There has never been a greater need to diversify your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy than right now. Covid-19 has caused unprecedented uncertainty across the globe and especially in the nonprofit industry. With annual fundraising events such as galas and marathons being canceled, many nonprofits have lost a major source of revenue. The historical levels of unemployment have also caused many donors to reduce their giving, causing an additional risk to the financial health of many nonprofits.
The success of your nonprofit should not be left up to chance. That is why you need to invest in diversifying your fundraising strategy to reduce the risk and help ensure that your nonprofit remains on solid financial footing. Here are 5 suggestions you can use to complement your existing fundraising strategy.
Summary
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
Creating a peer-to-peer fundraising program is a great way to diversify your fundraising strategy and raise significant revenue. Peer-to-peer fundraising is when your organization’s supporters set up a fundraiser to benefit your nonprofit and ask their family and friends to make a financial donation. The median amount raised by 1-time fundraisers is $222.
Peer-to-peer fundraising can also help increase the awareness of your non-profit. 39% of Americans have donated to a charity based on a request from a family or friend. These donors represent a great opportunity for stewardship and future fundraising.
Here are a few common types of peer-to-peer fundraising:
- DIY fundraising: Created by an individual that chooses to fundraise for a nonprofit, often dedicating a birthday or other personal milestone.
- Fundraising campaign: An event created by the nonprofit where you ask your supporters to join it. These tend to run for a fixed period of time and have an overall fundraising or impact goal.
- Peer-to-Peer events: Supporters fundraise in support of events such as runs, walks, golf outings, etc.
There are several platforms to support your organization with peer-to-peer fundraising.
Facebook Fundraising
Facebook offers several free tools to make it easier for your nonprofit and its supporters to raise money on Facebook. These tools have raised over $3B for charities. If your nonprofit uses Facebook’s payment platform to process donations, then there are no fees involved – 100% of the donations go to your nonprofit. Facebook’s giving tools include the following:
- Donate button – The donate button is an easy way for supporters to give to your nonprofit without leaving Facebook. You and your supporters can add the donate button to your page, posts, and live video, making it easy for supporters to donate. Donors can choose to give a one-time or monthly recurring gifts.
- Page fundraisers – Verified Facebook Pages can create fundraisers for their nonprofit. This allows you to promote your mission and inspire others around a fundraising goal.
- Fundraiser sticker – The Facebook sticker for Facebook stories allows your nonprofit’s supporters to add a fundraiser sticker to their Facebook stories.
- Live video donate – You can add a donate button to Live video on Facebook. This is a great opportunity to give your supporters an inside look into your nonprofit and share the impact you’ve made in real-time.
You can learn more about the charitable donation tools that Facebook offers here.
To complement your fundraising, your nonprofit can leverage Facebook ads to help you reach new people who may be interested in your organization. Facebook ads can be extremely affordable and can be a highly effective way to expand your reach and drive results. For example, many nonprofits have found success with using Facebook ads to target supporters who have upcoming birthdays to set up a birthday fundraiser to support the charity. Here is some additional information on Facebook ads.
Monthly Donor Programs
One of the best ways for you to diversify your revenue is by developing a monthly donor program. When it comes to stabilizing your revenue, monthly donor programs are one of the best tools in your arsenal. A monthly donor program (sometimes called recurring giving) is when a donor chooses to give a pre-determined amount on a monthly basis and the funds are automatically collected from their financial account. Creating a monthly donor program can have a long-term benefit to the health of your nonprofit. Here are some of the benefits:
- Donor retention: The average donor retention rate for single-gift donors is 23%. However, monthly donor programs often see retention rates of over 80%. Meaning, having a monthly donor program can triple your retention rate.
- Higher levels of giving: Monthly donors generally give more money than single-gift donors. The average monthly online donation is $52 ($624/year) compared to the average one-time gift of $128. Many monthly donors often give additional single gifts throughout the year for special appeals and during the holiday season.
- A reliable stream of income: Monthly donations are funds your nonprofit can rely on and can help normalize some of the revenue fluctuations that many nonprofits encounter. Having a reliable source of income also allows you to spend more time on other fundraising activities to help further your mission.
- Convenient donor experience: Monthly donor programs are extremely convenient for your donors since they can “set it and forget it” and feel good about supporting your cause all year long.
Here are some tips on how to develop a monthly donor program.
Giving Tuesday
Giving Tuesday is a great opportunity for your nonprofit to attract new donors and raise money. Giving Tuesday, which occurs the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is the biggest giving day of the year around the world. In 2019, 27 million adults participated (13% of the U.S. population) in Giving Tuesday, raising $511 million dollars (28% increase from 2018).
The Giving Tuesday organization provides many free resources that nonprofits can leverage to develop a Giving Tuesday campaign and many companies provide matching funds to nonprofits.
More information on Giving Tuesday can be found here.
Corporate Donation Programs
Many corporations offer their customers the opportunity to financially support their favorite charity through corporate donation programs where the corporation makes a charitable gift when customers shop at its stores. For example, when supporters shop on AmazonSmile and choose your nonprofit as their charitable organization of choice, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to your nonprofit. You can promote this opportunity on your website and in your newsletters.
More information can be found here.
