Fundraising is essential for non-profits, powering their broader mission and enabling them to make a difference. However, sadly, people don’t just hand their hard-earned money over regardless of how important the cause is. To be effective, fundraising has to be strategic, planned and executed well. Here are seven effective strategies to boost your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts:
1. Leverage Business Promotional Products
A clever way to engage potential high wealth donors is with business promotional products. You can offer high quality items like tote bags, reusable water bottles, stationary and apparel—always ensuring those items are well-branded. These products increase your visibility, act as a ‘thank you’ to your donors, and can be used as ways to reach new potential donors.
2. Host Fundraising Events
Events can bring in the local community to help with your cause. Whether you opt for fun days, auctions, foodie events, or music festivals, these gatherings can be great ways to boost cash donations. This is a particularly beneficial route to take if your cause is impactful locally, as potential donors will see a direct connection between the money they donate and community benefits from their donation.
3. Bring Your Story To Life
Ensuring your cause is represented with a compelling story means that you can connect with donors on an emotional level. Research has shown that connecting with people on an emotional level improves the likelihood of them donating more to the charitable cause. Additionally, letting donors know how their donations make a difference can inspire further generosity and long-term commitment to the charity.
4. Utilize The Power Of Social Media
Social media gives charities the power to connect with potential donors across the world in many ways. Some powerful ways you can use social media to bolster your impact include:
- Showing backstories of those who receive help from the charity;
- Using powerful video content to demonstrate why your charity is important;
- Creating viral content to spread the word about new campaigns.
Connecting those posts with easy links to ways to donate can increase the amount of donations you get. Statistics show most people are more comfortable spending money digitally than with cash these days, so it makes even more sense to utilize technology in this way.
5. Make The Most Of Social Procurement
Partner with companies that prioritize social value when they make purchasing decisions. These organizations might offer sponsorships, match donations, or provide other forms of support. Whether you partner with a local accountant, café, or complementary charity, you will likely see a host of long-term benefits from aligning with companies that share your values, further amplifying the impact you’re making.
6. Put Effort Into Creating Trust
Around a third of people don’t trust charities and won’t donate to them. Making the effort to be transparent, communicative, and trustworthy is a great way to boost fundraising efforts. In particular, be open about how donor money is spent, using clear graphs and visuals people can understand in an instant. In doing so, you create more transparency, as this is a major area of distrust amongst potential donors.
7. Use Those Cold Hard Facts
Sadly, charitable giving is down worldwide. For this reason, it’s extremely important to capitalize on the cold, hard facts available to you in the form of data. Analytical data and feedback can help you paint a strong picture of where your fundraising efforts are working the most. You can then build on those areas and implement what works elsewhere in your strategy, creating more targeted fundraising campaigns and efforts that reap more rewards moving forward.
Implement the strategies above to help your non-profit gain the resources needed to make a bigger, better impact.
