Taking Fundraising a Step Further: Strategies for Nonprofits
From our friends at SalsaLabs
If your nonprofit is like so many others right now, you’ve probably run into some challenges in regards to your fundraising strategy. Nothing is exactly how we expected it would be, even six months ago, and the prospect of convincing supporters to maintain their donations can seem scary.
However, the most important thing for your team to remember is to keep fundraising. You never know who will continue giving to your organization if you fail to ask them about it.
Even throughout these difficult times, your organization can take steps in order to strengthen your strategies both now and for the future. Some of these strategies we recommend for organizations include:
Create specific fundraising goals and objectives.
Track your donor retention rate.
Convert advocates and volunteers into donors.
Tell stories to demonstrate impact.
Report your organization’s success metrics.
All of these strategies centralize around the need for an effective nonprofit donor management solution. This guide can help you choose one with all of the features you need to personalize marketing materials and track important metrics regarding your fundraising strategies.
Ready to learn more? Let’s get started.
1. Create specific fundraising goals and objectives.
In order to make sure your fundraising efforts are as effective as possible, your nonprofit needs to first define what “effective” means to the organization. This means you need to have very specific goals and objectives that your nonprofit is reaching toward.
Your nonprofit’s fundraising goals should be directly aligned with your philanthropic initiatives. If you’re working to establish a new program for your constituents, estimate the expenses for that program and consider your fundraising history to make sure it’s an aspirational yet achievable goal.
When you set goals and objectives for your nonprofit’s fundraising activity, write them down for your team to see and be motivated by. Be sure to include the following information for these goals:
The fundraising amount you need to raise
What campaign it’ll be used for
The impact of the donations made
When you need the donations by
When you write all of this out, be sure to format it as a SMART goal. It should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.
For example, a small food pantry might write:
Our goal is to raise $1,000 to purchase 15 turkeys, 30 pounds of mashed potatoes, 40 pounds of green beans, and 12 pumpkin pies in order to feed 100 people Thanksgiving dinner as a part of our Thriving Thanksgiving campaign. We need to raise these funds by the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
As you can see, the above statement offers a very specific goal for the amount raised, what it will purchase, the campaign it will support, what will be purchased with the funds, and when you need them by.
If your organization is having difficulty setting these goals or raising the funds, you may consider getting opinions from a fundraising consultant. You can start your research by reviewing this fundraising consultant guide from Averill Solutions.
2. Track your donor retention rate.
One of the best ways to make sure your nonprofit’s fundraising initiatives make the biggest splash possible is to focus on your organization’s donor retention rate. Because it’s much more cost-efficient to retain donors than it is to acquire new donors, increasing your retention rate can make it less expensive to hit your fundraising goals.
This means you can work smarter rather than harder to reach your organization’s goals. We recommend that your nonprofit keep a close eye on your donor retention rate over time. Use various strategies to increase the metric, then keep an eye on the impact of those strategies. Some tactics you might employ to improve your retention include:
Crafting supporter-specific fundraisers. When you launch a new fundraiser, be sure to choose unique fundraising ideas that match the interests of your support base. For instance, if you have many young and fitness-focused supporters, you may host a virtual 5K to raise funds and engage your donors.
Increasing your donor appreciation. Make sure you’re working hard to show appreciation for your nonprofit’s supporters. A little appreciation and acknowledgment can go a long way to making your supporters feel connected to your organization. This connection is what will drive them to contribute again in the future.
Personalizing your marketing outreach. Personalization is another way to show your supporters that you care about them. They’re more likely to pay attention when you use their name in the salutation of letters, discuss campaigns and projects that interest them, and include other personal details in marketing materials.
Due to the uniqueness of this year, your donor retention rate may look lower than it would in other years. However, it’s important that your nonprofit maintain (or increase!) your donor retention and relationship-building efforts.
While some supporters may be unable to contribute this year, they may be able to do so in the future. Showing them appreciation now will encourage them to contribute more in the future, setting your organization up for long-term success.
3. Convert advocates and volunteers into donors.
Your nonprofit’s donor retention rate is one opportunity to engage the supporters who you already know support your mission. The other groups who are effective pools of individuals to reach out to? Your volunteers and advocates.
Especially during these tough financial times, supporters may want to get involved in a way that’s not financially strenuous. Providing these individuals with options and opportunities to get involved without reaching into their wallets, such as advocacy and volunteering, allows your organization to begin a relationship with them. You won’t lose out on the chance to begin engaging them with your mission.
