Today we bring you another nonprofit fundraising Best Practice in Action from our weekly series. Each week we 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. . .
Send a friendly reminder about your fundraising through Facebook.
Is your nonprofit organization on Facebook? Our friends at the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) regularly post information about upcoming events, exhibitions, and membership to their Facebook group, so it was only natural that they’d post about their fundraising, too. With just a few days left in their matching gift campaign, they sent out this message to all their Facebook group members:
With a four-person staff and a lot of things to do, the PRC used Facebook to quickly and easily connect their online community to their fundraising efforts.
So, to recap:
Use Facebook for what Facebook is good for. Facebook updates are quick and allow you to connect to many of your supporters at once. Keep your fans and groupies posted on what’s going on with your fundraising efforts.
Today we bring you another nonprofit fundraising Best Practice in Action from our weekly series. Each week we 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. . .
Equip your fundraisers to make the most of their personal fundraising pages.
Our friends at Rutgers University’s Dance Marathon raise money online every year for the Embrace Kids Foundation. Their fundraisers are primarily college students, who don’t have a lot of money to donate themselves, but who are actively invested in the cause.
And where do college students spend a lot of time? Online.
To make sure all the Dance Marathoners knew how to make the most of their fundraising pages, Mike, one of the event organizers, created this quick how-to video and uploaded it to YouTube:
Dance Marathoners who needed an extra bit of inspiration or help could watch this video and learn how to use their Firstgiving fundraising pages as a tool to meet their online fundraising goals. Result? 471 college students raised almost $90,000 online for the Embrace Kids Foundation.
So, to recap:
Identify where your fundraisers live online, and use the most appropriate medium to reach them. You know your community best–communicate information about your event using email, Facebook, Twitter, or all of the above.
Happy fundraising and best wishes for success!
Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action! Send us an email at bestpractices@firstgiving.com.
Today we bring you another fundraising Best Practice in Action from our weekly series. Each week, we 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. . .
Tweet updates about your fundraising.
Are you on Twitter? Our friends at Basset Buddies Rescue have been Tweeting about all things Basset Hound for some time (you can follow them @BassetBuddies). It was only natural, then, that they’d Tweet the good news about the first fundraising page created for their Basset Fest fundraising event:
As you might expect, the link in their Tweet goes straight to Basset Buddies’ Firstgiving nonprofit page, where participants can register for the event and start fundraising.
Basset Buddies Rescue is using all of their online tools to get the word out about their event and connect fundraisers to their Firstgiving page. Remember, non-profit organizations like yours are successful in fundraising when they generate excitement about their events!
So, to recap:
If you have a Twitter account, use it to tell your followers about what’s going on in your organization, including your fundraising milestones!
Happy fundraising and best wishes for success!
***Follow Firstgiving on Twitter @firstgiving
***Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action! Send us an email at bestpractices@firstgiving.com.
Just about everybody knows that the postal rates went up recently, but it was only last week that I noticed that there’s a new 78-cent stamp featuring Mary Lasker, the pioneering philanthropist. Last month, we used the 76-cent Edward Trudeau. He was a phthisiologist, which I’m sure you all know is a physician who specializes in phthisiology. (ok, ok, phthisiology is the care and treatment of tuberculoisis. Sorry, Edward.)
But seriously, it’s good to see Mary Lasker on a stamp, and a nice coincidence that it’s the exact stamp we at Firstgiving use to send out welcome packets to our new NPO clients. If that’s you and you haven’t received our little bundle of valuable info, tips, event planning worksheet, and success stories, get in touch with your account manager pronto.
But why, you ask, are we sending out paper packages when we’re the online fundraising company? The simple answer is that when information is important, you might need to send it more than once or in more than one format. Plus, different people digest information in different ways, so it’s always best to choose the right medium for each message and audience.
That said, with the price of postage going up and looking like it will keep doing so, we have to wonder what postal projects smart nonprofit fundraisers will put off or take online. Can email fundraising ever completely replace paper fundraising, or will it just become the only cost-effective way? Are you cutting back on postage by mailing less or mailing smarter?
Firstgiving’s Account Management Team has been on the road for the past few months, talking with you about how to raise more money online and listening to your feedback. One thing you’ve told us is how helpful it is to receive an automatic email when someone creates a new fundraising page for your nonprofit.
But have you ever asked yourself, “What should I do next?”
Not to fear. . .this week we bring you #9 in our countdown of top 10 ways to use your page creation auto emails.
It’s a fact: people get inspired by other people. Make the most of this and send around an email to all your fundraisers with a link to an example of a page you find particularly good. That doesn’t necessarily mean the page that has raised the most money–maybe it’s a page that has a compelling message, a funny picture, a YouTube video or something else that you feel will be inspiring for other fundraisers.
Some nonprofits have an employee create a fundraising page and send it out as an example. This also communicates to your fundraisers that you are in this fundraising effort together.
To get you inspired here are a few examples of terrific fundraising pages we’ve seen recently:
Keith is raising money for the Special Operation Warrior Foundation, running 100 miles from Key Largo to Key West Leslie is raising money for the Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota Laura is the ED of Mustard Seed Communities Maggi is an Account Manager here at Firstgiving
If you or your fundraisers have any questions, you can chat with our support team here. Or give us a call at (877) 365-2949 .
Remember, when your fundraisers get inspired to ask for donations for your organization, they’ll really surprise you. Happy fundraising!
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 nonprofit fundraising Best Practice is. . .
Give your fundraisers some ideas about how to ask for donations.
Our friends atAIDS Walk Kansas Citywanted to make it as easy as possible for their walk participants to reach their fundraising goals. They took the bull by the horns and sent their fundraisers this quick list of ideas to raise $1,000:
Ten Easy Steps to $1,000
1. Sponsor yourself for $50 2. Ask 2 family members to sponsor you for $50 3. Ask 10 friends to contribute $20 4. Ask 5 co-workers to contribute $20 5. Ask 5 neighbors to contribute $20 6. Ask 5 people from your place of worship for $10 7. Ask 5 people you socialize with (yoga, book club, gym, dinner club) for $10 8. Ask your boss for a company donation of $50 9. Ask 5 businesses that your company works with to contribute $40 10. Ask 4 businesses that you frequent to donate $25
Check out their walk success–over $120,000 raised online!
We bet you can put together a creative list for your fundraisers with some of these ideas and some of your own. Empowering your fundraisers and giving them confidence to ask for donations translates to fundraising success for your nonprofit.
So, to recap:
Sometimes asking for donations can be daunting for fundraisers.With a fundraising goal in mind, give them some ideas to get started and take away the fear of asking. Remind them that asking for donations online makes the process easy!
Happy fundraising, and here’s to raising more money than you ever thought possible!
Share your own success stories of fundraising Best Practices in Action by sending an email to bestpractices@firstgiving.com.
Happy June from Firstgiving.com! June brings us Flag Day, Father’s Day (also Prostate Cancer Awareness Day), Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, Aphasia Awareness Month, and the beginning of summer. It also brings lots of opportunities for nonprofit fundraising, and we’ve put together a list of this month’s causes to get you going:
Whether you’re participating in a nonprofit fundraising walk, a campaign to beat the summer slump, or a grassroots fundraising effort, we have the tools to help you raise money online for the causes you care about. Here’s to fundraising success as you kick off the summer!
Entries (RSS)