Thanksgiving table

Not all Holiday Fundraising is Created Equal

Thanksgiving tableWho doesn’t love a holiday?

The very word conjures up notions of celebration, warmth and love.

If you’re a donor-centered fundraising practitioner, you’d be a fool not to take advantage.

Why not tap into pre-existing positive vibes to increase the chances your appeal will be warmly received?

After all, if you can channel something positive that’s more or less universally felt, this gives you a leg up.

It puts your donors in a giving mood using familiar symbols and traditions.

Except when it doesn’t.

A true holiday fundraising story

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5 Ways Mobile Bidding Can Help You Raise More Revenue

Title slideWhen planning a charity auction, there are several moving parts to keep track of: your venue, item procurement, guest registration, guest management, and more. Whether you’re running a silent auction or a live event, these moving parts are important and need to be carefully monitored.

So, how can you best oversee the planning process and the event itself?

Mobile bidding and auction software has grown in popularity among charity auction events. With this software, you can streamline your event planning process from start to finish and make it easier for people to bid. But before we dive into the specifics, let’s define mobile bidding.

What is mobile bidding?

Mobile bidding is a paperless bidding method that allows guests to place bids straight from their phones. The software simplifies all aspects of your live and silent auctions, your event planning and management, ticketing, and other needs. It can add engagement to the event as well.

There are many ways mobile bidding can help boost your revenue and streamline everything at your charity auction. In this article, we’ll focus on the following areas where that can happen:

  1. Item Procurement
  2. Guest Experience
  3. Competition
  4. Participants
  5. Analytics

Are you ready to take a closer look at the ways mobile bidding can help you reach your fundraising goals? Let’s get started!

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Walkathon participants

8 Secrets to Keeping New ‘Third Party’ Donors

By now you undoubtedly know you’re losing too many first-time donors.

In fact, the most recent Fundraising Effectiveness Project report shows you’re losing an average of 68% of these folks!

Today I want to talk about a subset of new donors who don’t renew.  They’re called “third party donors,” and they come to you through a variety of portals:

  1. Guests of event ticket buyers
  2. Online auction purchasers
  3. Donors who give to friends’ P2P fundraising pages
  4. Donors who give to crowdfunding campaigns sent to them via a friend
  5. Donors who make tribute gifts in honor or memory of a friend or loved one

The good folks at Classy know most nonprofits are not doing a good job cultivating donors who come to them through third parties, so they’ve prepared The Guide to Courting Third Party Donors. You can download it for free (40 pages), but let me give you the highlights – along with some of my own thoughts.

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Group boosting the team effort

Easy Ways to Boost Your Nonprofit’s Monthly Giving

Group boosting the team effortDo you have monthly donors, or a monthly donor program?

If you don’t have a program, you’re likely leaving monthly donors on the table.

This is hurting your bottom line because, on balance, the net value of a monthly donor to you is more than that of a one-time donor.

So let’s look at how to turn your handful of monthly donors into a full-fledged program.

1. Begin with Proactive Strategies

If what you have right now is simply a checkoff box on your remit piece or donation landing page, you’ve got a passive strategy.

In other words, if donors don’t know why you want them to give a monthly gift there’s nothing to persuade them to check this box. Try to get inside the donor’s head and imagine what they’re thinking. It could be any of the following:

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Question mark of people

How Jargon Destroys Nonprofit Fundraising & Marketing

I hate jargon. With a passion.

Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

Just. Can’t. Stand. It!

Yes, I guess you could call it a pet peeve.

But, really, why would you ever use jargon if you wanted to truly communicate with someone?

Just check out the definition:

“language used by a particular group of people, especially in their work, and which most other people do not understand”

— Cambridge dictionary.

Jargon = Failure to Communicate

When you talk to people in words they don’t understand, really, what’s the point?

Are you just trying to make yourself look smart?

Because, trust me, that’s not how it comes across.

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3 Ways to Get More of Your Donors to Match Their Gifts

Heading bannerFighting the good fight for your nonprofit’s cause is what you do best.

Funding your mission, however, is always challenging. The planning, the lists, the headaches, the inevitable snafus that arise at any given moment… it’s a lot of effort to solicit a single donation.

And while seeking out new donors is vital to raising money for your cause, what if you could double your donations with your current donor list?

With the 3 E’s⁠—education, ease, and encouragement⁠—you can maximize your donations by getting more of your donors to match their gifts.

  1. Education: The Power of Matching Gifts
  2. Ease: The Tools to Matching Your Donor’s Gifts
  3. Encouragement: Increasing Donor Retention

Ready to help your donors make the most of their gifts to your cause?

Let’s dive into what makes matching gift fundraising such a powerful way to tap into the hidden potential of your supporters.

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Persona

How to Use Donor Personas to Identify New Prospects

PersonaYou love your current donors, right?

You want more just like them, right?

The best way to find folks similar to your current supporters is to begin by creating a profile of who your best supporters are. So let’s go ahead and create a profile (aka “persona”) for your model donor.

Your Surprisingly Easy Way to Use Personas to Discover New Donors

Donor personas are hypothetical “stand ins” for your nonprofit’s actual donors. They enable you to stand in your donors’ shoes and think from their perspective – a pretty handy thing if you’re looking for people who might like to make an investment with your nonprofit!

Begin with demographics.  Then move on to psychographics.

Start with the basics.

Get out a sheet of paper and grab a pen.

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cheerleader

3 Ways to Remove Psychological Barriers to Philanthropic Giving

If you can remember this acronym, you’ll be able to persuade more donors to join you and stick with you. This is deceptively simple stuff.

And it really, truly works!

Give me a ‘D’ for DOUBTS!

Give me a ‘U’ for UNIQUENESS!

Give me an ‘E’ for EXPECTATIONS!

What’s that spell?

That spells what you must overcome to win over donors!

What’s that spell?

That spells what you owe your donors!

What’s that spell?

That spells what you must meet to show you’re worthy!

Ready to ‘D.U.E.’ it?

Let’s get started!

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Your Nonprofit Appeal Response Device, Like Cheese, Stands Alone

Farmer_in_the_DellRemember the children’s ditty The Farmer in the Dell?

At the end, when all is said and done, what happens to the cheese?

It STANDS ALONE.

Your fundraising appeal response device, whether a reply card or donation landing page, is very much like this proverbial cheese.

In fact, it may be the most important element of your fundraising package.

Do you treat it with respect?

Or do you focus the lion’s share of your time on crafting, reworking and editing your appeal copy?  Then thinking about your letter and package design? And then waiting until the very last minute to think about your response device, treating it like a nuisance or unimportant chore?

Way too often I see folks spend endless hours crafting their appeal, only to fly by the seat of their pants when it comes to the response devise. This is a huge mistake.

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