Need new ways to catch your supporters’ attention? These 10 fundraising for nonprofits ideas will help you raise money over the long term.
When it comes to fundraising for nonprofits, there are many ways to improve your processes and raise more money for your cause.
For inspiration, here are 10 excellent nonprofit fundraising strategies you should consider to raise more funds!
1. Create an Engaging Online Fundraising Page
Your fundraising page is the focal point of information and activity for your fundraising efforts. Fundraising pages, which double as donation pages, are where you tell your story, explain why your cause matters, and encourage donors to get involved.
There’s no limit to what you can include on your fundraising page. Many of them have:
- Highlights about upcoming fundraising campaigns or events
- A calendar of fundraising events
- User-friendly donation forms with options for one-time donors and recurring givers
- Suggested donation amounts, as well as information about matching gifts and in-kind donations
- Fundraising goal thermometers or progress bars
- One-click giving options via digital wallets like PayPal
- Staff and board member bios
- Partnership or sponsorship opportunities
- An online store where you can sell T-shirts and other merchandise
New to creating a fundraising page? No worries! Raisely has a variety of customisable templates perfect for your online fundraising needs!
2. Give Peer-to-Peer Fundraising a Try
When fundraising for nonprofits, amplify your chances of success by turning your supporters into brand ambassadors. Peer-to-peer fundraising is a marketing strategy where you mobilise supporters to collect donations from their friends and family members on your nonprofit’s behalf.
Peer-to-peer fundraising for nonprofits is a great way to raise money and find and engage new donors. In 2021, U.S. nonprofit organisations raised over $154 million through digital peer-to-peer fundraising platforms. A key reason why this fundraising method is so effective is that many first-time donors are receiving information about your good cause from someone they like, know, and trust.
Peer-to-peer fundraising is especially effective on social media. When planning your next peer-to-peer campaign, provide your supporters with key messaging points, social media posts they can copy and paste, and a link to your donation page where people can get more information.
3. Send a Video Message
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a 60-second video is worth 1.8 million words.
Video marketing is dominating engagement. According to HubSpot:
- 92% of marketers using video say that it’s an integral part of their marketing strategy.
- 87% of video marketers say that video gives them a positive return on investment.
- 94% of marketers agree that videos increase user understanding of products and services.
Video messages are powerful tools because the information in videos is often digested faster and easier than other content mediums. With the right message, you can immediately connect viewers with your cause and inspire them to take action.
4. Send an SMS Message
Videos may dominate the kind of content we consume, but SMS marketing is experiencing a renaissance of its own.
Research from SimpleTexting finds that:
- 27% more businesses are using text message marketing compared to 2021.
- Most businesses are experiencing click-through rates between 20%—35%.
- 60% of business owners who are texting their customers increased their marketing budgets in 2022.
Think of it this way: How often do you check your text messages? According to the research, 53% of us check our messages 11 or more times per day. Only 29% of us check our email at the same rate.
Also, 51% of us respond to a text within 1-2 minutes of receiving it, and nearly 95% will respond within the hour!
SMS messaging can enhance all types of fundraising campaigns. With Raisely, you can keep your donors in the know by crafting automated emails and SMS messages and optimising your strategic communications.
5. Craft a Fundraising Newsletter
Video and SMS marketing may be popular, but email marketing isn’t going anywhere. It still offers incredibly effective fundraising opportunities.
Keep connected with your donors through a weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter highlighting your successful fundraising events, while reminding them how much their gifts impact these events.
Also, never underestimate the power of a fundraising letter. Well-written letters engage readers with a touching story, define a problem, highlight a solution, and end with a compelling call to action. With Raisely, you can engage your readers by customising your mail content and delivering personalised messages that drive clicks.
6. Organise a Giving Day
GivingTuesday is to charitable organisations what Black Friday is to businesses. If GivingTuesday has taught us anything in the last decade, it’s that people love to give and that few things are more exciting than trying to hit a fundraising goal in 24 hours. Between in-person and online donations, 2022’s GivingTuesday raised $3.1 billion USD in the U.S. alone!
When you’re fundraising for nonprofits, you don’t need to wait until 2023’s GivingTuesday rolls around. Create your own giving day with one of our digital fundraising templates.
7. Host a Virtual Event
Virtual events break geographic barriers, making your fundraising idea accessible to anyone with a Wi-Fi connection and a desire to give.
Whether you’re organising a webinar or a virtual walk-a-thon, our fundraising software makes hosting a virtual event super easy! Once you develop the framework for your idea, use our active event fundraising template, customise it with your branding, and share it on your social media accounts and with your email subscribers.
Ta da!
8. Organise Your Donor Data
Successful fundraising campaigns require regular access to high-quality data. Good data helps you analyse what’s working and what isn't, and it shows you when and how you should communicate with donors. You can easily figure this out with a customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Our built-in CRM can help you develop a deeper understanding of your supporters so you can optimise your next campaign. We’ve also added the ability to report across multiple fundraising campaigns, making them more flexible and transformative.
9. Re-engage Lapsed Donors
Even the most impactful, most important nonprofit organisations lose donors. However, just because someone hasn’t donated to your cause in a few years doesn’t mean they’ve stopped forever.
Sometimes past donors just need a reminder of why they once gave to your cause. Write a list of donors who haven’t given in a while. Then, create a personalised email that shares your story and reinforces your cause. You probably won’t get everyone, but you could inspire a few previous donors to give again or even become recurring givers.
10. Ask Your One-Time Donors to Become Regular Givers
Since 2008, many nonprofits have received larger, major gifts but from fewer donors. To further complicate things, new donor acquisition often costs more than their initial donations!
In other words, donor retention is super necessary! The more donors you can keep, the less time and money you’ll have to spend finding new donors or other sources of funding.
When you’re fundraising for nonprofits, one way to retain donors is to persuade them to become repeat givers. Put yourself in a donor’s shoes: a one-time donation of $200 or a monthly recurring donation of $20? Odds are that you’re more likely to give the $20, even if it means giving more per year.
Recurring donations are easier on donor bank accounts and provide your nonprofit with a steady stream of income, so upsell them whenever you can!
Fundraising for Nonprofits With Raisely
No matter what your fundraising idea is, Raisely can help! With Raisely, you can set up a fundraising page in just minutes, create peer-to-peer campaigns quickly, and automate many marketing efforts.
Are you ready to maximise your efforts and master fundraising for nonprofits? Request a demo to see how Raisely’s all-in-one fundraising platform can help you today!
