The most important step in creating your nonprofit strategic fundraising plan is to define specific and tangible goals that align with your nonprofit’s mission. Getting started with your nonprofit fundraising plan can feel daunting, so we’ve created a few handy fundraising strategy templates to help kick-start the process. This builds trust and gives your team the confidence that they’re working toward achievable, well-resourced goals. Breaking down barriers between each department ensures that your fundraising and marketing materials are consistent, on-brand, and engaging, while also maximizing the use of organizational resources. Shared planning, joint multichannel marketing campaigns, and regular communications help both teams learn from each other.
Major gift solicitation is ideal when your organization needs to fund a significant initiative, such as a capital campaign, a new program launch, or building an endowment. It requires dedicated staff resources and a well-researched pool of potential donors. Encourage potential donors to give, or give more, by showing them how you’ve used previous donations. Give specific examples, like a new program, building, or initiative that was funded through individual donations. Highlight previous donors on your page, in your building, or during events. Plus, don’t forget that successful fundraising doesn’t just revolve around acquiring new donors.
Here are the essential elements that should be included in any fundraising strategy to ensure its success. Your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy is the best way to bring in funding, spread awareness, engage donors, and set up predictable, consistent services and programming. Of all the fundraising strategies available, your nonprofit can find one that fits your needs and draws in the most donations.
Plus, repeat donors are much more valuable since they tend to contribute in greater amounts over time. Your nonprofit’s team is the driving force behind your fundraising success. While every nonprofit has different needs, the necessity of strong internal operations remains constant. Ultimately, your case for support should clearly align with your nonprofit’s overall mission and justify your fundraising objectives to donors. Having individual work plans in place will ensure that nothing is left Cortessia Ltd to chance.
- Small organizations get the most return from strategies that do not depend on large teams or budgets.
- Chances are, your team members are saddled with other responsibilities so by divvying up activities, you can ensure that you’re not overwhelming them if they already have a heavy workload.
- When developing your fundraising strategy, create a gift range chart to identify the donations required to achieve your fundraising goals.
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Jennifer is a senior nonprofit professional with over 10 years’ experience in fundraising and communications. She’s worked on countless campaigns in individual, corporate, and high-value giving. To make sure your fundraising strategy is as accurate and complete as possible, you will also want to develop detailed work plans for each income stream. It might seem an unusual approach, but by setting baseline and stretch targets, you give your team a minimum to deliver and an aspiration to reach for.
Events such as 5Ks, Giving Day challenges, auctions, peer-to-peer fundraisers, and galas should play a significant role in your fundraising strategy. Peer-to-peer is highly effective when tied to a specific event (like a run, walk, or virtual challenge) or a time-bound campaign. It’s ideal for organizations with an engaged community that is eager to take action and for acquiring a large number of new, smaller-dollar donors. It’s also an excellent way to acquire new, younger donors and test the appeal of a new initiative before committing larger resources. At Aly Sterling Philanthropy, we equip nonprofits with the fundraising solutions they need to better understand donors and raise more for their cause.
(And yes, a fundraising gala.) Take the time to segment prospective donors with similar characteristics and then tailor your ask. You don’t want to approach a longtime volunteer for a gift the same way as a first-time donor. Use tools like online research, your donor database, wealth screening, and insights from board members, volunteers, or the prospects themselves. For example, if you’ve noticed that you’re not retaining your hard-earned new donors, you can develop a plan to enhance the new donor experience and increase engagement. Stewardship is about building a relationship between your donors and your organization and is the spark that ignites generosity around your mission. A nonprofit fundraising strategy is NOT a magic potion that will sprout growth all at once.
When you consider a year of fundraising plans, the last months have the greatest potential to push you over the finish line of your goals. Giving Tuesday and the holiday season entice more giving and awareness of charitable causes among new donors. For anyone feeling even more ambitious, let’s talk about a few ways to take your fundraising plans up a notch to raise the most possible. It comes down to relationship building with a focus on the future so you can work smarter and not harder. Zeffy is a 100% free fundraising suite designed to help nonprofits plan and execute a wide range of fundraising events and campaigns with ease.
Why Is A Fundraising Strategy, Or Nonprofit Fundraising Plan, Important?
