Today we bring you another nonprofit fundraising Best Practice in Action from our weekly series. Each week, we’ll highlight an organization that has done an incredible job of promoting its online fundraising efforts with FirstGiving and show you how to do the same. This week’s Best Practice is. . .
Start building relationships with your fundraisers right away.
Last week’s Best Practice of thanking your fundraisers struck a chord with many of our nonprofit partners, including Mike Hennessy at the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Mike wrote in to us to tell us that thanking fundraisers is important to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation’s community building strategy, but communicating with fundraisers throughout the fundraising process is another integral part of it.
In fact, Mike starts communicating with his fundraisers before they even start asking for donations:
“A simple ‘thank you’ goes a long way to making people feel appreciated for their hard work. However, I make it a point to send an e-mail as soon as I am notified that someone has set up a fundraising page. It’s a great way to offer support and any tips that might be needed to tweak the page a bit. It’s also an opportunity to offer any other support you might have available.”
The Special Operations Warrior Foundation has a loyal base of supporters who have raised over $150,000 online since the beginning of the year. These fundraisers are acting like tiny development offices, recruiting their friends and family to donate and equipping the Special Operations Warrior Foundation to succeed in its mission.
So, to recap: Use the auto-emails in your inbox that alert you when someone creates a new fundraising page. Touch base with your fundraisers right away to start building your fundraising community online.
Happy fundraising!
______________
To see what other nonprofits like yours are doing and to post your own ideas, Find FirstGiving on Facebook.
***Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action! Send us an email: bestpractices@firstgiving.com.
