in your place or together with you to distribute the responsibility. The challenge includes valuable materials we created from our years of experience as consultants to nonprofits and social impact enterprises, so you get to benefit.
"Received multiple donations"
"We've received multiple donations now! Thanks again for all your help."
— Meagan Jeanette, Society of Environmental Journalists
"So grateful"
"Thank you so much for this wonderful learning experience! You're a great coach & with so much knowledge to share. I'm so grateful. 🫶🏼👏"
— Monica Santoyo, Womxn for Change Coalition
"Such a difference"
"Givebutter is a nice, happy, easy platform. It makes such a difference. Applying for gov funding is so frustrating.”
— Stephanie Edwards, Jubilee Trading Company
INVEst In Your Income Stream
Turn Uncertainty Into Opportunity: Build Your Individual Donor Campaign & Confidence
The funding landscape has shifted dramatically in 2025. Traditional grants and institutional giving are harder to secure and take time to come through, making it more important than ever to establish a stream of support from individual donors.
Collaboratively and in community with other impact stewards, you'll take the steps needed.
Our participants have already raised more than $700,000 through individual giving and crowdfunding, in addition to grants. These campaigns have:
Refurbished a disaster relief warehouse in California
Empowered Black teenagers in Baltimore
Kept the lights on for vulnerable families
Changed youth outcomes in Chicago’s South Side
Funded grassroots changemakers globally
Supported Peruvian craftswomen and children in underserved barrios
Raised funding to run a 10-week cohort of women entrepreneurs
30% of All Donations Annually are Made in the End-of-Year Season of Giving
Your Facilitators & Trainers
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." — African proverb
Adriana Dakin (at left) is co-founder of ImaginePod and co-facilitates this Impact Incubator intensive on individual donor fundraising. She is also Strategy & Partnership Specialist with a Community Foundation in California. With a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, she has helped organizations raise millions and mobilize advocacy.
Imène Ghernati, PhD (in center) co-facilitates this workshop, and is a member of The Bloom and the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits. The founder of the STEAM Learning Institute, a nonprofit collaborative research initiative dedicated to fostering equitable education in the sciences and arts, she helps organization stewards think deeply and focus.
Abigail Ahoude (at right) is co-founder of ImaginePod. She leads trainings and hosts podcast interviews on fundraising and marketing topics in this Fundraising Intensive. She is a coalition building expert who works in climate finance and is in the midst of an exciting move to Benin in West Africa with her family.
PHILANTHROPIC PARTNERS & CLIENTS
TESTIMONIALS
What Others Are Saying
"So much more confident"
“After just one, brief, introductory meeting with Adriana, I feel so much more confident in our organization’s fundraising abilities. Her calm, kind and confident demeanor was a balm to the worried mindset that led us to seek fundraising training. She guided us through a simple but powerful decision matrix and even included a mini action plan with next steps! We are grateful to be welcomed into this community of support and are excited to start the training!”
— Hilary White, Treasurer, Art Explorers
"This is really specific & helpful"
“This is so helpful. With the incubator I don’t have a lot of people I can talk to who are pursuing similar things. I just read about stuff. There are a few people out there but this is really helpful and encouraging and specific. I’m finding great value in this. If you ever need a testimonial let me know. I’ll implement and show what happened in my campaigns. I am excited to talk about donor personas. I’ll refocus what I have written down so far.”
— Jon Tulio of Nothing to Lose Foundation
"I am ready"
"This fundraising mentoring session and incubator are great. It’s helpful because for a lot of this work developing resources I do my own thinking. Talking it out and putting it together with planning is really helpful. I am ready to bring funding into the organization and make it powerful. I’m so glad that I’m part of this right now.”
— Lizz De La Mora, Domestic Violence Services
Together, We Have Achieved:
$8M
RAISED FOR SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
$700K
RAISED BY PARTICIPANTS IN 6 MONTHS IN 2024
19,300
IMPACT LEADERS SURVEYED FOR TOP ISSUES
3,500
ORGS SUPPORTED WITH RESOURCES
400
COURSE PARTICIPANTS IN GROUP PROGRAMS
90
ORGANIZATIONS IN LEARNING COHORTS
36
COUNTRIES PARTICIPATING IN PROGRAMS
13
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING COHORTS RUN
🎤 Podcast Conversation: Learn from Danilla How to Set Up a Match Donor to Increase Donations 3-5X
Danilla Sands, Founder & Executive Director of the United Disaster Relief of Northern California, was a participant in our 2024 cohort. In an interactive conversation, she shares how she created a successful year-end campaign to have funding to refurbish their new warehouse space. The nonprofit brought on a matching donor, which typically increases giving 3x to 5x, and helped her raise over $100,000.
As Danilla said: "We’re an all-volunteer nonprofit disaster resource center and would like to create a hired position eventually. We just moved into a new building and are raising money in an end-of-year campaign using the Givebutter platform. This whole concept has been huge — it's so instrumental for people to see how much they’ve helped raise, and making edits is easy. People can share their name or give anonymously, they can watch our video story, and their donation is matched by a generous community member. I love the goal meter, and if I get a check in hand I can go to my dashboard and manually put it in, then see the goal rise. I also like having immediate payouts to our bank account with a click."
Here is a screenshot of her 2024 campaign:
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