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Learn 6 advocacy event ideas to raise money for your cause.

Advocacy Events: 6 Fundraisers to Earn More for Your Cause

August 23, 2022/in Nonprofit Fundraising /by Contributor

The key to creating lasting change today is advocacy—speaking up on behalf of members of your community affected by a particular issue. Running a successful advocacy campaign will likely start with mobilizing supporters and educating your community about your cause. To support these efforts, you’ll need to raise funds.

Events are a particularly effective fundraising method for advocacy groups. When you hold a fundraising event, you’ll bring supporters together, spread awareness, and earn funding at the same time. The type of event you choose to hold will depend on your organization’s needs and capabilities, in addition to your supporters’ interests.

To help your advocacy group earn more for your cause, these five fundraising event ideas are a great place to start:

With the right tools and a solid plan, any of these five events will help you engage donors as you raise the funds you need to support your advocacy campaign. Let’s dive in!

1. 5K Races

Race fundraisers work well in a variety of communities. 5Ks in particular tend to attract large audiences, as there are many ways for participants to get involved. Many 5Ks allow participants to choose whether they want to run in the timed race or walk the race course at their own pace. Supporters who decide not to race can volunteer at the event or donate while they cheer on their friends and family.

Grassroots Unwired’s guide to 5K fundraisers suggests several tips for making your event more effective, such as:

Setting clear fundraising goals. As with any fundraiser, your organization should plan a 5K with specific, measurable goals in mind. For example, you might set goals of increasing your revenue total from last year’s race by 20% and registering 50 new supporters who you can add to your organization’s contact lists.

Marketing your event throughout the community. Besides sending out emails and posting on social media, distributing fundraising flyers in your community can be a great way to spread the word about your 5K to new supporters.

Securing sponsorships. Asking businesses in your area to sponsor your 5K will help you cover event costs and get necessary supplies (like tents, race course markers, and water bottles). In exchange, you’ll promote them on your marketing materials, helping to associate their names with a good cause. Make sure to choose sponsors whose business values align with your cause.

Adding a peer-to-peer component. To bring in additional funding and involve more community members, consider pairing your 5K with a peer-to-peer fundraiser. When supporters sign up to race, ask them to create a fundraising page through your organization’s peer-to-peer software and share it with their friends and family.

Besides using peer-to-peer software, digital event tools that include registration and ticketing features can help your advocacy group organize your 5K. Careful planning and efficient registration is key to a successful race fundraiser.

2. A-thon Style Events

The characteristic all a-thon style fundraising events have in common is that you’ll ask supporters to do a particular activity as much as they can to raise money for your cause. To maximize the funds you bring in, you’ll want to choose an activity that interests your supporters.

To help make this decision, you could send out a survey to supporters asking them to vote on their favorite a-thon style event idea. Some of the most common a-thon events include:

Walk-a-thons
Bike-a-thons
Swim-a-thons
Dance-a-thons
Bowl-a-thons
Read-a-thons

When deciding which a-thon style event to hold, consider what activities coordinate best with your cause. For example, if you’re advocating for an education-related issue, a read-a-thon would be a great fit. Or, if your cause is related to health, you could try a bike- or swim-a-thon to encourage supporters to be physically active while fundraising.

No matter what event you choose, you’ll need volunteers to run it. Look into volunteer grant opportunities to bring in even more funds. These grants can also help expand your network and get the word out about your cause as you form new relationships with the businesses who provide volunteer grants as well as the volunteers themselves.

3. Auctions

Hosting an auction can also bring your community together while raising funds to support your cause. Auctions are an especially versatile fundraiser—you could host either a silent auction or a live event depending on your organization’s capabilities and your supporters’ interests. You can also decide whether to hold your auction in person, virtually, or in a hybrid format.

Once you’ve decided on your event’s format, you’ll need to procure items for your supporters to bid on. Auctions often attract more attention when they offer items that supporters can’t buy at major retailers, such as:

Experiences and services. Highly popular auction items often aren’t physical. These items can range from car wash gift certificates to spa packages to vacations.

Goods made by local artists. This category can include paintings, jewelry, furniture, or anything else created in your community. Locally made goods are often one-of-a-kind, making them more valuable. Plus connecting with artists in your community can help you gain even more support for your cause.

Prize baskets or bundles. To increase the value of individual items,Handbid’s guide to silent auctions recommends auctioning off several smaller items as one prize basket or bundle. For example, you could put together a movie theater gift certificate, popcorn, candy, and a throw blanket to create a “movie night” prize basket.

Your organization can often get these auction items via in-kind donations from corporate sponsors. Besides featuring your sponsors in your marketing materials leading up to the auction, make sure to mention them during the event and thank them afterward.

4. Lectures, Webinars, and Panels

Educating supporters about your cause is key to a successful advocacy campaign. Hosting an educational fundraising event can serve that purpose and bring in funds at the same time.

Your educational fundraisers can be in-person or virtual events. If you go the in-person route, you’ll want to find a large space where an expert on your cause can give a lecture explaining the history and impact of your target issue. To raise money, charge an admission fee and set up a donation box at the event.

To educate your supporters through a virtual event, try a webinar or panel. Your supporters can attend from the convenience of their homes, and you can bring in speakers from different locations to share their unique insights.

5. Rallies

When considering events related to community advocacy, rallies are probably one of the first that comes to mind. Besides providing an opportunity for supporters to donate, rallies help raise awareness of your cause throughout your community and prompt action.

If you organize a rally, you’ll need to get permission to use a large outdoor space. Find several speakers who can speak to your audience about the cause you’re advocating for and inspire them. Also, prepare educational materials that can be distributed during your rally featuring links or QR codes to your website so supporters can connect with your organization afterwards.

A rally can help strengthen community support for your cause and draw new advocates. It may also attract the attention of the local press, spreading the word about your cause even further. This increase in both support and interest will make contacting policymakers about your cause a natural next step—if the issue has been in the news, they’ll already be aware of it when you reach out, and you’ll have new supporters who you can encourage to call or write to them.

6. Community Art Festival

Every activist has a deep emotional connection to their cause. Allow them to share their passion, connect with other activists, and educate the community by hosting a themed community art festival devoted to your cause.

Raise money with this dynamic fundraising event idea by charging admission, selling food and drink tickets, and selling custom merchandise for the art festival. Remember to place collection boxes and information booths around the venue so guests have ample opportunities to give and learn more about your nonprofit.

If you’re envisioning an average arts and crafts sale when planning the festival schedule, don’t be afraid to think bigger! Art comes in many forms, and the more art you showcase, the more people can participate. Some events you could add to your art festival lineup include:

Benefit concert
Poetry slam
Art gallery
Dance showcase
Fashion show
Film festival

Since activism is about inspiring action, ensure your supporters get the chance to spread the word about your cause to people who aren’t yet aware of your initiatives. Help them forge these connections by offering hands-on art workshops. For instance, if the theme of the art show is environmentalism, an art demonstration could entail creating a sculpture out of recycled materials. Not only does this help attendees better understand your cause but it’s also an effective strategy to enhance your fundraising.

Wrapping Up

The ideas listed above are just five of the possible event fundraisers that your advocacy group could hold. Weigh several event options to choose the best ones based on your organization’s budget and supporter base. As you plan your fundraising events, make sure to invest in the right digital tools to help you earn more for your cause.

This article was contributed by our friends at Grassroots Unwired.

Author: Russ Oster

Russ’ first experience in the world of grassroots organizing came when he was an infant and his mother pushed him in a stroller door to door to collect signatures for the Impeach Nixon movement. Eighteen years later he embarked on his college career in Washington, DC and during that time developed a passion for campaigns and elections that started with an internship on the campaign of the first woman ever elected to Congress from the State of Virginia.

For the next 15 years Russ lived and breathed campaigns, running field operations in a wide range of races and for a number of coordinated campaign efforts. When it became obvious to Russ that the technology existed to make field efforts drastically more efficient and accountable but the solutions did not, he launched Grassroots Unwired and has worked every day since to keep GU on the cutting edge, pushing new features and enhancements to meet the needs of ever evolving grassroots organizing efforts.

Mobile Optimization: 5 Reasons it Matters for Nonprofits

August 11, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Tools /by Jessica King

You’ve heard it time and time again: optimizing your website for mobile devices is crucial. Your website goals probably include engaging with donors, volunteers, and other supporters, and encouraging them to stay involved for the long term. A mobile-optimized website can support these goals and help you drive more online traffic.

Specifically, we’re going to discuss five reasons why mobile optimization is so important for nonprofit websites:

Most people spend a large portion of their day on their phones.

Mobile donations are more popular than ever.

Social media use is also increasing globally.

Mobile optimization is a Google ranking factor.

Mobile load speed affects bounce rate.

The best nonprofit websites engage and excite supporters whether they’re using their laptops, tablets, or phones to connect. Let’s take a closer look at why you should emphasize mobile-friendliness when designing your website.

