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Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Fundraising Tuesday: How You Spend Your Summer Vacation

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For many nonprofit organizations, summer is a slow time. If you are in Development and Communications, you know that many of your supporters are at the beach or running “mommy camp” at home.

They are not spending as much time looking at the communications you send them, so you might be tempted to take the summer off.
That would be a big mistake.

Right now, you have the luxury of time. You can spend hours or whole days thinking about the basics of donor communications. When are you going to have that luxury again? Certainly not in September!

So, let’s revel in the slower pace of summer and tune up your communications with your donors. Let’s start with the fundamentals: your email list, your database, and your website.

See my tips for summer nonprofit fun at

https://developmentconsultingsolutions.com/how-your-nonprofit-should-spend-its-summer-vacation/pink flamingo water balloon

Online marketing for your nonprofit can be simple as 1, 2, 3

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A guest post by Kelsy Ketchum

All ages are online!

In today’s digital age, online communication is essential. Donors need to know exactly what your nonprofit is about and what they can do to help.

Most of them are looking to the web for that info.

Your digital communication strategy needs to encourage people to support your cause. You likely already have a traditional marketing plan, and the good news is that much of it can be adapted to the internet.

You don’t have to be a technological wizard for online communication to work wonders. Here are the three steps you can take to create an effective digital marketing plan.

Email campaigns

 Whether you want to increase the number of subscribers to your newsletter, recruit volunteers and get them to stay, or start a new fundraising campaign, email is a cheap and relatively simple way to get the word out.

But you don’t want to just send out a quick message with a lot of text and be done. Your emails should be interesting and interactive. Think through their design to make sure it matches your organization’s brand, and provide pictures or graphics to support your message.

Reminder:

  • Avoid spamming inboxes with a lot of messages. Limit your communication to a few times a month and clarify why you’re sending each email.
  • Customize the email to your audience.
  • Is there a call to action you want people to follow? Emphasize it! People are more likely to participate if they know exactly what they need to do.

You’ll also want to track how your email campaigns are doing and manage your analytics, which can help you see where you’re succeeding and what your organization can do better.

Savvy marketing pros who need advanced reporting capabilities may want to consider a business intelligence solution for their nonprofit to combine multiple data sources together.

Social media

To succeed at digital communication, your nonprofit will need to go beyond email and dive into the realm of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat are all useful tools to get your message across and bring new donors or volunteers into the fold.

Social media lets you share info more frequently than email, so you can provide daily updates on certain projects. It also has a wider reach, since you can use hashtags or post in specific groups to reach new audiences who may not follow your organization directly.

Social media posts can be slightly less formal than email or official correspondence, so have fun! Encourage employees to share your nonprofit’s posts on their own social media feeds – word of mouth is still a great way to spread your ideas, and social media makes the process easier.

Website and donation pages

Crafting a compelling website with powerful donation pages can bring in even more donors than other digital communication strategies.

Your priority should always be clarity of information. Label the sections of your website and pages clearly and double-check that your contact info and other essentials are easy to find without digging through multiple web pages.

Highlight important links and create a section for recurring donations to encourage people to donate more often. The easier it is for people to donate, the better your fundraising will be.

Don’t forget to use all the online tools at your disposal. Share your website and donation pages with friends and followers on social media and put a link to the website in every email so people can access it effortlessly.

The takeaway

It doesn’t take an IT pro to improve your digital communication and get the word out about your nonprofit. You can get started today, with these three steps.

No matter the goal, whether it’s increasing your donors or finding volunteers for your next event, better online communication can get you there with minimal cost or time, which is particularly helpful for smaller organizations with fewer resources.

 

About the Author: Kelsy Ketchum is an editor for Better Buys, helping organizations to find and select the right software solutions.

 

 

TY Thursday: How to Find AND KEEP Major Donors

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A guest post by Laura Rhodes of Third Sector Consulting

Laura Rhodes

Laura Rhodes

Major gift donors.

Every nonprofit wants them. But only the big nonprofits have them, right? Wrong!

I hear you saying, “We’re a small nonprofit. We don’t have big donors.” But you do.

Every Nonprofit Has Major Donors

When you hear the words “major gift,” what comes to mind? Six- or seven-figure donations?

Guess what? There’s not an industry-defined dollar amount for a major gift or a major donor. Instead, YOUR major donors are the individuals who give the most to your organization each year.

That means, for some organizations, a major donor might be someone who gives $500. Or $5,000. Or $50,000. Maybe even more.

MarketSmart did research on this very topic, asking How Big Is the Average Major Gift?  They found that most nonprofits define a major gift as one between $1,000 and $2,500. For some nonprofits in the study, the average major gift was less than $1,000. And for a very few, fortunate ones, the average major gift exceeded $1 million.

While the dollar amount of a “major gift” will vary from organization to organization, every nonprofit has them.

And that means YOU have major donors, too.

How Can You Identify Your Major Donors?

One size doesn’t fit all, when it comes to identifying a major gift or major donor.

Recently, an organization told me, “Any gift above $250 gets our attention.” For them, donors who give $250 and above are their major donors.

There are a few good ways to identify YOUR major donors. Start by thinking about your current donors and their past giving history.

  • What’s your highest gift to date? Clearly, that’s a major donor. Other high-dollar gifts? Yes, those are your major donors, too.
  • Another way to identify your top donors is to print a list of your donors and gift amounts. Look for natural clusters of gift amounts. Gifts in those top tier(s) are from your major donors.
  • Or, here’s a simple, more analytical approach. Print out your donor list, in descending order by gift size. Count the number of donors, then draw a line to mark the top 10%. Those are your major donors.

Why Do Major Donors Matter to Your Nonprofit?

I love nonprofitsYour major donors are the people who love you and your organization. And they show it by making larger than average donations.

You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule. It says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities.  In fundraising, it’s really a 90/10 rule. Studies show that 90% of your revenue comes from just 10% of your donors.

Let me say that again: 10% of your donors are responsible for 90% of your funding!

That’s why you need to know who your major donors are. Your top 10%.
You want to treat your major donors like the VIPs they are, so they’ll keep giving to your organization.

How Can You Keep Your Major Donors?

One way you can keep your major donors is by thanking this special group of donors very personally.

In a previous post for Thank You Thursday, I shared how A Personal Letter is Better Than a Personalized One.  In that post, I also encouraged you to handwrite as many personal notes as possible.

So start now. Grab a stack of note cards. Get your list of major donors. And get ready to write.

Start at the top of your major donor list. Handwrite one or two thank you notes a day, until you’ve written each of your major donors.

In each personal note, tell your donor how much her gift was appreciated. Tell her what her gift has accomplished. Tell her what meaningful changes have occurred as a result of her past support.

Follow this thank-and-report formula, and you’ll be well on your way to keeping more of your donors.

And when you keep more of your donors, you’ll raise more money for your nonprofit.

LIKE WHAT YOU READ HERE?

Check out these posts from the Let’s Talk Nonprofit blog:

How Your Thank You Letters Can Put More Money in the Bank

3 P’s of Better Thank Yous

3 Easy Ways to Show #DonorLove

P.S. If you liked this article, you can receive posts like these each month in your email. Topics include fundraising, grant writing, board development, and best practices.
Sign up today, join the conversation, and Let’s Talk Nonprofit.

 

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