Digital Fundraising for Nonprofit Organizations and Charities

Are you still fundraising the old-fashioned way? If so, I have some bad news for you… Times have changed, and doing fundraisers in the traditional manner will not yield good results. Especially after the post-COVID era, a lot of our activities have gone online, which is a sign that you need to approach fundraising in a new way.

To reach & connect with potential donors in an effective way, you need to go with DIGITAL FUNDRAISING!

Just think about this scenario for a moment: You hold an in-person fundraiser, and a few hundred people show up at best. Out of these, only a handful will actually contribute, which is not a really great strategy at all.

Conversely, going the digital fundraising route (live stream event) gives you the opportunity to reach thousands of people around the world at a fraction of the cost. Similarly, it also allows you to raise more donations & awareness for your cause!

The problem with traditional fundraising

What comes to mind when you think about fundraising? It can be a spring gala, annual auction, yearly appeal via direct mail, & so on. The bottom line is that fundraising has been done that way for a long time.

But, that way of fundraising is now outdated because of various reasons:

• It costs money to host an in-person event, which needs to be deduced from the raised funds.
• Once a fundraiser event is done, the focus immediately shifts to the next one. This prevents the nonprofits from working on establishing long-term donor relationships and achieving sustainable growth.
• Once an event is finished, it is a done deal. The nonprofits have to start again from scratch every time, which tells us this: Traditional fundraising is not a repeatable process.
• Donor behavior has changed significantly, which has rendered the old methods of fundraisers obsolete & less effective.

These are just some of the problems faced by nonprofits as they still cling to using the same-old fundraising. However, the reality is that things have changed a lot in the last decade – So it is high time for nonprofits to change, too!

What you need is a new digital approach that is repeatable & allows you to achieve sustainable growth. The answer to all these problems lies in digital fundraising, which can help you raise more funds online.

Digital fundraising: How it works?

Digital fundraising is a process-based methodology that uses online mediums to drive donations on a recurring basis. Since the online medium is used, it means digital marketers are best suited for the role of digital fundraising.

Basically, any strategy that is useful in the realm of the digital marketing world can be applied to digital fundraising. The basic goal behind virtual fundraising is to reach the right person with the right message.

One of the benefits of going digital is that each message can be highly personalized for each donor to deliver a more coherent & consistent experience.

Digital fundraising can be divided into 3 steps:

1. Engage
2. Nurture
3. Convert

1. Engage

In the engagement phase, various strategies such as digital advertising, SEO, & social media marketing are used to attract potential donors.

The main goal of this step is to get people to start engaging with your nonprofit by following on social media, subscribing to email, & so on. It can involve anything that will allow your nonprofit to stay in touch with potential donors.

2. Nurture

Once a potential donor has engaged with your nonprofit’s social profile, videos, or website, you gain the ability to retarget them.

In this step, the focus is to nurture the relationship with potential donors through strategies like storytelling, email campaigns, or any other compelling content.

As the step name ‘nurture’ implies, the goal is to nurture the leads into potential donors. You can use a variety of content mediums to show the donors why they should care about your organization’s goals.

For example, let’s assume that a potential supporter shared their email with your organization in the ‘engage’ step. Now, you can use email marketing to send them a series of emails about your organization’s goals, motto, and so on. The goal should be to get the potential donors to know about what you do & who you are.

3. Convert

Once the prospects have been nurtured and know about your nonprofit organization, it’s time to raise funds! Use all the available channels to ask your donors to chip in money like social media, email, video, website, & so on.

To increase the chances of converting prospects into donors, make sure that the process of donating money is easy & seamless. One way to achieve this is to offer multiple methods to donate money online, like credit/debit cards, e-wallets, crypto, etc.

4. Repeat

In the last step, all that’s left is to continue your communication with donors so that they donate again & again. This can involve sharing new information, providing updates, & engaging with them on a regular basis.

This process will allow you to convert a new donor into a loyal supporter of your cause. Earlier, we mentioned how digital fundraising is a repeatable process & this is exactly the part where it comes into play.

You can maintain communication with the donors so that they remain updated on what’s going on at your nonprofit organization. This will also allow you to get donations on repeat from the same person without going through the hassle of hosting an in-person event.

5 benefits of digital fundraising

1. Affordable

How much it would cost to host an event of 100-200 people? From booking an event space to doing marketing to attract them, it can easily cost a lot of money.

On the contrary, you can reach thousands of potential donors through digital fundraising at a fraction of the cost. So, one of the first & biggest benefits of virtual fundraising is that it is affordable.

 2. Less workload

Digital fundraising also makes it easy to get more work done in less time & resources. With the help of technology, a lot of processes can be automated, which means less administrative workload.

For example, email marketing automation can be used to send periodic emails on the go without any human assistance. Conversely, sending direct mail to potential donors can easily take a lot of time & resources.

3. Improved retention

Digital fundraising opens the door to sustainable & predictable growth over the short & long term. Unlike traditional fundraising, which only brings revenue during a specific time period, going digital allows you to raise funds throughout the year.

So, another benefit is in the form of improved retention, as you can get revenue on a continuous basis.

4. Improved adaptability

The last few years have been challenging for those nonprofits that are still using traditional fundraising campaigns. One of the major problems with old methods is that they are not adaptable. It can take considerable time and effort to figure out what works and what doesn’t!

Look at an example:

A nonprofit organization doesn’t get good results from a fundraiser they hosted at 3 PM on Monday. They found out that it was not the right time as many potential donors were at work. They only found this out after spending actual money on hosting an in-person event.

Now, consider this – Digital fundraising makes it very easy to adopt the strategy on the go. From changing the website to donation forms to changing the wording of email campaigns, you can react quickly to what’s happening & adjust accordingly for improved results.

5. Broad support base

Let’s face it: hosting an event in a small town means you can only drive donations from a handful of people at best. But with digital fundraising, you can find a broad support base for your nonprofit organization.

This directly converts to more supporters & donors for your cause, which can’t be said about traditional fundraising.

Digital fundraising strategies

What strategies can be used to do digital fundraising? Well, there are numerous options for nonprofits out there that speak to the versatility of this option.

Depending on the requirements of your nonprofit, one or several of these strategies can be used to get the desired results:

• Donation forms – These forms can be embedded into the website or mobile app. Using them, you can easily collect donations on a recurring basis.
• Crowdfunding – In this strategy, a website is created around a specific campaign/theme. Some examples include end-of-year fundraisers, special campaigns, & so on.
• Events – You have the opportunity to host a diverse range of online events such as galas, live streams, trivia competitions and more.
• P2P fundraising – A great example of this strategy is birthday fundraisers. With this strategy, people can raise funds from their peers & donate it to the nonprofit.

Conclusion

Transitioning to digital fundraising is an essential step for nonprofits seeking sustainable growth in the post-COVID era.

The outdated nature of traditional methods is no match for the cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability of digital fundraising!

At Canadian Digital Consulting, we provide essential services like web design, development, branding, and landing page design – A comprehensive solution empowering nonprofits to navigate the digital landscape successfully and optimize their fundraising efforts.