With this information in hand, your team can better decide whether or not an expense is reasonable for next year’s budget as well as craft your fundraising plan to account for trends from past budgets. With this information, your team can better decide whether or not an expense is reasonable for your budget and craft your fundraising plan to account for trends from past budgets. With every goal you should also identify what obstacles may stand in the way of achieving it.
Effective marketing is key to the success of any fundraising effort, from a giving day drive to a major, multi-year capital campaign. Continually reviewing your marketing approach allows you to take advantage of new techniques and platforms to reach supporters more effectively. A strong fundraising strategy plans for the best but prepares for the worst.
Your email campaigns, social media outreach, direct mail, website updates, and public relations efforts should be 100% aligned with your fundraising strategies. This is the heart of the process, but if you’ve already done everything we’ve recommended above, you know exactly what needs to be in your plan. A good fundraising strategy for nonprofits highlights the initiatives that will drive the most growth that your organization can implement well. By diversifying your revenue streams, you create a more stable financial foundation and deepen engagement with your supporters by offering them additional value through services or experiences.
By integrating these tactics, you can develop a robust program that secures your mission for generations. For more ideas on how to raise money for a nonprofit, you can explore other effective strategies and techniques. This model transforms donors into fundraisers, creating a broad base of support and introducing your mission to countless new individuals. By taking the time to lay out this information, you can marry your budget with your calendar to ensure you stay on track financially throughout the entire process.
Plus, loyal donors are more likely to become advocates for your mission, bringing in new donors and spreading the word. By prioritizing donor retention, you build a stable foundation for your nonprofit’s long-term financial health. The first step in the fundraising cycle is to evaluate your current position. This means assessing your organization’s needs, operating budget, financial goals, and the health and potential of your revenue streams. A strategy can be especially useful for engaging board members in fundraising, which is often a struggle for nonprofits. A committed and informed board that is grounded in your fundraising strategy can open doors to new donors and cultivate the relationships that will result in major gifts.
Sure, some things you’ll need to do yourself, but when it comes to nonprofit fundraising, the more help you can get, the better. In recent years, peer-to-peer or P2P fundraising has taken off as a way to expand your reach and exponentially boost campaign results. Boost your nonprofit’s fundraising success with this guide to email writing.
Newspaper ads, radio spots, TV promotions, and cross-promotions with sympathetic organizations can help you cast a wide net and grow your audience. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn are all important places to share information about your campaign. Whether you’re just starting with a small staff or a burgeoning fundraising professional looking for some ideas, here are 20 practical and effective tips for fundraising.
Bloomerang’s fundraising tools were built to fit how your nonprofit works. No matter how you choose to structure your fundraising plan, our purpose-built solutions can support your efforts. Too many people wait for the perfect time, the perfect board, the perfect staff, the perfect template, or a perfect something else to work on their fundraising plan. And anyway, done is better than perfect, meaning that a plan that’s 80% finished but 100% implemented will always outperform the perfect plan that’s never completed. The next step in crafting your fundraising plan is assigning responsibilities to your staff, board members, and other volunteers and adding them to a calendar. Choose your fundraising initiatives based on events and campaigns you’ve had the greatest success with in the past, and what you think supporters will be most interested in moving forward.
However, these prospective donors require a VIP approach, so they need a tailored fundraising strategy specifically designed for them. They are already giving you their most valuable resource – their time – which you must acknowledge frequently throughout the year. Once that is established, you can take a personalized approach to soliciting them for a donation.
Visit our Resources for Funders page to hear directly from nonprofits – and find easy actions you can take today to make the nonprofit sector more equitable. Spend time getting to know your prospects through both research and conversation, then tailor your plans to each person’s preferences. If your project will fund new infrastructure, promote your campaign by sharing project renderings. This will help your supporters visualize the proposed design, bringing your project to life.
In that case, charitable gifts will provide the funds required to make an excellent program where tuition might only fund a decent program. Consider leveraging an existing giving day, like GivingTuesday, or creating your own giving day. Either way, make sure you take plenty of time to market your upcoming campaign so supporters will know about it in advance and can donate before your giving challenge ends.
