Developing Effective Nonprofit Fundraising Strategies

Using a new fundraising software like PayBee can be exciting. Suddenly, your nonprofit fundraising events can include virtual galas for online supporters and hybrid fundraisers for both in-person and virtual audiences. This opens multiple new avenues for fundraising and the potential to earn much more revenue for your nonprofit programs.

However, when you make the leap from traditional fundraisers to virtual and hybrid events, you’ll also want to adopt new strategies. Online donors and supporters interact with fundraisers in different ways than your usual in-person audiences, and you want to make sure you’re taking full advantage of all the online tools you suddenly have access to.

To help you navigate this shift in fundraising, this article will go into the seven most effective fundraising strategies for nonprofits that use an online platform like PayBee. You’ll learn specific ways that PayBee’s tools can be applied to your fundraisers and how to present your event to multiple audiences. Let’s get started!

1. Host Multiple Small Fundraisers

When investing in an online fundraising platform, there can sometimes be a tendency to “think big.” After all, you now have access to a whole host of new fundraising tools and the ability to reach hundreds, if not thousands, of additional donors and supporters. Why not make all your fundraiser events big galas from now on that can support huge efforts?

However, fundraising efforts don’t all have to be massive efforts designed to fund major projects like buildings or big endowments. A lot of your most important fundraisers may simply be designed to support your normal programs and raise awareness of your cause. These are both important goals and don’t require a major investment of time and energy to put on a huge capital fundraising campaign.

In fact, hosting several small fundraisers may be one of the best strategies your event team can use to get familiar with a new fundraising platform like PayBee. Since you’re not so focused on soliciting donations from a huge population of potential supporters or raising major gifts, you can concentrate more on becoming familiar with the software and making sure the smaller audience you’re catering to is having a good experience.

Even better, each small fundraising campaign offers an opportunity for your team to do an analysis of each event to determine what worked and what still needs improvement. What you discover will play a very vital role in the success of all your future campaigns — both large and small.

2. Offer Multiple Donation Opportunities

Being able to attract potential new donors through PayBee’s online fundraising platform means you’ll want to make it easy for every guest to contribute in the way they’re most comfortable with. Gone are the days when your donors all wrote out physical checks or dropped large bills into a box. While some supporters still enjoy giving this way — and should have the option to do so — others prefer a more online form of giving.

Fortunately, PayBee’s system can accept multiple forms of payment from your donors and is committed to making the giving process easy. Make sure to take advantage of the following options:

Provide “Donate” Buttons on Your Website

The great thing about the PayBee system is that it makes building your event webpages easy, even if you don’t have a strong background in web design. Even better, you can customize your fundraising page with your brand logo, images of your programs — and donation buttons.

This last option is an important strategy in online fundraising. Placing “Donate” buttons in strategic areas on your web page not only makes it easy for guests to quickly contribute to your fundraiser but also provides regular reminders of why they’re attending your event in the first place. They’re the perfect way to motivate guests to show their support when your emcee spotlights the good work your programs are doing for the community. 

Mobile Giving is a Must

These days, people use their smartphones and mobile devices to interact with everything — including your fundraiser. This means you’ll want to make it very easy for people to donate online with just a few clicks.

And PayBee can help. Participants in your online auctions can place bids online for both live and silent auctions. PayBee’s system lets you print QR codes that can be placed anywhere in your physical venue, allowing guests to scan the codes, visit your fundraising page, and donate.

Donating via text is also becoming increasingly popular, and PayBee lets you easily share links to your donation page via text message, giving your guests another avenue to contribute. Frankly, any form of mobile giving you’re not using is just money lost, so be sure to take advantage of all of them.

Choose a Platform that Accepts Multiple Forms of Payment

Written checks and cash may still be a thing at fundraisers, but if you want to increase your revenue streams, you also need to make sure your fundraising system can accept even more forms of payment. Online platforms like PayBee can easily accept all major credit cards from guests — but why stop there? Today, people use everything from Apple Pay to their PayPal accounts to make large donations, and PayBee’s system is ready to accommodate all these supporters.

3. Add Many Personal Touches

One thing that never changes for successful fundraisers is your need to connect to your audience. It doesn’t matter if you’re catering to the needs of a dozen supporters or a thousand guests — the more personal you can make their experience, the more they’ll be willing to donate to your cause. And by using the PayBee system, you’ll be able to produce plenty of personal touches for a very large audience. PayBee tools will let you:

• Manage your guest list: Guest list management is one of the most important yet overlooked parts of hosting successful fundraisers. PayBee’s system makes it easy to collect all needed guest information, letting your event staff know where to seat everyone, order enough food, and keep up with any special needs. All of this translates into a better experience for each guest and your entire party.
• Acknowledge hundreds of individuals: PayBee’s system lets you request any form of useful information from your guests — from what they preferred to be called to their favorite color. You can then use this information to make every guest feel heard, for instance by creating name tags at each dining table color coded to each guest’s liking. It’s a small but powerful touch, and one that’s easy to do when you take advantage of PayBee’s automated systems.
• Prepare special meals: Whether you’re looking to host a fancy charity dinner or a casual luncheon, you need to take the dietary needs of your guests into consideration. Once again, PayBee’s system can help by collecting any information on guest food allergies and diet restrictions, giving your caterers sufficient time to prepare something delicious and appropriate to each guest. And it goes without saying that the more pleasant the meal, the more generous the guest will be when it comes time to donate.

4. Enable Guests to Offer Recurring Gifts

Did you know that the average recurring donor gives more than 42% in a single year compared to one-time donors?

What’s more, it can be easier to encourage your supporters to offer recurring gifts since it can often be more affordable to donate small amounts every month as opposed to making a single major contribution.

However, all these potential donors can’t give anything if your online donation page doesn’t make it simple for supporters to sign up for a monthly giving option. Spend some time discovering how PayBee can help build a recurring donation sign up option for your website. Even better, create a specific page dedicated just to asking for recurring donations to reach more people.

Bonus: PayBee offers an option to all donors to cover its credit card and ACH fee, allowing your nonprofit to collect more revenue. We’ve found that most donors will choose to accept this option, reducing your organization’s expenses and increasing your profits.

5. Make Every Fundraiser an Event

PayBee may enable you to throw large and small fundraising galas, but make no mistake — every single one of these fundraisers can be a major event in the eyes of your supporters.

That’s because there really is no limit to the types of fundraising events you can host, especially since you can now include virtual audiences into the mix. From producing an online concert to putting on a school carnival to hosting a video game tournament, your next PayBee-supported fundraiser can be as innovative — yet affordable — as you can imagine.

Want help coming up with ideas? No problem! PayBee’s blog regularly comes out with huge articles detailing popular fundraising event ideas. Spend some time browsing through our options, you just might find your next big event.

6. Build Partnerships

While raising revenue might be the main purpose for your fundraiser, securing valuable partnerships should also be a major goal. After all, fundraisers wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful without a dedicated network of sponsors providing the funds, prizes, and often even the venues for your event. And most people would agree that a healthy volunteer staff is the lifeblood of any good nonprofit.

You should also see if there are any employer donor matching programs you can get your nonprofit listed on. These programs allow employers to match any donations given to your organization by their employees. See if your current supporters belong to any businesses with an employer donor matching program — joining one will be a great way to increase your revenue.

When building your partnerships, take advantage of PayBee’s social sharing tools and publicize your partnerships on social media. This encourages your supporters to participate in your nonprofit. 

For instance, once employees know their business will match their donations, they’ll be more likely to give to you since they know their employers will support them. Likewise, if your corporate partners encourage their employees to volunteer for community organizations, your nonprofit could benefit from their pool of volunteers. Make sure they know of the opportunities you’re offering!

7. Show Your Gratitude to Your Guests

Simply getting your guests to donate once or even multiple times isn’t enough to make them dedicated donors. Instead, you need to constantly recognize their contributions and inform them of the impact they’re making, not only in your organization but in the communities you serve.

And PayBee gives you plenty of ways to convey your gratitude. Our system lets you send out automatic email campaigns that let you thank your donors for their contributions. When you build a fundraising website, you can include pictures and videos of your programs, letting your supporters know what the funding they provide accomplishes.

Your e-newsletters can thank contributors individually and provide data on how their contributions have been used. You might even want to make certain generous businesses and individuals the subjects of feature stories, providing them with additional recognition and offering a way for your network to get to know each other better.  

You can even host an end-of-the-year awards ceremony using PayBee’s online platform. This event can be designed to honor your regular contributors while attracting new supporters and updating everyone on your programs. And of course, you can use this event as a fundraising opportunity as well.

Moving Forward

Using PayBee to design, promote, and host your nonprofit fundraising events grants you an array of options that can improve your relationship with your supporters and increase your revenue streams. From taking advantage of the additional donation opportunities PayBee offers to creating a more personalized experience for your guests, there are numerous ways you can enhance your existing galas or offer all-new fundraisers.

To see how some of these strategies look in action, sign up for a free demo of PayBee’s online platform. You’ll experience the high energy your guests will enjoy during one of our online auctions, see how intuitive our fundraising platform is to use, and how many donation opportunities your nonprofit can offer through PayBee. In addition, you’ll be able to ask all of your questions directly to our team of experts. Come discover what so many nonprofits already know about the advantages of PayBee’s platform by signing up for a free demo today!  

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