Those technologically savvy supporters are looking for donation experiences that feel personalized and tailored to them.
Because they’re trying to push past the constant bombardment of advertisements they see daily!
So check out these 4 nonprofit fundraising strategies to create a personalized donation experience for your supporters:
Why Should You Create a Personalized Nonprofit Donation Experience?
Now that we live in a world full of advertisements, we’re bombarded every single day with them.
Whether you realize it or not, you’re seeing hundreds of ads day in and day out. You see so many ads, that your brain starts tuning them out!
And if you’re seeing that many ads each day, so are your supporters. So while, as nonprofit professionals, we’re not selling anything, we’re still having to show up in advertisements for fundraising.
One of the best ways to break through all of those ads that everyone sees is by making sure you’re calling out directly to your audience.
And not just your audience as a whole. But each individual person!
Use These 4 Nonprofit Fundraising Strategies to Create a Personalized Donation Experience:
Now, granted, we know it’s not possible to call out to each person individually. That would take loads of time that you don’t have!
But there are ways to create a more personalized experience. And you’d be amazed at how far those extra steps can go when it comes to nonprofit fundraising!
So, here are 4 great nonprofit fundraising strategies you can use to create the personalized donation experience your supporters want to see.
And we’re adding in the technology tools you can use to implement those ideas!
1. Nurture Your Supporters Before You Ever Ask for a Donation
How much do you love it when you’re sitting down to eat dinner, and your phone rings. And on it, there’s an unknown number.
You answer the phone, and what do ya know! It’s a telemarketer on the other end.
They do a few lines of rapport-building. You know. The usual, “hey, how are you? How’s the weather?”
And then they dive right into asking for the sale. If you even made it this far, now you’re definitely hanging up on them, right?
Your supporters feel the same way. If you rush into asking for a monetary contribution without even establishing a relationship with them first? They’re gonna think, “Why do I owe these people anything? They don’t know me from Adam!”
And you’ll quickly lose out on potential supporters.
But by nurturing your supporters before you ever even think about asking for a donation is a fantastic way to build the solid relationship you need and they crave.
Tech Tools for This Nonprofit Fundraising Strategy
The first tool you should have to help you nurture your supporters? Is your email marketing platform. Send out nurture newsletters and email campaigns straight to their inbox.
The second tech tool to use for this nonprofit fundraising strategy is your donor database or nonprofit CRM. These tools allow you to create donor profiles. And on each individual profile, you can see the last time you’ve contacted them. That helps make sure you reach out periodically to check in and see how they are. These two tools are excellent for sending personalized emails!
2. Create Tailored Donation Forms
Depending on your organization, you may run several different fundraising campaigns at any one time. These might all go towards different projects in your nonprofit.
And you may be accepting donations for them and allocating funds appropriately.
What you don’t want to do though is have one general donation form for all of the projects you’re currently accepting contributions for.
That’s going to confuse your supporters, and it’s going to detract from the personalization. Especially if your one form has either broad language about all of your projects. Or only has language for one of your projects.
Having just one single donation form might cause supporters to lose interest in your nonprofit.
When you create multiple donation forms for the various projects your nonprofit is working on, you can also collect information for your donor database. This will help you continue to personalize your donation experience. Because, as we know, the donation experience isn’t over the minute they press the “donate now!” button.
What Nonprofit Tech Tools Should You Use to Do This:
First and foremost, you need an excellent online donation platform. With one of these, you can create several different online donation pages. And each one can be customized to pertain to different projects or events you have.
Then, you need to use your handy donor database or nonprofit CRM! Because all of the information you collect on your donation platform can automatically populate in your database. And that information will help you send customized emails in the future. For example, when you send a thank you email or letter, you can specifically mention the nonprofit project they donated toward!
3. Separate and Segment Supporters
Not every single supporter donates to the same project. And not every single supporter donates a monetary amount. Some may want to give their time or even skills.
So it’s important to separate and segment supporters based on their past contributions.
It might not be in your best interest to send emails about your upcoming fundraising event to a list of people who live thousands of miles away.
It might not be the best decision to send emails about volunteer opportunities to people who have only ever contributed monetarily.
Separating and segmenting your supporters is, hands down, one of the best nonprofit fundraising strategies you can use to personalize the experience.
What Nonprofit Tech Tools Should You Use to Do This:
You can separate and segment your supporters using all kinds of nonprofit tech tools!
First, you can segment your email list using nonprofit email marketing software. That helps you tailor your nurture and your fundraising campaigns to the right target audience.
You can also use your nonprofit CRM or a donor management platform to determine which of your supporters have supported what cause.
And finally, you can use your volunteer management software to help you segment supporters based on what volunteer opportunities or events they’ve signed up for! That way you know who you can call on when you need help again.
4. Follow Up with Genuine Gratitude
And lastly, one of the best nonprofit fundraising strategies to use is to follow up with genuine gratitude.
Like we mentioned earlier – the donation experience doesn’t end the second they hit the “donate now!” button.
It keeps going into a phase where you can show your gratitude. Because you need what they’re giving out of the kindness of their hearts!
So send them a real thank you letter or email that expresses how grateful you are for their contribution.
Not only does it go a long way for this particular donation experience. But it can leave an amazing impression on them, which goes a long way for when they’re ready to give to a nonprofit in the future.
What Nonprofit Tech Tool Should You Use to Do This:
Of course, you can use your nonprofit email marketing software to help you do this. You can also use your online donation platform or donor management software to help you send pre-templated emails automatically.
But if you want to take it a step further, you can opt to send handwritten thank you notes to those who’ve donated to your cause. And if it’s too much to sit down and write each note yourself, you can opt for technology to help you!
Tools like Handwrytten are excellent resources to help you go that extra mile.
Taking the time to create a wonderful, personalized donation experience is going to do amazing things for your supporters. And it’s going to help you continue to meet your fundraising goals!
These 4 nonprofit fundraising strategies can get you started!
Want more related to this? Check out these posts!
14 Best Practices for Nonprofit Donation Pages to Boost Your Online Donations
Millennial Giving: 3 Ways to Get Millennial Support for Your Nonprofit Using Tech
Nonprofit Technology: 4 Major Ways Technology Helps Improve Your Nonprofit Organization
