As a nonprofit fundraising professional, you understand the importance of donor recognition. Donors are at the core of your fundraising efforts, contributing the funds necessary to fuel your mission.
However, it can be difficult to keep track of so many individuals, let alone figure out how to communicate with them on a personal level. This is where data comes into play.
Continue reading 4 Ways to Use Data in Your Donor Communications Strategy
As a nonprofit professional, you’re always looking for innovative ways to fundraise. While your organization likely runs several major fundraising events and campaigns throughout the year, it’s also important to find ongoing revenue streams that engage supporters and bring in funding between campaigns.
Fortunately, there is a way to earn additional revenue while keeping up with the rest of your nonprofit’s activities: passive fundraising. According to the fundraising experts at ShopRaise, passive fundraisers allow supporters to generate revenue for the causes they care about by taking actions they were likely going to anyway, such as shopping online or eating at their favorite restaurant. Plus, most of these fundraisers are easy for your nonprofit to set up and run over time.
Continue reading Making Passive Fundraising Work for Your Nonprofit: 4 Tips
Your website’s navigation is a crucial element for creating a positive user experience. Effective navigation makes it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for and gain the most value from your website.
But it can be easy to fall into navigation traps and missteps. Your organization could get caught up in trendy menu innovations and forget to prioritize the user experience.
Continue reading 7 Navigation Mistakes to Avoid on Your Nonprofit Website
The word “audit” tends to bring about anxiety and concern when the average person hears it. We picture horrible visions of the IRS combing through our personal information and telling us we did something wrong or owe money. While this may be the case for many individuals, there’s no need for nonprofits to have this same sense of stress and concern.
Nonprofits don’t pay taxes, so there’s no reason for the IRS to come around, telling you that your organization owes money. However, audits can be incredibly useful for nonprofits to ensure donations are processed properly, tax forms are filed, and general accounting best practices are followed at your nonprofit.
Continue reading Understanding Financial Audits: A Quick Guide for Nonprofits
Your nonprofit’s logo is a core element of your brand, as it acts as a reflection of your organization and mission. When supporters and new prospects view your logo on any marketing materials and donor communications, they should be able to immediately associate it with your mission.
When we think of brands like Starbucks, Nike, and Mcdonald’s, the first things that come to mind are probably the mermaid emblem, swoosh marking, and golden arches. Loop’s nonprofit branding guide describes the logo as the “foundation of your overall visual brand” which is why it evokes so much emotion and recognition. It’s included in almost every document you create!
Continue reading What’s in a Nonprofit Logo? 4 Things to Consider
When a supporter googles your nonprofit and clicks on your website, what do they do from there?
The hope is that your supporters actively explore your site’s content, use your online giving page to donate, and sign up for your newsletter or fundraising events.
However, some nonprofits make the mistake of taking a “set it and forget it” approach when it comes to their websites. Instead of consistently considering and reconsidering their supporters’ experiences using the site, they put a lot of work into the look and functionality of the site upfront, hoping it’ll do the trick of catching people’s attention and getting them to act without ongoing updates.
Continue reading Numbers to Know: Interpreting Website Engagement Data
Your nonprofit relies on your donors’ support in order to meet its daily operations. However, if your nonprofit doesn’t fully understand its audience, it’ll be more difficult to engage your donors and motivate them to give.
Collecting donor data can help your organization create comprehensive donor personas for each of your supporters, whether you have hundreds or thousands of people giving to your cause. While this may seem overwhelming, a strong data collection strategy backed by a solid tech foundation can streamline the entire process.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the essential data points your nonprofit should collect in its constituent relationship management (CRM) platform:
Comprehensive data can help your organization steward strong donor relationships and tap into your donors’ unique motivations for giving to your nonprofit. As a result, your donors will feel more passionate about your cause, leading to a boost in online fundraising. Let’s begin.
Your donors’ demographics will give you a baseline overview of the type of donors that are likely to give to your nonprofit. This will inform your outreach strategies so you can better target your ideal audience or even work towards reaching new audiences.
Specifically, you’ll want to use your donation page or data appends to collect data points such as:
For example, let’s say you collect these data points and discover that most of your donors are Gen Z or Millennials. Younger generations tend to prefer digital communications, so your nonprofit can amp up its social media marketing efforts to encourage donor retention.
Employer data can also have a huge impact on your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts. If your donors work at companies that offer matching gifts, your organization can receive double (and sometimes triple) the amount of the original donation. In fact, according to Double the Donation, over 26 million individuals work for companies with matching gift programs. If your donors are eligible for matching gifts, they can easily increase their impact and play a more rewarding role in your organization’s journey.
By taking a closer look at your donors’ history, you can better understand their giving capacity and interest in your cause. This information will help you tailor your donation appeals, volunteer outreach, and other communications to their needs and preferences.
Collect the following data points about your donors’ involvement:
With these data points, you can then segment your communications to better target certain types of donors. For example, you can create an email segment for donors that used to give frequently but haven’t given in the last year to reengage them with your mission. If you have a fundraising deadline quickly approaching and you haven’t hit your goal yet, you can create an email segment for major donors to ask them to help push you over the finish line.
You can also segment your communications to promote monthly giving. According to Donately, monthly giving can help your organization establish a reliable donation pipeline that you can access year round. Create a segment for donors that give frequently and have the potential to be monthly givers. In your outreach, highlight the various benefits of monthly giving, including the ability to play a more active role in your nonprofit and the convenience of only having to fill out your donation page once.
These are often answers to questions like: What are your supporters’ hobbies? Why are they passionate about your cause? Are they interested in finding new ways to get involved with your organization?
This information will help you build stronger relationships with donors and find relevant ways to keep them engaged. For example, a donor with graphic design experience may express that they want to play a larger role in your organization. You can then open up a new volunteering opportunity to them, such as improving your fundraising website or your marketing materials.
Understanding your supporters’ passions can also help you craft personalized donation appeals that are more likely to inspire action. For instance, if you’re an environmental organization, you may have several donors that give because they care deeply about saving endangered species. In your donation appeals to these donors, you can then emphasize the different ways your nonprofit’s work is helping to protect endangered animals.
By taking the time to get to know your donors, they’ll feel more valued and appreciated by your organization. At your next in-person event, ensure that members of your nonprofit board or staff are present to engage with donors one-on-one and ask them about their interests. If you have a large donor base, you can create online get-to-know-you surveys that take just a few moments to complete.
To steward strong donor relationships, you need a comprehensive understanding of each of your supporters. The accessibility of data has made it easier than ever to create donor personas and use this information for better engagement and outreach. Use donor data research tools, like your donation page and data appends, to collect essential data points and learn the best ways to drive donor retention. Good luck!
Jacob Spencer | Customer Success / Account Manager at Donately
I strive to make every step of our customer journey as enjoyable as possible. My goal is to turn everyone that trusts Donately into a raving fan! Raising funds can be daunting, but we know that with the right tools, it can and should be easy.
Throughout my career, I’ve been able to help sales and success teams tackle new markets, grow and expand. Leading with empathy, listening to actually solve problems, and remembering that we are all human are the key elements to growing any business in a meaningful way.
When I’m not working you can find me spending time with my wife, 2 boys and our Border Collie, Abbie. Family>Everything.
Whether you have an upcoming fundraiser you’re trying to promote to donors or if you’re preparing for the end of the year, your nonprofit needs a focused and impactful marketing strategy.
Email marketing has traditionally been the backbone of nonprofit marketing strategies for years. And not without reason! Nonprofit email marketing is a powerful tool that allows your organization to reach individual donors with specific messages that engage them with your organization.
However, this only works if your organization keeps up with the latest trends and strategies for email outreach. If you fail to do this, your organization might fall behind and spend more and more time on an inefficient strategy. Make sure you’re using the most effective email marketing tactics to reach your supporters by leveraging the following tips:
The average email open rate for nonprofits is much higher than other industries. This rate rests around 26% compared to the national average email opening rate of 6%. Take advantage of this opportunity and make sure you’re making the most of your outreach by ensuring your email strategy is up to date.
Sometimes it seems like the most time-efficient way to get a message across to your audience is to send a mass email. That means if you have an upcoming fundraiser, you would add all of your donors’ and supporters’ email addresses to the recipient box. While this might seem time-efficient, it’s actually not effective at all.
People are much more likely to read and engage with messages that are personalized. In fact, according to one source, 74% of Gen Zers, 67% of Millennials, 61% of Gen Xers, and 57% of Baby Boomers all prefer personalized messages in the marketing messages they receive. That’s over half of your audience (no matter their age) that prefers a more personal touch to your emails.
The best way to make sure you personalize each email you send is to segment your audience and craft messages per segment. It might take slightly longer than a mass message, but it’s a much better strategy.
Doubleknot’s segmentation guide explains that there are three primary types of data that nonprofits can use to group their audience into segments for marketing purposes:
Save relevant details regarding this type of data in your nonprofit’s CRM. Then, use that information to create segments and better personalize your outreach strategy. Be sure to regularly clean up this data in your database so that you are always working with the latest information.
Each email that you send to your audience should have a concrete purpose. The last thing you want to do is to send mindless emails that don’t call your supporters to do anything — these types of messages simply waste both you and your supporters’ time.
Strategize what the most important thing you want to promote at your organization is. Ask yourself, “Why are we sending this email?” Then, you can use that information to structure your messages and encourage supporters to help you accomplish your goals. For example, consider promoting opportunities for:
Appreciation messages need to have a purpose too, even if you’re not immediately promoting an upcoming campaign. You should explain the impact supporters had, thank them for getting involved, then offer a next step, like filling out a feedback survey.
You should always include an opportunity for your supporters to get involved after reading your message. These calls to action should link your readers to proper landing pages directly from your email. For example, link to your online donation page as a part of your fundraising outreach and to event registration pages when inviting people to attend your next big auction.
A/B testing allows your nonprofit to test aspects of your email outreach on your audience to see what strategies are most effective. Essentially, it helps you gain insight into what your audience responds best to so you can use that data for future campaigns.
You should only ever test one variable at a time. Send one message using one strategy to half of your audience and use the other strategy for the other half. For example, you might send a message to half of your audience using a graphic style image and another message with a stock photo to the other half. Whichever gets more click throughs is the more effective image strategy.
Some of the factors you might choose to test in your emails using A/B testing include:
Make sure you have relevant metrics you can measure to see which option performs better during tests. For example, you might measure the email open rate when testing two different subject lines or the click-through rate when testing different calls to action.
Save this information and update it when necessary. A/B testing is an important aspect of donor data because it describes those preferences specific to your audience. It’s much more precise than simply reviewing statistics for general audiences from other market testers and will be useful in future campaigns.
You can take your email strategy a step further by leveraging your email addresses to create ads that will help drive more traffic to your organization. This process is called email mapping. It allows your nonprofit to send targeted ads to a list of specific email addresses.
Although many organizations are often hesitant to leverage ads, whether due to financial strain or a lack of understanding of their impact, Feathr’s nonprofit advertising guide explains that there are a great number of benefits that accompany this strategy:
When you use email mapping to display ads to your supporters, these messages will show up in the margins of web articles, on their Facebook feeds, and elsewhere across the internet. Be sure the message you display relates back to your email campaign. This repeat exposure reminds your supporters about the opportunities you offer to get involved and increases the chances that they will do so.
Now that you know email outreach strategies, create goals based on what you want to pursue. Be sure each goal is tied to a specific measurable metric so that you can define what success looks like for your organization. The key performance indicators (KPIs) you might choose to track could include your email open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate.
Consider which KPIs will be more impactful for your particular mission. This tracking of metrics will also help you identify improvement opportunities for future campaigns. Good luck!
Aidan Augustin | Co-founder & President, Feathr | linkedin.com/in/aidanaugustin
Aidan Augustin is the co-founder and president of Feathr, an industry-leading software company making digital marketing more accessible to nonprofits and event organizers. Feathr has helped over 800 nonprofits and thousands of events know, grow, and engage their audiences. When he’s not steering the ship at Feathr, he’s playing strategy games, singing karaoke, or reading books about people who changed the world.
Virtual fundraisers have grown in popularity over the last few years for both nonprofits and donors alike. These low-cost fundraisers save you money, increase your ROI, and expand your donor base. Your supporters will be excited for more opportunities to participate in events and contribute to your cause.
Whether you’re hosting a virtual or hybrid event, online-friendly fundraisers are a lucrative, creative way to raise more for your organization. Here are a few fundraising ideas to get you started:
Before embarking on an extensive online fundraising campaign, set goals for your nonprofit. Consider what your target fundraising amount is, what your audience will learn about your organization through the campaign, and how you can create a positive, memorable experience. Let’s dive into five online fundraisers for your nonprofit!
