The average person sees around 10,000 advertisements each day. These include Google Ads they see every time they enter a search query, marketing emails that populate their inboxes, and ads that appear on their social media feeds. To stand out amongst all these ads, your school needs to create a communication strategy that meets supporters where they are and forms an emotional connection with them.

In this guide, we’ll lay out our top tips for connecting deeply with students’ families and other community members to get the funding your school needs to thrive. Let’s get started!

1. Use a variety of communication platforms.

Think about all the communication platforms you use throughout the day. Maybe you start your mornings by scrolling through the news or browsing your email. During lunch, you catch up on social media updates. In the evening, you might relax with a podcast or YouTube video and check your inbox again.

Your donors likely have similar habits. They don’t stick to just one platform, and your school’s communications shouldn’t, either. As Allegiance Group + Pursuant’s guide to digital marketing explains, “Once you establish more touchpoints with donors, they’ll be more likely to think of your organization and discuss your cause with others in their network.”

To offer donors an ideal, well-rounded online experience, follow these tips to build multiple touchpoints with them:

  • Stay consistent. Because your messages will appear across several different channels, it’s key that supporters instantly recognize that each one is from your school. Help donors identify your communications by highlighting your visual branding, such as your school logo, colors, and imagery, in each message. Additionally, your school’s “voice” and the campaign’s theme should stay front and center, regardless of the channel.
  • Connect communication channels. Aim to take an omnichannel approach in which each touchpoint leads seamlessly into the next, building donors’ awareness of your campaign and guiding them toward your donation page. For example, they might receive an email encouraging them to follow you on social media, where they will see Facebook posts featuring stories about the students who will benefit from their donation, prompting them to click the donate button.
  • Be transparent. No matter where you are communicating with donors, it’s critical to remain transparent about the purpose of your campaigns and how you plan to use the funds. To ensure donors can easily understand these details, you can link to more comprehensive resources or simply use ad copy like, “Contribute today to help YHS fund a new soccer field!”

Before you kick off these efforts, make sure your school has a way to track the performance of each communication channel. This way, you can accurately attribute conversions to the proper channel—in other words, you’ll know which platforms were most effective.

For example, you might see that 60% of your donors clicked through to your donation form via a social media post, but only 5% were came from search ads. This reveals that your social media strategy resonates with your audience, but you may need to adjust the copy on your search ads.

2. Personalize school donor communications.

In addition to building multiple touchpoints with donors, personalize your communications to grab supporters’ attention. Start by consolidating data about your donors to better understand them. Note factors like:

  • Demographic information, such as age, gender, marital status, household income, location, and more.
  • Psychographic data, like hobbies, interests, and values.
  • Giving behaviors, such as how often they donate, average gift amount, and which of your projects they give to.
  • Communication preferences, including which channels the donor uses, how often they want to receive messages, and the formats they prefer.

Armed with this knowledge, begin segmenting your donors to send more targeted messages. Segmenting refers to the practice of grouping donors based on shared characteristics. For example, you could create a segment of donors who have children on the cheer team—they might be interested in hearing about your upcoming Cheer-a-thon. Or, you might create groups based on average gift size to tailor your fundraising appeals to each donor.

Strategically using this data can make the entire donor experience more positive and personal, so don’t stop at crafting custom appeals. Include these personal details in your thank-you emails to make your gratitude feel that much more authentic. Greet donors by name, acknowledge their last contribution to your school, and tell them how that gift will benefit your students.

3. Make connecting with your school easy.

Many of your school’s donors are busy parents who must balance full-time jobs, school drop-off and pick-up, extracurricular activity schedules, family obligations, and more. Design your campaign to fit conveniently into their schedules by making it easy to take action.

Consider taking steps like:

  • Linking directly to the form or landing page where parents can fulfill your call to action, whether that’s donating or applying for a volunteer position.
  • Making shareable content so parents can spread awareness about the campaign in just one or two clicks.
  • Using mobile-friendly fundraising platforms for schools that donors can access at any time, from anywhere.
  • Accepting multiple payment options so donors can choose the most convenient one.
  • Sending donation reminders when it’s time for donors to give pledged donations, if applicable.

By showing donors exactly how to contribute to your fundraiser, whether that’s through monetary donations or volunteer work, you’ll increase the support you receive. To deepen supporters’ engagement with your fundraiser, 99Pledges suggests tracking and sharing your progress.

For example, during a Read-a-thon, you might use a fundraising platform to track each student’s reading by the minute. This way, donors can see how their activity-based pledge donations grow as the child they support completes the campaign.

Connecting with your donors should go beyond driving support for a single campaign. Focus on developing long-term, loyal relationships that will stand the test of time. This way, your school can build a strong base of donors ready to support you whenever you need them to.