1. Most people spend a large portion of their day on their phones.

Research shows that the average smartphone user spends five to six hours per day on their phone. People use their phones for everything from online shopping to binge-watching TV shows, messaging loved ones, and ordering food.

Therefore, your nonprofit’s supporters expect to be able to connect with your organization using their mobile devices. The first step to keeping donors close is appealing to their preferences by offering them a way to engage with and learn more about your nonprofit from the palm of their hand.

2. Mobile donations are more popular than ever.

Supporters want to be able to give any time, anywhere, without having to pull out their laptops to do so. To attract and retain donors, you must offer plenty of convenient, simple donation opportunities, including a mobile-responsive giving page and text-to-give options. Your supporters should be able to easily fill out and move through the donation process on their phones without squinting or having to pinch their screens and zoom in.

3. Social media use is also increasing globally.

Creating mobile-friendly marketing content is also critical for increasing engagement with your social media campaigns. 78% of social media users worldwide only use their mobile devices to access social media platforms. Plus, 55% of people who engage with nonprofits on social media eventually take some sort of action, whether that’s contributing monetary or in-kind donations, volunteering, participating in advocacy campaigns, or attending events.

Developing social media campaigns that look great on mobile devices, with elements such as vertical videos and mobile-friendly landing pages, should be a priority for your organization.

4. Mobile optimization is a Google ranking factor.

Since 2015, Google has used mobile-friendliness as an SEO ranking factor. That means that to improve your site’s chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages, you must ensure it’s mobile-optimized.

To create a mobile-optimized website that ranks highly on Google, keep the formatting and design simple, ensure your text sizes are large enough to be read on mobile devices, and review and edit your site in the mobile view to check for any formatting issues. When you combine these efforts with other SEO best practices, such as optimizing your website’s pages for relevant keywords, you can help your content become more visible on Google and drive more traffic.

5. Mobile load speed affects bounce rate.

A mobile-optimized website is not only crucial for SEO—it’s also a central element in creating a better visitor experience. That’s because visitors expect a streamlined, fast-loading mobile website experience. In fact, 53% of visitors will leave your website if your mobile pages take more than three seconds to load.

If you’re planning to reformat your website’s mobile version, keep web design best practices in mind. Decrease load times by resizing and compressing images, leveraging browser caching, and eliminating unnecessary characters and spaces from your code.

If you’re running into any roadblocks when trying to create a mobile-optimized website, reach out to a nonprofit web design firm for support. These experts can help you carry out audience research and develop a website revamp strategy with your organization’s unique branding and goals in mind.

Whether you tackle your website design in-house or with the help of an experienced professional, these five reasons make it clear that mobile-friendliness should be a top priority.

This guide explores the power of fundraising flyers and how nonprofits can create them.

Fundraising Flyers: How to Boost Nonprofit Marketing

August 1, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica King

When developing your nonprofit’s marketing plan, you’ll probably brainstorm some of the content you’ll create for several popular communication channels, including your website, email, social media, and direct mail. To make your organization stand out, consider branching out from these typical marketing methods and adding a new—but also traditional—marketing channel: fundraising flyers.

Fundraising flyers have been around for years, whether they were attached to bulletin boards, handed out at events, stacked in a bin by the front desk, sent in the mail, or delivered door to door. While paper flyers are still an effective way to draw attention to your cause, digital fundraising flyers open up even more opportunities for nonprofits.

Fundraising flyers come in all shapes, sizes, and content types. In this article, we’ll help you create fundraising flyers that will be most helpful to your organization’s marketing strategy:

What should a fundraising flyer include?
Fundraising flyer content ideas
Fundraising flyer format ideas
How to start designing fundraising flyers

Designing fundraising flyers can be highly rewarding for your organization, but it can also come with challenges. If you’d like help getting started or have any questions along the way, you can reach out to a graphic design service that will work with you on all your fundraising flyer needs.

What should a fundraising flyer include?

The exact information you include on a fundraising flyer will depend on your organization’s current advertising goals and the delivery method you choose. For instance, you’ll prioritize different details on a mailer promoting an ongoing fundraising drive than you would on a downloadable digital flyer advertising a one-time event.

