Fundraiser Education

As the marketing industry moves away from traditional advertising and toward permission-based marketing, word-of-mouth is another great asset for nonprofits that want to spread their messages and reach new donors.

There’s a good reason that so many businesses offer prizes or discounts when their customers refer friends: It is a very effective form of marketing. Many people are suspicious of traditional advertising, and some even ignore online ads altogether. Word-of-mouth marketing, however, is rooted in the trust people place in their friends and families.

Every nonprofit, no matter how small or large, needs a written fundraising plan in order to meet its full development potential. Fundraising plans bring order to development offices, provide organization for your strategy, lay out deadlines and responsibilities for key tasks, and ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to fundraising goals and objectives.

Writing a great fundraising plan takes time but needn’t be a stressful endeavor. Here are the four key steps your nonprofit needs to work through in order to create a strong development plan.

The definition of resonate according to Merriam-Webster is to continue to produce a loud, clear, deep sound for a long time. Another definition is to have a particular meaning or importance that affects or appeals to someone in a personal or emotional way. I had the experience of both definitions at a recent National Community Relations and Development Conference for the Salvation Army in Indianapolis.

If you are a nonprofit fundraising leader, join in on the Leadership Summit.

I have lots of takeaways from the FundRaising Success Engage Conference but wanted to share 10 low-cost donor engagement strategies I picked up during the day. Any nonprofit can swing these, for little to no out-of-pocket cost: Get volunteers to write thank-you notes. Get volunteers to make phone calls. Give tours of your facility. Break bread with your executive director. Conduct surveys. Enlist board members. Ask donors to fundraise for you. Hold town hall meetings. Highlight a donor story in your newsletter. Invite donors to share why they love your nonprofit.

I have been thinking about a career in fundraising and the choices that we make that define who we are and our work. Here are some choices that we, as fundraising professionals, should be making.

Ted Hart speaks with Brian Saber, co-founder and president of Asking Matters, about how the shy can be great fundraisers too on his Nonprofit Coach radio show.

If you engaged your donors on a deeper level, would you raise more money? When it comes to helping nonprofits raise more money, Susan Howlett is a master! In this video, Susan shares three different ways you can engage donors on a deeper level. Plus, you’ll also hear examples of how these have played out in real life at other nonprofit organizations … helping them raise more money.

I suggest you establish a mentoring program where you could mentor a young professional year-round whose desire is to make a career in the nonprofit world. What have you done to promote the concept and spirit of philanthropy with the next generation?

How do you identify what old fundraising methods are worth keeping alive and what new methods can have a positive bottom-line impact? Or in other words, how do you avoid staying with what’s comfortable even when it’s on life support or chasing what’s new just because it looks fun? A good place to start is by asking yourself these questions.