Think about why this is important to you, how it will make a difference, and why people should give their money to your cause. Proper donor stewardship goes well beyond just sending a thank-you letter and a tax receipt after a gift has been made. Think about what you can do to engage the donor, build a relationship with them, keep them informed about the impact of their donation and keep them coming back to make another gift year after year. Whatever the goals you set are, you likely have a few around expanding your network of supporters and attracting new donations. As you complete these financial reflections, you’ll be able to better cater your fundraising strategy to your personal history, donor network, and current trends.
This strategy is highly effective when you want to create a significant buzz around your organization, attract new supporters, or celebrate a major milestone. Events are also ideal for providing a high-touch stewardship opportunity for major sponsors and donors, giving them public recognition and a direct connection to your work. A capital campaign is appropriate when your nonprofit needs to fund a one-time, high-cost project that is beyond the scope of your annual operating budget. It is ideal for landmark initiatives that will dramatically enhance your organization’s capacity, service delivery, or long-term financial health.
Unexpected circumstances and challenges frequently arise during the implementation of any strategy, along with new opportunities you might not have considered. Keep your plan flexible and adjust it as needed to account for these obstacles and opportunities. We have written an article on How to Plan and Execute a Stellar Nonprofit Social Media Campaign. If you have avoided social media in the past because you are unsure how to make it work for you, this article is a great resource.
Think about what will be most effective in helping you achieve your main goal. Are you ready to get started crafting a straightforward, organized fundraising plan? Follow these detailed 10 steps for a powerful nonprofit fundraising strategy.
Engaging your Board’s development committee in the fundraising strategy builds a collective sense of ownership. It’s this enthusiastic team, paired with a great plan, that increases the likelihood of reaching your goal. Fundraising campaigns serve as a primary source of funding for nonprofit organizations, enabling them to provide essential services and programs to their communities consistently. Nonprofits have a million things to do at all times and it might not seem like a smart use of time to spend hours on your online donation form. After all, as long as people know where to click and you have basic fields that capture their information, you should need much else, right?
We have already discussed using donors and board members to help build relationships with major donors. This is a necessary first step, but you will want to create distinct ways your major donors can make their mark to continue that relationship. Your nonprofit’s budget can serve as the backbone of your organization and a compass for its future. These resources are meant to help you identify where fundraising fits into your overall financial picture. Beyond grant capital and individual donors, there are many ways to raise revenue for your organization.
Diversifying revenue is critical as it helps mitigate risk, ensuring the organization isn’t overly reliant on a single funding stream. As you develop your plan, identify opportunities to strengthen each revenue source and assess where additional resources could help maximize funding potential. Nonprofits must navigate economic shifts, adapt to changing donor expectations, and embrace new technologies—all while staying focused on their mission. There’s no pause button when there are goals to meet, impact to deliver, and relationships to nurture. It can be hard to keep up with your organization’s social media pages, especially when you have a million other efforts running simultaneously.
This contrasts with a credit card-based donation from a smaller pool of funds, the monthly budget. Monthly donations are among the most impactful ways your donors can contribute to a nonprofit’s sustainability. For example, here’s some info on how and why to make your fundraising events family-friendly. Your board members bring a wealth of resources, expertise, and networks that can enhance your nonprofit’s efforts. 70% of nonprofits cite board involvement in fundraising as a significant challenge (Donorbox). However, if you can bring board members into the process in a way they enjoy and feel productive, they can become one of your biggest assets.
For a nonprofit, a major attraction for special event fundraising is scalability. You can do an intimate dinner party around a dining room table, or a walk-a-thon for thousands. You can make it a black-tie event at a high-end art exhibit, or a beef ‘n beer at the local firehouse. Special events are great ways to deliver messages about your mission while also raising money for your cause–just don’t forget to collect the names of everyone attending so you can connect with them later. Effective fundraising starts by building a solid fundraising strategy for your organization to follow.
Your fundraising timeline can break things out by day, week, month, and season, depending on what works for your team. The best fundraising calendar type is one everyone on your team can read and adjust in real time. Your one-stop-shop for high-quality, affordable DIY tools for nonprofits and foundations. Again, this is a great opportunity to seek counsel from a fundraising consultant. A fundraising consultant can help you determine KPIs tailored to the scope of your organization and provide insight into how to move forward once you evaluate your metrics. When evaluating your internal operations, you may realize that you need an outside perspective to help you get your staff into shape.