There are a few common pieces of information that should always be on fundraising flyers, including:

Your organization’s name and logo. These foundational pieces of your nonprofit’s brand will allow supporters to identify that the flyer belongs to your organization immediately. In addition to increasing brand recognition, your name and logo will make your flyer stand out from any others supporters may see.
Consistent visual branding. To cement the connection between your flyer and your organization, use your nonprofit’s brand elements, like fonts and colors. While you’re focusing on these elements, ensure that your flyer is legible—for example, use dark-colored text on a light background or light-colored text on a dark background.
The title and purpose of your fundraiser. Supporters will only want to get involved if they know what they’re putting their time and money towards. Give your fundraiser a catchy name and explain its goals clearly on the flyer.
How supporters can participate. If you’re hosting an event, put the date, time, and location on the flyer. If you’re promoting a different fundraising method, such as a product fundraiser or in-kind donation drive, include the different ways in which supporters can contribute (online, in-person, via text, etc.).
Any benefits of participating. Supporters will have extra motivation to get involved in your fundraiser if they see on your flyer that they can enter a raffle, earn a prize, or enjoy a fun activity by participating. If you aren’t offering these incentives, place extra emphasis on the positive impact that supporters can make by contributing.
A specific call to action. Include a link or QR code where interested supporters can go to give to or register for your fundraiser as soon as they see your flyer, accompanied by a noticeable call-to-action phrase like “Sign Up Today!” or “Click Here to Donate Now!”
Contact information for your organization. Some supporters might have questions or want to learn more about your fundraiser before they commit to participating. To help them out, add a line of text to the bottom of your flyer that says, “For more information, contact us at…” followed by a phone number or email address.

Above all, your fundraising flyer should be helpful to supporters, so plan the content and style of your flyer with them in mind.

Fundraising flyer content ideas

In some ways, the name “fundraising flyer” can be a bit misleading as it may sound like it applies only to flyers that promote traditional donation drives. In reality, you can use a fundraising flyer to promote whatever fits with your organization’s current goals, whether that’s non-standard fundraisers or even fundraising-adjacent initiatives. These content ideas are great places to start.

1. Organizational overview flyer

If your nonprofit is relatively new, trying to reach an untapped group of potential supporters, or promoting your annual fund, you may want to create a flyer explaining the basics of who you are and how you make a difference. An organizational overview flyer includes the following elements:

A more prominent logo than on other types of flyers.
Your organization’s mission statement and core values.
Examples of major impacts you’ve made, supported with statistics and images.
A link to the homepage of your website and/or a contact form.

This way, you can connect new supporters to more resources after they get an overview of your mission and impact. While you may gain donors in the process, the main result will likely be increased awareness about your nonprofit that you can leverage for future support.

Example: charity:water

2. In-kind donation drive flyer

Fundraising flyers aren’t just for collecting monetary donations—they also work well for in-kind donation drives. Your flyer should include:

A list of items that need to be donated (and anything your organization can’t accept).
Start and end dates for the drive.
How donations will be collected—for example, indicate whether they’ll be picked up from supporters’ homes and workplaces or if they need to be brought directly to your organization.

Spread the word about your next food drive, clothing drive, school supply collection, or other need that can be fulfilled with gifts of physical items by designing a flyer.

Example: Community Food Bank

3. In-person event fundraiser flyer

Attract more attendees to your organization’s next event by distributing flyers far and wide. Compile the following elements on your flyer:

The title, date, time, and location of the event.
A short description of what participants will do at the event.
Some ways in which attending the event will make an impact.
The names and logos of your event’s sponsors.

Because in-person events often require large upfront costs, attracting participants to come and make donations is key to an effective fundraiser. A flyer is also a great way to put all the basic information that supporters need to know in one place.

Example: American Red Cross

4. Virtual event fundraiser flyer

Using a flyer to advertise your organization’s virtual event has similar effects to advertising an in-person event. You’ll just need to include slightly different details, such as:

A more concise, image-heavy description of the event, its impact, and its sponsors.
Any relevant links and instructions for how to participate virtually.
The date and time if applicable, or a note that participation is flexible.

Keep the design more simple as you’ll probably distribute the flyer via digital channels only. The flyer should be easy to download and skim for supporters who may quickly scroll past it.

Example: Coats’ Disease Foundation

5. Specific fundraising initiative flyer

Your nonprofit can spread awareness of new donation programs, major funding needs, or initiatives targeted at specific groups by highlighting them on fundraising flyers. Include the following elements:

Your mission statement front and center, no matter how well recognized your organization is.
Lots of details about the initiative’s purpose and rationale, supported by statistics.
Multiple ways to give.

