Year-End Fundraising Checklist: 30 Dated Tasks for Nonprofits

Sixty days before December 31 fell on Sunday, the point where a small team should already know its year-end goal and budget.

• Year-end runs on fixed dates once you count back from the last day of the year. A few worth putting in the calendar now:
• November 1 (60 days before): set the year-end goal and budget
• November 28 (33 days before): test the donation page end to end, with a real gift
• November 29 (32 days before): brief board members on calls and asks
• December 31: send the last-day email
• January 10 (10 days after): reconcile totals with your finance records
• January 21 (21 days after): write down three lessons for next year

Test the donation page early: a broken form found on the last day can't be fixed in time.

With the dates set, a one-person team can see each week what's due instead of carrying the list in their head.

Our Year-End Fundraising Calendar & Checklist for Excel and Google Sheets is the light option. Type your year-end date once and 30 tasks get dates, each with a suggested owner and a short note on why it matters. There's a weekly to-do view and progress by phase and by owner.

It has no strategy sheets, projections or donation tracking, and the timings are suggestions, not tax or postal deadlines.