4 Tactics to Implement in 2024 to Elevate Your Fundraising

By Amanda L. Cole

With fundraising down for yet another year in 2023, it may be time to try a few new approaches to regain momentum for 2024. If you’ve already embarked on implementing tactics from our “40 Trends for 2024,” here are four more tactics NonProfit PRO discovered at this week’s AFP ICON.

Don’t Forget to Ask for Non-Cash Donations

Working with high net worth individuals and families, Debra Faulk, vice president and philanthropic specialist at Wells Fargo Philanthropic Services, knows major donors' approaches to giving, particularly during times of market volatility. In the session, “When the Going Gets Tough, the Generous Get Going: How Market Shifts Affect Charitable Giving” with Juanita Sheppard, vice president of foundation partnerships at the United Way of Greater Atlanta, Faulk pointed out that 80% of high net worth individuals’ assets are not cash.

“It might be real estate,” she said. “It might be collectibles. It might be businesses. As fundraisers, and I'm being very general, 80% of the time we ask for cash, so you see a little bit of a disconnect, right? … We’re asking for what people don’t want to part with.”

Faulk noted that there may be assets that high net worth individuals’ children do not want or stocks that these individuals need to sell that would be prime options to donate to charity. For example, within the last month, one of Faulk’s clients donated $2 million worth of stocks to charity.

“He just needed to get rid of it for tax reasons,” she said. “So it was a $2 million donation. That's good. And it can be just a few shares too. You'll take the $100, the $10,000 or the $10 million in stock. If your organization is small, and doesn't have the means to accept the stock, liquidate it or sell it and have it turned into money, there are a lot of resources out there that can do that for you for very, very minimal charges.”

Engage Women as They Amass More Giving Power

Though fundraisers traditionally have targeted men, more and more are looking to include women in their asks. And it makes sense as women control $10 trillion in U.S. household assets, which equals about a third of total assets. So making sure your organization is inclusive to women donors is key, but that isn’t limited to married couples, especially since single women are known to be more generous than single men, Anna Schlia, a Ph.D. candidate at University of Rochester, said during the session, “The Future of Fundraising Is Female,” which she co-presented with Kassie K. Cosgrove, director of development at Loyola University New Orleans.

“That is really important,” Schlia said. “If you had a printout of your portfolio right now could you tell me who all the single women were? Could you put a little asterisk next to their names and make sure that ask happens by the end of Q2. … If nothing else happens today, you're looking at those single women and their philanthropic spirits.

“And also they tend to donate more as their income increases. They don't just see philanthropic giving, as here's my threshold. That grows with them.”

Your organization’s data can help to show if your past fundraising tactics have been inclusive and equitable.

“If you claim that your fundraising practices are equitable, and you claim that the work that you're doing is engaging a diverse audience, that's good. Show me your portfolio. If you say that you are considering women in gift decisions, that's great. Show me who you took to dinner. Show me who you brought to campus. Did you include the important members of the family in that gift decision from the very beginning?”

Diversify Your Donor Base

Diversifying your donor base goes beyond gender. By 2050, there will be more multicultural individuals than non-Hispanic white individuals in the U.S. Just as it’s important to ensure you are cultivating younger donors as they become more prominent in your donor database, it’s also important to be inclusive and find ways to connect your mission to a diverse audience.

Anna Barber, founder and principal strategist at Barber & Associates, discussed this during the session, “Engaging Donors and Cultivating an Inclusive Donor Base” with Brandon Neal, a longtime political fundraiser who worked on President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, and April Harley, senior director of member and foundation relations for the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation.

For Barber, she hadn’t had an opportunity to work with a lot of Black donors prior to her previous role at the Smithsonian Institution.

“So I think we're in a lot of organizations that generally don't have diverse donor bases,” she said. “Not to say that they don't exist — I just think that it just wasn't in our mindset. And so I'd say at the outset, just understand that there is a lot of wealth within African American communities and they have the capacity to make substantial gifts over a period of years and will.”

However, she noted, organizations need to consciously make an investment in building a diverse donor base and prioritize its success. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean building out programs specifically for those diverse donors the organization is seeking.

“You want to make sure that you're stewarding all of your donors in the same way,” Barber said. “And African American donors and communities are interested in a lot of different topical areas. It's not just things that are focused in on the African American community. So making sure the stewardship is comprehensive.”

Additionally, organizations must reflect the donors they are trying to engage. This should include staff, leadership and the board. But that also doesn’t mean dividing caseloads by race. Barber once experienced fundraisers giving her their African American donors but pointed out the approach is still the same regardless of race. You’ll ask the same questions and discover where your mission intersects with their interests.

“So I can't take on all of your donors across the country," Barber said. "You've got to begin to become more comfortable in having conversations with communities that don't look like you.”

“Right, because we have to,” Neal added. “Right? And we do it. So why can’t you?”

Improve Relations Between Development and Communications

Most fundraising and communications professionals have experienced it at some point in their careers — a breakdown in the working relationship between these two types of nonprofit professionals.

“People think it's a unique problem,” Misty McLaughlin, principal and founder of Cause Craft Consulting, said during her session “Development and Communications Teams Working Together: How to Get Along and Get on With It.” “Like a problem is Cheryl. Cheryl causes all of these problems. And the problem might be Cheryl, but sometimes there are bad actors. But really the problem is a structural problem, right?”

The issues vary from who controls channel messaging to who owns audience lists to who is the decision-maker. The solution requires a joint communication-development charter to lay out the path to effective collaboration. Other hard tools could include a comprehensive calendar, message hierarchies and clear policies that address decision rights. Meanwhile, soft tools may include daily huddles, not viewing one team as servicing the other, and sharing results and data.

“You can have the best tools in the world, but if you do not fix the foundation of the relationship, it will be hard to do anything substantial and of significance together,” she said. “You can probably do the day-to-day with tools, but taking risks together, innovating together — that will not happen if you can’t get to the psychological trust and safety.”

For more on AFP ICON 2024, check out our other coverage: