Step #1: Assess your current fundraising strategy

Whether you have an old fundraising strategy that needs improvements or have never developed a coherent fundraising strategy at all, it’s helpful to take stock of your nonprofit’s current state to start mapping out where you want to go.

One way to evaluate your nonprofit’s current strategy is to look at your nonprofit’s data. This includes fundraising and engagement metrics such as your:

• Donor retention rate: How many donors continued to give to your organization this year after contributing last year?
• Email open rate: How many of your email subscribers open your messages regularly?
• Campaign fundraising progress: Do your fundraising campaigns consistently meet or exceed your goals?

With the help of your constituent relationship management system (CRM) or fundraising platform, generate a report to assess how your efforts are going. This data can reveal trends and point out the strengths and weaknesses in your existing strategy. For example, you might find that while your nonprofit is doing well with donor acquisition, you’re falling behind in retaining and upgrading their support, causing your fundraising progress to stall.

Keep in mind that reviewing your nonprofit’s data is just the first step to assessing your nonprofit’s fundraising strategy. One of the best ways to determine where your nonprofit currently stands is to work with a fundraising consultant.

A dedicated fundraising consultant can empower your organization by providing a fresh perspective. As an outsider, they can evaluate your strategy without bias and leverage what they’ve learned through working with other nonprofits to bring your strategy to the next level.

Step #2: Develop your fundraising goals and gift range chart

Your fundraising goal is the amount of money you aim to raise for a specific campaign or by the end of the year for an annual fund. You can also incorporate related objectives, such as increasing your donor retention rate or the number of major gifts you receive, to support your core fundraising goal.

Your nonprofit can determine its fundraising goal by:

• Conducting a feasibility study. Typically paired with capital campaigns, feasibility studies involve one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders to get a sense of how realistic your goal is and whether a given project is a good fit for your nonprofit.
• Analyzing past data. Also, assess how much you’ve raised historically. A good fundraising goal will strike a balance between being realistic and encouraging financial growth.
• Assessing your financial needs. Take a look at your nonprofit’s functional expenses, including your program, administrative and fundraising costs. By determining how much you need to spend to keep your nonprofit afloat, you can figure out how much money you need to raise to maximize your return on investment (ROI).

After determining your organization’s fundraising goals, your nonprofit can further break down these goals by creating a gift range chart. A gift range chart outlines the number of gifts you will need at certain sizes, the number of prospects who will need to provide them and the cumulative total required of each gift range.

Step #3: Identify donor prospects

Identifying qualified donor prospects is critical to the success of your fundraising strategy. These prospects may include:

• Individual donors.
• Foundations.
• Corporations.

If you don’t have enough existing information to determine your most promising prospects, consider conducting prospect research. Prospect research involves identifying potential donors’ likelihood to contribute based on their willingness and capacity to give. Through the prospect research process, you (or a consultant) will pinpoint donors who exhibit:

• Wealth markers, such as real estate ownership or business affiliations.
• Philanthropic indicators, including a history of giving to your nonprofit or involvement with similar organizations.

You can conduct prospect research on your own, but hiring a professional to handle all the hard work can save your team plenty of time that can go back toward your mission. From capital campaign consultants to companies that specialize in identifying valuable prospects, there are plenty of professionals who can help you pinpoint potential major supporters.

Step #4: Clean your database

Effective prospect research requires a combination of external and internal donor data. External sources might include nonprofit annual reports, social media sites like LinkedIn etc. On the other hand, internal sources such as your donor management platform can prove to be invaluable as you comb through prospective contributors within your existing supporter network.

To use the data stored in your constituent profiles, you’ll first need to verify that the records in your database are up-to-date and accurate. Conduct a periodic CRM cleanup to catch the following:

• Duplicate profiles.
• Outdated or incorrect information.
• Inactive accounts.

A clean donor database allows you to build your fundraising strategy using only the most accurate, updated information. Plus, you can improve your fundraising ROI by only sending marketing materials to active email and home addresses for individuals with a proven interest in your cause.

Step #5: Review your case for support

When building your fundraising strategy, one of the most important questions to answer is “Why does our nonprofit deserve donors’ support?”

A strong case for support helps you communicate why donors should contribute to your cause. Additionally, you should articulate your fundraising goals and the means you’ll use to achieve them.

However, your case statement isn’t just a resource for interested supporters. A strong case statement can also be helpful for staff, board members and volunteers to refer to when acting on behalf of your nonprofit.

