Let's talk about the importance of establishing a monthly giving program for your nonprofit.  Many nonprofits rely on seasonal fundraising efforts for revenue. While these can be successful, they don't provide the same reliable income as nonprofit monthly giving. A program like this takes a little more effort, but it's a great way to sustain your organization and enact long-term plans.     1. Create and Brand a Monthly Program One of the best ways to encourage monthly giving is with a distinctly branded program. This helps donors feel they're part of something special and emphas ..read more

Some great insights came out of the 2020 M+R Benchmark report about Facebook Fundraisers. Year-over-year revenue raised on Facebook grew 6% over the previous year. In addition, Facebook giving generated 3.5% of all online revenue. In a COVID-19 world, I would expect this revenue to increase pretty significantly in 2020 since many nonprofit events will be canceled and more organizations take to peer-to-peer fundraising online.             A huge opportunity exists with nonprofits and Facebook Fundraisers; however, it’s not without some draw ..read more

Birthdays. Everybody has one. Every one of your donors has one. Asking for gifts for your birthday? Nah, that’s so 2016. What’s in now is using your birthday to raise money for nonprofits. That’s cool. Facebook makes it really easy to do this with Facebook Fundraisers, and it’s time for your nonprofit to get on board. According to the M+R Benchmark report, Facebook generated 3.5% of all digital fundraising in 2019, and I see this only increasing in years to come. It’s one thing to set up your nonprofit with Facebook’s social good tools, it’s another to ensure your donors and advocates know abo ..read more

How’s your email marketing and fundraising doing these days? If your emails are still hitting the Inbox of your subscribers, then that’s great. My last post discussed how your email marketing can be completely destroyed if you don’t apply care in how you acquire subscribers and manage your email lists. But what happens if it’s too late and you’ve already been blacklisted by internet service providers (ISPs) like Gmail and Yahoo. When you’ve been blacklisted, I call this “email jail.” It’s easy to get into and hard to get out of! If this has happened to your organization, there is hope…but it’s ..read more

  In the landscape of digital fundraising, email is a central figure. The success of your email fundraising program is a classic case of nature versus nurture. If you nurture your email program, giving it attention and care, i.e. email hygiene, then you’ll watch it flourish. If you let nature take its course without the nurture piece, then you’re sitting on a ticking time bomb that will completely destroy your email marketing and fundraising program. Sound extreme? It’s not. Let’s take a look at how email can be a ticking time bomb, then examine how to keep this from happening by making e ..read more

As marketers and fundraisers, sometimes our tendency to put donors in a box can work against us. We define donor profiles (one box), we invest in specific fundraising channels (another box), and we often give attribution to the last-touch channel that acquired the gift (yet another box). We put donors in boxes because it helps to corral planning and donor communication. It helps us go deeper in relationships with donors by channel. And it helps us report “what’s working” in fundraising to our boards and stakeholders. The truth is that donors do not live in a box. They are like you and me ..read more

Nonprofits have a problem on their hands when it comes to organic posts on Facebook. Many nonprofits spend hours each month planning, writing, organizing, posting, and tracking the performance of social media posts. HOURS. But those that have done this for the past few years know this is not a new problem.  According to the 2020 M+R Benchmark Report, organic posts from nonprofits reached just 4% their page’s followers (Page Likes). To flip that stat, 96% of a nonprofit’s Facebook followers will NOT see its organic posts. If you work for a nonprofit and are involved with Facebook ..read more

My last post examined four important ways your nonprofit can prepare and plan for Giving Tuesday Now. This post fast forwards in time to the actual day. It’s Giving Tuesday Now, do you know where your donors are? (Relax, this is only a test, you still have some time) I do keep in mind that as you’re reading this, you may be a team of one that is doing the work of “the marketing department.” You may also be on a larger team, specifically involved with digital fundraising. Either way, you likely have a Giving Tuesday Now plan in place, but things can get thrown off quickly the day-of for a numbe ..read more

May 5, 2020 - Giving Tuesday Now - Is Your Nonprofit Ready? With COVID-19 striking a major blow to consumers and businesses alike, nonprofits are also struggling. Service needs are up, donations are down. The good news is that there is some relief for nonprofits through the $2 trillion stimulus package, which will provide nonprofit loans and release checks to your donors that may be in a position to give.  Another piece of good news is that GivingTuesday.org recently announced Giving Tuesday Now happening May 5. This is in response to the societal needs that have surfaced as a result of C ..read more

When most nonprofits think of digital fundraising, they usually think of digital as a marketing channel to support or supplement direct mail. And honestly, that’s how fundraisers should think of digital (for now), especially when creating multi-channel campaigns. For single-channel campaigns though, you’ll find that most fundraising is done via direct mail only rather than digital-only. This is due to a number of reasons that may include anticipated ROI, historical performance, or the ‘ol “this is how it’s always been done” approach. Yet, there can still be value to running digital-only campai ..read more