How to Successfully Fundraise for Nonprofits
As a nonprofit, you rely on the generosity of your community to continue your mission. Fundraising events are necessary to engage and encourage your community to give, but they take a lot of work on behalf of your team. You want to make sure that your efforts are not in vain and that you get the most out of every event. Here are our tips to successfully fundraise for nonprofits.
Start by defining your goals
The best way to get your team working together is clearly defining what success looks like for that event. How many attendees do you want? How many donations from new donors? How much money do you want to raise in total? Once you have answered all these questions, you should share your goals with your donors and potential participants. Publishing your fundraising goals on your event web page as an event goal fund meter can encourage participants to contribute more in a final push to help you achieve your goal.
Make Registration Easy
The success of a lot of events is often tied to the number of people who participate. Online registration makes it easier on your team, as well as allowing people to sign up on their own. However, there are still some people who would prefer to sign up in person or over the phone. It is crucial to allow people to sign up in the way that they feel most comfortable to lower those barriers to entry. To make this easier on your team, use a tool that allows you to manage both online and offline registrants in one place.
Let Your Supporters Be Your Voice
Take some of the pressure off of your team and let your supporters raise funds on your behalf. Peer-to-peer fundraising is effective. Your supporters have a passion for your mission and they are networked within their own communities. They are willing to influence their communities by telling your story. Empower them with peer-to peer-fundraising tools to call upon their communities to contribute. For attendance-based events, let your table hosts manage their own guest lists in a way that will help you stay organized.
Have Responsive Fundraising Pages
Make it easy for everyone to give! This is especially important during fundraising walks or runs that require registrants to raise funds for you. Having responsive pages means that they can be viewed on any device, like a phone or tablet. Encourage participants to share their personal fundraising pages on social media and over email to make it easy for potential donors to donate no matter what device they use.
Manage Payments Securely and Efficiently
Fundraising involves transferring money from your donors or sponsors to you. Using a secure and easy payment system can save you from a headache down the road. This saves you hours in data entry and provides a reliable and safe system for receiving donations. You can also manage online and offline payments in one place to keep an accurate record of all transactions connected to your event.
Take Note of What Worked
Start setting up your next fundraising event right after your current event is over. Take note of what tactics, types of events, communication methods, and event management software garnered the best results and take that knowledge to your next event to build on for the most success. Also, check our website blog regularly for updates about how to best fundraise for nonprofits.
If you are planning an event, we want your next event to be successful! Check out FundEasy and our event management software to help your team during your next event!