Fundraising

  Everyone wants one. Not every organization gets one. Guess what? Surprise new donors are...well, surprising!   Organizations aspire to nurturing the kind of donors who make an unexpected bequest, one of the frequent ways donors truly surprise nonprofits.   These surprise donors are ones who never interact with your planned giving program. Most often they have never previously written a check. And when affinity works its own magic, you can’t predict some of the largest gifts that may come your way.   Here are just a few surprise donor profiles of those who have given mightily-- but not predictably! (Note: These just [...]

The past year was a productive one for fundraising. With technology always changing the way we accept donations and spread the word about our fundraising efforts, we didn't slow down all year. But right now, it’s time to take a breath. So finish your annual fund campaign thank-you letters, update your followers with your year-end fundraising statistics, and reflect on the past year. We can learn a lot from looking back — not just about where we’ve been, but how we got there and where we’re headed next.   Here are five remarkably successful fundraising strategies that paid off in the [...]

This post was originally published to DonorDrive's Blog and is being shared with their permission. Photo by NASA on Unsplash It’s said you can’t plan for a disaster. But really, you have to. It’s officially hurricane season and the nonprofits that have a plan in place are the ones most likely to get the donations when disaster strikes. In this article, we’ll focus on the basics that will make your emergency relief fundraising campaign thrive. Here’s our concise six-point plan: Set up a donation page immediately Explain the impact of the disaster and their donation Promote your campaign everywhere Update supporters [...]

Bruce Burtch promises: “There is nothing in business today that provides as much economic and social benefit, on as many levels, to as many stakeholders, as a strategic partnership between any combination of the nonprofit, for-profit, education and government sectors when focused on the greater good. Nothing else comes even close.” Burtch describes a sea-change occurring in nonprofit and for-profit relationships and the “money boat” of philanthropy and event sponsorship is being washed away. In this “new normal”, for-profits are realizing that they need to receive mutual value in the equation (not a financial return, necessarily, but a return on their [...]

When it comes to determining how efficiently your nonprofit raises money, there’s nothing quite as helpful as a large pool of accurate, relevant fundraising performance indicators that can objectively show you exactly how well you’re doing. But sometimes, it can be tough to figure out exactly what measures your organization needs to identify where your fundraising performance may be lacking. That said, most nonprofit organizations will always be able to make use of some of the same core Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). We’ve selected nine fundraising-related KPIs that have aided Development Directors, Executive Directors, Major Gift Officers and nonprofit management everywhere. 1. [...]

One of the largest sources of untapped funding for nonprofit organizations comes from corporate philanthropic programs. These include matching gift programs, in which corporations match employee donations, usually dollar for dollar, to eligible nonprofit organizations. About 65% of Fortune 500 companies offer a program like this, as well as countless other corporations, so the chances that a donor works for a company with a matching gift program is relatively high. The problem is that a majority of donors aren't aware that these programs exist. Or if they do, they believe the matching gift request submission process to be a long and [...]

A capital campaign is a fundraising campaign hosted by a nonprofit with a specific dollar amount in mind. There is an intense focus on funding a high-cost project, backed by a nonprofit’s board, and the campaign’s timeline can last upwards of a year, consisting of two phases: the quiet phase and the public phase. The quiet phase comes after your preparation. This is when you’ll focus on major gift donations and reach 50%-70% of your end goal. Then, you’ll have your kickoff event followed by your public phase, which is when you branch out to your entire donor base and your [...]

According to Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 “State of Nonprofit Content Marketing” - 61% of marketers are using content marketing, only 35% say they are using it effectively, and only 23% report having a written content strategy.   These numbers tell me two things. First, there’s a lot of really bad content out there. And secondly, there is a TON of room for improvement for nonprofits looking to find success with content marketing.   Let’s take the first big step in documenting your content marketing strategy by determining exactly whom you should be targeting with the content you create.   Successful nonprofit [...]

This post was originally published to John Haydon's blog and is being shared here, with his permission. For most nonprofits, December is the biggest month of the year for the number of new donors acquired, and the amount of total funds raised. Kudos to you if you hit your revenue goals and your acquisition goals. After all, attracting new donors is not easy during a time when hundreds of other causes are also asking for their attention and support. But what now? How can you keep donors interested and engaged throughout the year? And what are the reasons donors leave in the [...]