10 Tips for Fundraising in Tough Times

5. Inspire, provide value and be transparent to your donors about how funds are spent.

6. Ask for money, regularly. Include a soft ask in every communication and send direct e-mail appeals at least four times per year — as long as you are providing updates regularly outside of appeals.

7. Use multiple e-mails in a series to lift appeal response rates. Suppress those who respond to earlier appeals in the series. Software tools make it easy to automate this process.