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Nonprofit Fundraising trends for 2020 – Dos and Don’ts

2020 Fundraising trends - Do's and Don'ts

The new year, and with it a new decade, is arriving in just a few days. Get set with the nonprofit fundraising prospects for your organizations as we look at some amazing trends that you could follow, alongside some Dos and Don’ts for your future campaigns. 

Do show genuine gratitude. 

Your donors would appreciate not being treated as just transactions. Start January right, take the time to draft thank you emails to donors for choosing your organization and helping with December donations. 

An online donation platform such as GiveCentral offers a thank you message to the donor immediately after the donation has been saved. Also remember to vary your thank you messages over time or according to different campaigns. 

Read : 5 Creative Ideas to thank your nonprofit donors

Experiment With New Fundraising Tools

It isn’t new to implement mobile giving or crowdfunding for your event because most organizations today are using these features. Your organization should too. If you haven’t yet, read more to learn about how they make giving easy and help increase donations.

Talk to fundraising experts and brainstorm about what is right for your nonprofit fundraising. Building strategies is very necessary for your fundraising events. Include influencers in your communication strategy, and check what other nonprofits are doing to help their fundraising efforts.

Do Not Delay Your Promotions

Do not rely on your donor’s sitting by your emails to contribute. Start early, at least a couple weeks or maybe even a month earlier. Set up your website professionally displaying the same colours as your fundraising pages. This builds a brand resonance which is very intuitive and engaging. Create and promote social media posts from weeks before the actual date of the event. This will help you catch donor minds and lead them to donate when the event goes live.

Invest In Ads

More and more organizations are investing in ads to promote their fundraising campaigns. Those who have invested in previous years are continually investing more. According to a report by M+R that covered various nonprofit organizations, data showed that all of them had invested in paid ads of some kind during their campaigns.

It is known that December is the month of giving as most nonprofit funds are raised during the year-end or Giving Tuesday. Organizations mostly tend to advertise their campaigns or events during this time. However, the positive effect of these paid ads does highlight their importance for nonprofit fundraising. Try and include online advertising in your campaign budget. Include the new features being used by your organization, like Mobile Giving or Crowdfunding. This will surely attract donors towards your campaigns and increase your reach and donations.

Participate In Seasonal Events

It is great to keep engaging with your community at regular intervals. Keep conducting events on occasions such as Easter, Halloween, etc. There are many more commercial events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday which can be capitalized for your nonprofit fundraising.

Read : Annual nonprofit fundraising plan for the upcoming year

Giving Tuesday is by far the most important day of giving in the year. Stats have shown that the total funds collected on the day surpass the amount collected by organizations in their entire year-end campaigns.

According to the report by M+R, “People are sending more messages, running more ads, Tweeting, Facebooking, bugging their friends, and raising more money.The organizations covered in the survey provided revenue totals raised $10 million dollars. That’s up 16% from last year. Even more wildly, even though email volume was sky high relative to last year, the response rate kept pace”.

Do NOT Leave Your Emails To Themselves

Emails have been so effective because, even though organizations were sending the same number of emails, they were actually sending them to fewer people than in previous years. Organizations have started mapping their inactive contacts. Average list size has fallen 13% year over year. Therefore, do not just keep sending emails on a trot. Check the metrics and responses. Remove the contacts that have stopped reply or responding.

Create more relevant content for better engagement throughout the year. Remember that emails are a direct way to influence your community.
Do not keep your communication efforts focused towards the end of the year. December is a busy emailing month for nonprofits. It will be difficult for your email to stand out from a great number of other emails of other organizations in your donors’ inboxes. Establish a connection with your donors in the months preceding, so that they actively await an appeal from you and are even excited to help by making a contribution. 

Try out new ways of promoting your nonprofit fundraising. Use social media and ads to make your reach stronger.

EOY Is Really Important

Current trends might give you the idea that End-Of-Year (EOY) fundraising or Year-end fundraising figures are decreasing. However, understand the fact that more than 20% of all December fundraising happens during the last week of December, that too, mostly on December 31st.

In 2018, about 24% of all giving came in on December 31. And this has been the trend for the past few years, where 22% came in on December 31, 2017, and 22% came in on December 31, 2016. Maybe the donors are affected by all those “DEADLINE, LAST CHANCE, DON’T MISS IT” emails, ads and social posts.

Therefore, reach out to your donors as often as possible. Keep them updated about the stats of your campaign, even while it is live. The rush hour is seemingly producing the most amount of donations.

Do not think that you are alone!

We hope that 2020 brings amazing success for your nonprofit’s fundraising goals. We recommend that you pursue quality over quantity and consistency over perfection. Trying new things always comes with its own learning process. Should you need any assistance regarding fundraising tools, feel free to contact us.

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Last modified: December 28, 2019

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