1. Soft Launch Your Campaign
An early launch to a small group of supporters or former powerhouse fundraisers can build momentum for the campaign before it is officially launched to the general public. Your campaign will get more support if you have raised money already. This makes it easier to attract early adopters. Soft launching your campaign allows you to correct any errors or typos before sending it out to everyone.
Ask your supporters to send you an email and get their feedback. What would they suggest? Does the message make sense? Is it exciting? Ask them to create a personal fundraising product page for themselves and to reach out to their family and friends to raise funds. Invite everyone to join you at the soft launch. The momentum from your soft launch will carry over to your hard launch, pushing you closer to your goal.
2. Keep Your Brand Front and Center
A strong brand builds trust with supporters and confirms that your fundraising campaign is indeed yours. If your brand, logo, and colors don’t match your fundraising campaign, it can cause confusion for potential donors. This is particularly important when you market your campaign through various channels, such as email, social media, and direct mail solicitations.
There are many ways to make sure your branding is consistent across all channels. You can, for example, create a unique logo that is different from the logo of your nonprofit but still uses the same colors. It will be instantly recognized by people who see it in their marketing materials or organically.
3. Educate Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraisers
Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns are a great way to increase your nonprofit’s success. You may not reach your goal if 500 people create their own fundraising pages and only 10 of them raise money. Send your fundraiser’s educational materials and tool kits to guide them and help them succeed.
Tip sheets could be educational resources that provide tips on how peer-to-peer fundraisers can activate their networks. These tip sheets would explain how to start with family and friends before reaching out to old classmates or other community members. Send them examples of successful fundraisers and the steps they took.
The toolkits should include everything the user might need to create a page that is consistent with the larger campaign. This includes logos, fonts, and colors. You can help them anticipate the items they will need to create their page and put it in one place, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or even a flash drive. Last but not least, ensure that your fundraising resources are easily accessible on your website.
4. Encourage monthly recurring gifts
Your nonprofit is five times more valuable with recurring donors than it is with one-time donors. Classy specifically shows that 75% of recurring donors maintain their plan for six months and make one-time gifts within one year approximately 75% more frequently than one-time donors. You could be wasting money if you don’t ask supporters to upgrade their monthly donation campaign and to do so sooner than they would like.
Email appeals can be sent asking recipients to either make a one-time donation or sign up for recurring giving. You can promote the monthly gift option in your messaging with bold calls to action, special incentives for monthly donors, and demonstrating how much more impact a regular gift has over a one-time gift.
5. Establish a matching period
If you announce the match during the campaign lull, it can spark excitement in your supporters. Matching gifts can instill urgency in supporters to give immediately, rather than waiting until later. To increase excitement, you could promote your matching gift period right away.
It may take some time to find a matching gift partner for your campaign. Don’t wait! Reach out to potential sponsors and major donors during the planning stages of your campaign to ask them if they are interested in being your match providers. When it comes time to inform your audience about the matching period you have dates and maximum amounts set. You also have a copy approved for promotion on your website, email, and social media channels.
6. Make a link between Impact and Donations
Apathy is your enemy. Donors who believe that their support will not make a difference likely won’t bother to give. To break down this barrier, demonstrate how the gift will be used in real-life. Remember that any gift, no matter its size, can be used to advance your cause and work.
You can include details about the impact of particular gift sizes in written appeals like emails. However, they can also serve as powerful visual calls to action. Classy’s impact blocks, which combine powerful photos and descriptive text to demonstrate how donations help your organization reach its goals, are an example.
7. Make a campaign video
Google’s study found that 57% of people who see a video about a nonprofit go on to donate. Video is an extremely powerful tool you can use to grab attention, bring your cause to life, and ask for donations, fundraise or sign up to be a recurring donor.
Videos are also versatile and can be used in a variety of marketing channels, on your campaign page, or indirect gifts appeals. Find inspiration for your next video by filming your team at work, interviewing supporters, and featuring stories about your beneficiaries’ impact. Show people how they can help and what an impact it will have on the world.
8. Celebrate Success
If you want your community to stay motivated and focused on reaching the next great goal, it’s important that you acknowledge and celebrate achievements, creative ideas, and fundraising successes. You can help by setting small, incremental goals that can be celebrated together. If people only have one goal, they might give up and quit before they get there. Send milestone emails to everyone who helped you reach each goal.
Your board members, internal staff, and partners also deserve celebration. Your partners, board members, and internal staff all work hard to ensure that fundraising campaigns run smoothly. Don’t forget to thank them for their efforts and highlight their contributions. You can thank them personally with a happy hour or by handwriting a note.
You can access the extended sessions library of the Collaborative: Virtual Sessions to get more insights, strategies, best practices, and real-world examples. Here you will find all recordings from the event, as well as industry experts on best practices in fundraising, marketing, technology, crisis leadership, and many other topics.