Read-a-thons are an excellent avenue for an online educational fundraiser. If your organization is education based or partners with a school, a read-a-thon can help increase literacy among your students while also raising money for your cause.
Read-a-thons are fully online, and raise funds by having students reach out to friends and family for a flat-rate donation. Then, students will read as much as they can over a specific period of time.
To take your read-a-thon online, you can use an online platform, such as Read-a-thons web-based software, to help students, parents, and teachers stay organized. Students will use the platform to log their reading time after every, so family and friends can see updates on their progress, which can inspire secondary donations.
Students, parents, teachers, or supervisors can all access Read-a-thon’s school fundraising software to update student reading times, making this online fundraiser suitable for all ages of students.
To encourage students to participate, you can also offer select prizes based on how much students read or raised. Select the top readers and top fundraisers from each class for special prizes, and offer something smaller for other students to encourage full participation.
Peer-to-peer fundraising, also referred to as P2P fundraising by industry experts, is a classic way to encourage your supporters to help with fundraising and expand your reach to new donors. Get in touch with your supporters and offer them the opportunity to raise money for your nonprofit as volunteer fundraisers.
Your ideal volunteers are heavily engaged supporters who would be excited to share their involvement with your nonprofit online and can easily speak to the strengths of your organization. Once you’ve recruited your volunteers, host training sessions to support your volunteers with talking points about your peer-to-peer fundraising goal, mission, and campaign message.
Help your volunteers create their own fundraising pages to share with their friends, family, and personal networks. Encourage them to set a personal fundraising goal for themselves and to reach out to their networks for donations. Some peer-to-peer campaigns even set deadlines for when funds have to be collected to inspire potential donors to act quickly to join the cause.
Here are some channels your volunteers can use to share their fundraising pages:
Your supporters are foundational to your nonprofit, so peer-to-peer fundraising is the perfect way to use their personal experiences to help inform and inspire new donors.
Social media challenges are a simple way to get a variety of donors involved in your fundraising, spread your message widely, and build your organization’s community. Everyone knows the viral ALS ice bucket challenge because it was memorable and raised awareness for the cause for everyone who completed or watched someone else complete the challenge.
Take to your nonprofit’s social media profiles and encourage your supporters to create videos, images, and messages about your challenge to share with their networks. Here are some details to include in your social media challenges:
After posting your social media challenges, be sure to ask your staff, board members, volunteers, and followers to engage with the post and complete the challenge to help start building momentum. Use the challenge as an opportunity to build a stronger community by inspiring your followers to participate.
A matching gifts campaign can help supplement other fundraisers and provide continued support long after its initial launch. With a matching gifts campaign, you can increase the revenue from donations already being made without asking your donors to give more!
Many companies offer matching gifts opportunities for their employees. If their employees make a charitable contribution to a registered nonprofit, and submits an application to the company, the company may match a certain percentage of the gift made. Some companies match up to 100% or even double the amount of an employee’s donation.
Encourage your donors to check their matching gift eligibility on your website’s donation page. You can also promote your matching gifts campaign through social media and newsletters to inspire donors to check their eligibility and company policies. Some companies will match a gift months to a year after it’s been made, meaning if you start promoting now, you might start earning extra donations immediately.
Text-to-give fundraisers utilizes one of the best ways to reach donors on-the-go, mobile messaging. Like other online fundraisers, you can promote it on your social media pages, website, and newsletter to get supporters excited about your cause.
For a smooth campaign, you can use a text-to-give software that allows you to customize your campaign. Snowball’s text-to-give fundraising guide outlines how to optimize the experience for your nonprofit and your supporters:
Texting is a way to casually connect with donors who may be overwhelmed by your volunteer programs or website. Start a text-to-give campaign to offer donors a simple way to contribute to your cause.
Fundraising is all about earning the revenue you need to keep your cause going while spreading the word about your organization, your mission, and your ongoing work. Whether it’s online or in-person, fundraisers are an opportunity to educate your supporters and inspire them to join your cause. Use your branding, powerful language, and online marketing materials to ensure your online fundraising success.
Howard Gottlieb
Howard Gottlieb has been a serial entrepreneur for more than 35 years. His latest venture, Read-a-thon, is a novel school fundraising concept that truly shifts the paradigm when it matters most. Read-a-thon replaces in-person bake sales, magazine drives and the like with a contactless method of raising much needed cash, one that can be used both in real classrooms and virtual learning spaces. The real bonus? It promotes literacy and gets kids excited about picking up a book.
When you think of branding, you might envision corporations branding their products with a logo or a catchy slogan at the end of a commercial. Yes, these are all examples of branding, but they’re only half of the picture. The concept of brand recognition isn’t exclusive to for-profit entities. In fact, your nonprofit should have its own brand identity that shapes your community-building interactions.
If you’re new to branding, you might have some questions about how to go through the process, from shaping your story to personalizing your social media profiles. Don’t worry, this is a good thing! Here are some questions to ask and answer throughout the nonprofit branding process so you can ensure you have all your bases covered. Let’s get started!
Nonprofit branding is what distinctly sets you apart from other nonprofits in the space, attracting supporters that resonate with your specific identity. The branding process entails creating a strong public-facing persona for your nonprofit through design and messaging. It’s far more than just your website design or your marketing materials. Essentially, it’s the who, what, and why your nonprofit presents to your community.
Every rebranding strategy needs a baseline to build off of. Take some time to assess your current nonprofit branding strategy, focusing on elements such as your mission statement, messaging, online presence, and visual elements (logo, colors, and font). Then, decide which elements you want to keep and which ones aren’t working as well for your organization so you know where to begin.
Once you’ve thoroughly analyzed your current brand status, it’s time to tackle a different question: why will a rebrand benefit our organization? Here are some common reasons nonprofits decide to rebrand that might resonate with your organization:
Your rebranding is a large undertaking, so understanding exactly what your goals are is essential for staying focused.
If you don’t know exactly what you want your new brand to look like, never fear! There are many ways to be inspired by the world around you. Here are some ways to come up with a few ideas:
The sheer amount of branding possibilities can make the process feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Use the resources around you to jumpstart your creative process!
Once you set your goals based on who you’re trying to reach with your brand, you should pick a target completion date for your rebrand. Setting a completion date for your rebrand from the very beginning is crucial to prioritize only your most important updates. Be sure to set reasonable goals based on your timeframe. For example, a simple logo rebrand won’t take as long as a comprehensive website rebrand.
Your timeframe also determines the scope of your campaign. If you only have a month, it probably isn’t feasible to undertake a holistic campaign that would normally take six months to execute. Understand that a comprehensive, high-quality strategy can’t be rolled out overnight, so you should prioritize the work that needs to be done.
You can shape your brand identity in many ways, but the most important is by strategically telling your story.
Every nonprofit is built on a good story. If you present yours compellingly, people will naturally gravitate toward you to learn more about it. So, figuring out your storytelling strategy is a crucial part of your branding process. Keep in mind are Getting Attention’s elements to consider while crafting your story:
At the end of the day, you know your story better than anyone else, so brainstorm with your team to determine the most effective storytelling method. It’ll introduce you to many new audiences that care about your mission.
You should spend ample time preparing in advance so that your rebranding journey is as smooth as possible. Moreover, you should use several materials to center your thinking, such as:
Keeping organized is the key to a successful rebranding campaign, so stay on top of the planning process!
There’s no doubt that refreshing your brand can be a daunting task. If you want further support, consider working with a nonprofit branding agency. According to Fifty & Fifty, they’ll provide numerous services such as:
Experts in branding know what makes donors tick and new visitors click. They’ll be able to guide you and transform your brand into one that donors and prospects love. Plus, they provide in-depth KPI analysis and insights so you know what’s working and what should change. Working with a nonprofit branding agency is a great way to kick off your rebranding efforts to impress your community.
Keeping your brand up to date is a large undertaking, but is incredibly important for your nonprofit to appear fresh and in touch with your community. You don’t have to go through it alone, either; nonprofit branding agencies and your connections in the field will help motivate you throughout the process. Ultimately, your prospective supporters might know who you are, but your new branding will center your why for all to see.
Javan Van Gronigen
Creative Director | Founder
As Founder and Creative Director of Fifty & Fifty, Javan is the tip of the proverbial spear. Javan started his digital design career 20 years ago as Art Director for what is now one of the world’s largest digital agencies (Mirum, a JWT Company). He then moved on to Invisible Children where he was responsible for managing the team and all digital assets through the entire historic Kony 2012 campaign. At Fifty & Fifty, Javan has participated in and led every project, including 300+ websites, campaigns, and brands.