Then, after the financial crisis ends, you can start stewarding these individuals towards donations, improving your long-term fundraising strategy.
When you’re considering these opportunities, make sure they’ll be truly beneficial to your organization’s mission. Salsa’s advocacy campaign examples and Donorly’s guide to building your donor base provide some great examples of opportunities you can offer to get supporters involved in an advocacy and volunteer basis.
Advocacy opportunities:
Click-to-call campaigns encourage supporters to call their representatives to push articles of legislation through that will support your mission.
Online petitions can be used to increase your support base and raise awareness of issues to a broad base of individuals and enter them into your marketing funnel.
Volunteer opportunities:
Subject matter committees can be devised and volunteers encouraged to join in order to solve organizational issues and create a community of support for the nonprofit.
Cultivation events can be organized over Zoom or other live-streaming software to introduce your supporters to your organization members and volunteers, getting everyone more involved.
We love these ideas because they can be completed entirely remotely. Your nonprofit can adhere to social distancing precautions while getting supporters involved today.
Then, when supporters are more involved with these types of opportunities, you can provide them with more information about your organization and gently guide them towards donating financially.
4. Tell stories to demonstrate impact.
Nonprofit supporters react well when your organization works to demonstrate the immense impact they’ve had toward your mission. After all, that’s why they’ve chosen to give in the first place.
The other thing supporters react well to? Stories! People love stories that allow them to connect personally with the individual about whom the story is told. This means focusing on the story of an individual.
For example, consider the following impact statements:
Your generous contribution has helped purchase over 150 backpacks for children in need around the city. Thank you for your immense generosity.
Compare the above statement to this one:
Your generous contribution has helped purchase over 150 backpacks for children in need like Billy. Billy is 13 years old and loves math and building things with his hands. He says that he will use his new backpack to carry and store materials to build and decorate his rockets in the rocketry club at school. We and Billy thank you for your generosity.
People react much more strongly to the story of an individual than that of the masses. Use storytelling strategies to form connections and communicate impact in a way that will drive supporters to continue contributing in the future.
5. Report your organization’s success metrics.
When you employ various strategies to improve your nonprofit’s fundraising, it’s imperative that you also track the successes of such strategies.
By watching the data surrounding your organization’s fundraising efforts, you can identify the strategies that made the greatest impact on your overall success.
For example, if you personalize your marketing materials, make note of your donor retention rate for the following year. If it improves, you’ll know that the effort was successful. Or, if you draft a new appreciation letter for supporters who contribute, you may specifically consider which of those supporters also get involved during your next fundraiser. Compare it to the previous metric and identify the difference your strategies make.
In order to do this effectively, you’ll need a high-quality solution in which to track these metrics, such as a comprehensive nonprofit donor database. You’ll also need to set key performance indicators in the beginning that you’re working to improve. Some fundraising KPIs might include:
Donor retention rate
Overall fundraising revenue
Fundraising event attendance
Average gift size
Fundraising return on investment
Marketing conversion rates
In addition to tracking the metrics, you may consider asking for the opinions of your supporters about the strategic changes. Sending out a survey to ask supporters what they think about various organizational changes can help provide some insight into how fundraising will be affected before the impact occurs.
For example, if your nonprofit decides to add an extra stewardship event (or virtual event) to the event calendar to engage your supporters, you might ask them what they think about the new addition. Do they like the extra event? Dislike the theme? Appreciate the opportunity? Or are they indifferent?
If they appreciate the event, you’ll be more likely to see a positive impact on fundraising. However, if they dislike it or disagree with some action your organization took regarding the event, you might see a drop in fundraising. Knowing about this potential drop early allows your nonprofit to take action quickly so that you don’t lose too much fundraising revenue and prevent donors from lapsing.
Your nonprofit relies heavily on fundraising revenue to maintain your programming and work towards your mission. Therefore, maximizing fundraising is imperative for your nonprofit’s success. These strategies will help get you started making the most of your fundraising. Good luck!
Author: Gerard Tonti
Gerard Tonti is the Senior Creative Developer at Salsa Labs, the premier fundraising software company for growth-focused nonprofits.
Gerard's marketing focus on content creation, conversion optimization and modern marketing technology helps him coach nonprofit development teams on digital fundraising best practices.