When creating or revamping your case for support to be more impactful, consider questions such as:

• Who is your audience? Your case for support may have a highly specific audience, such as prospective major capital campaign donors, or a more general one, such as your donors, volunteers and staff members. Your case for support should speak to your audience members’ motivations for supporting your mission.
• What is your goal? Your case for support should reference your specific fundraising goal so potential donors understand how much of a difference their support will make.
• Why does it matter? Explain what you’ll be able to accomplish when you reach your fundraising goals, whether it’s purchasing supplies for underfunded schools or reducing pollution in a local river.

Ultimately, your case for support should clearly align with your nonprofit’s overall mission and justify your fundraising objectives to donors.

Step #6: Create an action plan

Your action plan outlines the concrete steps your team will follow to achieve your organization’s fundraising goals. With everyone on the same page, your team will be better equipped to successfully carry out your initiatives.

Keep these tips in mind to build your action plan:

• Determine key performance indicators (KPIs): KPIs help track your goal progress and foster accountability across your team. For example, if you’re hoping to engage more donors, you might set a goal to increase your donor acquisition rate by 5% or increase your donor retention rate by 10%. Set KPIs for each of your goals so you can keep your nonprofit on track.
• Identify action steps: Think through the specific campaigns, activities and projects you’ll lead to make your fundraising goals a reality. For instance, you might prioritize revamping your online donation page, improving your social media presence or leading peer-to-peer campaigns throughout the year to energize your supporters and expand your network.
• Assemble your fundraising toolkit: The foundation of every solid fundraising strategy is the right tools. Determine where there are gaps in your existing toolkit, and do your research to invest in solutions that will improve your fundraising approach. From donor management software to a comprehensive CRM, the right technology will streamline your internal processes and reduce your team’s administrative burden.
• Set a timeline: Establish when you will complete each task—or how long each of your campaigns will last—so you have a clear start and end date. Some campaigns might last just one month, while more involved fundraisers like capital campaigns could last years. Determine what makes the most sense based on your fundraising objectives.
• Develop your budget: Expenses related to campaign planning, marketing and fundraising software can add up quickly. Figure out how much money you have available to invest in your campaign and how much you’ll need to raise to make your fundraiser profitable. You’ll also want to make sure the numbers in your action plan match your organization’s operating budget so your fundraising strategy and financial planning efforts stay aligned.

Step #7: Strengthen your internal operations

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.

To ensure productive internal operations, your nonprofit should prioritize a few elements of good governance, including:

• Delegating activities.
• Establishing communication between teams.
• Maintaining timelines for activity planning and execution.
• Investing in the right software tools, such as a CRM, donor management software, text-to-give tool and fundraising platform.
• Fostering board members who are capable, passionate and unafraid to take the lead in soliciting donations on behalf of your nonprofit.
• Supporting a workplace culture that emphasizes fundraising participation.
• Incentivizing staff involvement in fundraising efforts.

When evaluating your internal operations, you may realize that you need an outside perspective to help you get your staff into shape. This is another great opportunity to enlist the help of CEND. With our guidance, you can get a professional opinion on where your internal operations need improvement and learn new techniques to strengthen your staff and board.

Step #8: Revamp your marketing strategy

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.

Remember: When it comes to fundraising, it’s not just about what you say, but how you say it. A well-timed, well-written marketing message can convince new supporters who may be on the fence to become donors.

As you review your marketing approach, be sure to:

Adopt A Multichannel Marketing Strategy

A multichannel marketing strategy will connect you with a larger pool of supporters and provide multiple touchpoints for donors to engage with your team. To reach a wide array of current and potential supporters, consider leveraging these different marketing platforms:

• Email. Create a continuous stream of outreach by sending a monthly newsletter where you give big-picture updates to your supporters.
• Social media. Reach younger donors by regularly posting across social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. While your core messages should be consistent, adjust the type of content you feature on each platform. For example, Instagram lends itself well to imagery, while Facebook is great for sharing links and long-form content.
• Direct mail. Many donors still prefer traditional communication methods. Send flyers and fundraising letters to those who share their postal addresses with your team.
• Organic SEO marketing. Your website is an incredibly valuable part of your marketing strategy. Increase your visibility on search engines by optimizing your web content for specific keywords, creating engaging meta titles and descriptions and ensuring your content is educational and robust.
• Paid search advertising. To supplement your organic SEO efforts, consider applying for the Google Ad Grant program. You’ll receive $10,000 in ad credits each month to spend on promoting your web pages through Google Ads. This invaluable opportunity allows you to showcase a variety of content at the top of search results, such as educational content, upcoming events, volunteer registration forms, advocacy activities, donation and sponsorship opportunities and your services.

