Ten Fundraising Strategies to Test Right Now

Are you stuck in a fundraising rut and looking to try some creative fundraising tactics to engage your supporters? Check out Network for Good’s “How to Raise A lot More Money Now” which lists 50 fundraising strategies by some of the best fundraising experts including Jocelyn Harmon of Care2, Mark Rovner of Sea Change Strategies and Sarah Durham of Big Duck.

Here’s the cliff notes version just in case.

1. Don't ask your donors to solve huge problems; ask them to solve solvable problems.

2. Overdo it. Be too dramatic. Too emotional. Too strong. It's a lot easier to tone it down than it is to pump up weak and underdone copy.

- Jeff Brooks, True Sense Marketing

 3. If you want my money, touch my heart. Learn what I struggle with and what makes me move. Walk a mile in my shoes.

4. Don’t crowd your e-mail with content. Send one email with one “ask.”

 - Jocelyn Harmon, Care2

5. Organize a volunteer online thank you corps. Donors get a simple training and are then assigned new donors to personally thank on behalf of the cause.

6. Organize a crowd-sourced appeal. Invite donors to participate in drafting the "perfect fundraising appeal."

7. Track lifetime giving and recognize donors who reach various thresholds, in terms of money and time. Someone who gives $1,000 over 5 years is still a $1,000 donor in my book.

- Mark Rovner, Sea Change Strategies

8. Recipe for Success: Host a monthly giving drive offering various packages, each presented as a recipe to fund some component of overall operations or a specific program. Present each package in recipe format.

- Nancy Schwartz, Getting Attention

9. Take a month to engage existing supporters in conversations about why they give to you. Use their responses to develop messages you can use with prospects – they’re more likely to speak the donor's language than your organization's jargon.

10. Make a list of the organizations you consider either peers or competitors. Get all the people you usually need buy-in from together, then surf the organizations’ websites together. Ask the question, how would a donor experience this? Talk about what they're doing that you can learn from, and what you're doing that outshines them – both will help you grow, change, or stay the same more strategically.

- Sarah Durham, Big Duck

Need more fundraising ideas? Check out the rest of the tips in the “How to Raise A lot More Money Now” guide.

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Comments

[Erica Mills]

All 50 of these are fantastic. #2 above is great advice that is so hard for humble nonprofits to put into action...yet so effective when they do. Thank you for sharing this!

[Marlene Oliveira]

Great list. #1 really resonates as it relates to countless charities telling donors about the millions of people suffering/affected, without putting a more individual/human face on the problem. It makes it even more difficult for a supporter to understand how throwing their relatively small donation at the problem will help.