Pay attention to the types of messages that perform well on each platform. If you notice your ROI on a particular platform is much higher, you might reallocate more of your time and resources toward it and less toward platforms that aren’t generating a ton of value.

Create Well-Designed Marketing Materials.

The graphics you use to catch readers’ eyes are just as important as your fundraising messages. When designed well, your marketing materials can transform your fundraising efforts.

Incorporate  good  graphic design best practices into all your materials, whether you’re sharing fundraising flyers, sending donation request letters or posting on social media:

• Infuse your brand. People should instantly associate your fundraising materials with your cause. Ensure they do so by incorporating your official logo, colors and fonts.
• Create a hierarchy of content. Organize your content and guide your readers’ eyes to the most important parts of your materials. Different-sized fonts, bolded text, italics and colors are all proven ways to direct readers’ attention to different parts of your graphics.
• Don’t overload your materials with too many elements. Use whitespace, dividers and bullet points to make your content easily digestible. Too much text or an overwhelming number of graphics can deter readers from engaging with your materials.

Create A Digital Marketing Style Guide

Online marketing is crucial, especially considering organic visitors to nonprofit websites make up 44% of total nonprofit web traffic. With a digital style guide, you can ensure that all online marketing materials, from your website’s donation page to your social media posts, align with your nonprofit’s brand.

Creating a brand guide will ensure that your team and third-party vendors are on the same page about how to present your nonprofit. For instance, you’ll want to define requirements for specific elements such as:

• Your official colors.
• When to use different variations of your nonprofit’s logo.
• Typography, including preferred fonts, colors, weights and cases.
• Tone of voice.

Following specific guidelines across all fundraising materials will boost brand recognition and provide a uniform, professional experience for supporters connecting with your organization online.

Step #9: Prioritize your stewardship strategy

Throughout the year, your organization probably engages in many activities to recruit new supporters, from social media campaigns to prospect research.

However, don’t lose sight of the importance of donor retention. Retaining the donors you already have is much more cost-effective in the long run than constantly spending time and effort to find new supporters. Plus, repeat donors are much more valuable since they tend to contribute in greater amounts over time.

Take a closer look at how the donor cultivation cycle ushers prospective donors toward becoming recurring, long-term supporters:

• Identification: You identify prospective donors among your target audience.
• Qualification: You investigate prospects’ giving capacities and propensities and prioritize them accordingly.
• Cultivation: You begin to form relationships with prospects.
• Solicitation: You make a fundraising ask based on what you know about each individual prospect.
• Stewardship: You continue fostering relationships with donors through consistent engagement and outreach opportunities.

To ensure your stewardship efforts boost your donor retention rate, you must:

• Strengthen relationships with current donors. Continually engage with current supporters by inviting them to participate in various ways beyond just donating. This may include getting involved in volunteer work or advocacy campaigns.
• Thank donors in a way that resonates with them. If donors have expressed a preference for how they’d like to be thanked, such as being included in your donor wall or on social media, make sure to express appreciation using their favorite communication channel.

Make your thank-you letters or efforts genuine. Ensure the size of the thank-you is equivalent to the size of the gift. For example, don’t just send a thank-you email to your largest donors—these individuals deserve more personalized, public recognition! You might create a handwritten thank-you

Step #10: Choose your metrics

Finally, clearly define the metrics you want to evaluate to measure the success of your fundraising strategy. These metrics represent the key areas you’ll evaluate to show how your organization has improved or regressed.

Some metrics you may examine include:

• Donor acquisition rates.
• Donor retention percentage.
• Donor growth/conversion numbers.

Select a core set of metrics you plan to measure for the foreseeable future of your organization. Data is most useful when you can compare it to something, so it helps to consistently collect data on the same metrics.

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.

About the Centre for Nonprofit Development (CEND)

The Centre for Nonprofit Development (CEND) is a leading resource for nonprofit professionals, offering practical advice and training and equipping them with skills and tools to raise funds and improve their operations, management, governance, policies, procedures, and legal compliance at any stage of a nonprofit’s lifecycle. CEND is an experienced, thoughtful institution offering the expertise and solutions that enable our nonprofit sector to improve society and uplift communities.

Media Contact:

Benjamin Osei Onomah