Audience analysis will be especially helpful in this situation to ensure that you distribute your flyer in ways that your intended donors will notice. That way, your flyer will truly engage supporters and urge them to get involved.

Example: United Way

6. Volunteer opportunity flyer

Your organization can use flyers not only to attract donors, but also to bring in volunteers. You’ll still help to fulfill important needs, and volunteers are likely to engage with your nonprofit again in the future—and eventually donate—once they’ve seen your impact firsthand. Your flyer should include:

A description of what volunteering opportunities entail, supported by images.
Benefits both to your nonprofit and to volunteers.
The date, time, and location of each opportunity.
Several ways to sign up or contact your organization.

You could choose to make a large flyer explaining all the volunteer openings your nonprofit is trying to fill or several smaller flyers highlighting specific opportunities.

Example: Habitat for Humanity

Fundraising flyer format ideas

In addition to the variety of content types that you can use for your fundraising flyers, you can design them in several different styles. Each format type is suited for different delivery methods, and although you could use any style of flyer with any content you wanted, some types below and in the previous list pair particularly well.

1. Classic poster-style flyer

When you think of a flyer, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a rectangular poster about the size of a piece of printer paper. A classic, poster-style flyer could provide information about:

In-person events
Virtual events
In-kind donation drives

These are probably the most versatile style of flyer—in digital form, they’ll be small files that download quickly from your website, and you can print many copies in-house to deliver door-to-door or post around your community with permission.

2. Mailer-style flyer

When you start a direct mail marketing campaign, include a flyer with information and updates on your organization to illustrate the impact that donations will make. These flyers should cover specific fundraising initiatives, such as:

New donation programs
Major funding needs
Campaigns targeted to specific groups

Alternatively, mail out flyers individually to spread awareness of your organization.

3. Uniquely shaped flyer

Anyone can make a rectangular flyer, and nearly all organizations will. To make yours stand out on a bulletin board or in the mail, try designing your flyer in a different shape, such as:

The outline of your nonprofit’s logo
A shape related to your mission (such as a paw print for an animal shelter or a stack of books for an education-focused nonprofit)
An important item to the fundraiser you’re advertising (like a running shoe for a 5K or a can of soup for a food drive)

The main drawbacks to uniquely shaped flyers are that they can be more time-consuming to produce in-house since your staff or volunteers will have to cut each one out individually, and a print shop may charge more for each one. But if you really want to make your flyer stand out, these extra costs will be worth the added benefit of grabbing supporters’ attention.

4. Brochure-style flyer

For fundraisers where you need to go into extra detail in the marketing materials, creating a tri-fold brochure instead of a single-page flyer will maximize the available space on a standard piece of paper.

Organizational overview: Include a variety of statistics and photos of your impact.
Specific fundraising initiatives: Detail new funding needs or donation programs.
Volunteer opportunity: Give supporters several options for involvement.

These may take longer to download digitally than a poster-style flyer, but they’re just as easy to print many copies of so that each supporter can take one and refer back to it later.

How to start designing fundraising flyers

When you decide to make any content type or style of fundraising flyer for your nonprofit, you have two main options for creating the design. First, someone within your organization can make the flyer themselves, using graphic design tools available to help nonprofits, each of which offers a range of templates and features so that you can choose the program that best fits your needs.

But if you run into challenges when trying to create a flyer in-house or want to take your design to the next level, you can partner with expert graphic designers. Kwala is a graphic design service that connects nonprofits with a team of experienced professionals. Their subscription model gives your organization an unlimited number of designs and revisions each month for a flat rate. If you want to try out Kwala’s services before committing to the monthly rate, you can also request a quote on a one-off project.

Additional fundraising flyer resources

No matter what content or format type you choose, fundraising flyers are a great way to market your nonprofit. Spread awareness and spark engagement by creating a flyer for your organization today!

For more information, check out these resources:

Nonprofit Marketing Ideas: Promote Your Cause Effectively. Are you trying to figure out how fundraising flyers will fit into your nonprofit’s overall marketing strategy? Take a look at these ideas.
Creating Your Best Fundraising Flyer: 8 FAQs. Do you still have unanswered questions about designing fundraising flyers? This FAQ list will help you overcome challenges in the flyer creation process.
Kwala: Quality Subscription-Based Graphic Design. Are you ready to partner with expert graphic designers to create fundraising flyers for your organization? Fill out Kwala’s onboarding form to get started.

Check out these five impactful nonprofit marketing ideas your organization needs to effectively promote its cause.

5 Nonprofit Marketing Ideas You Need to Promote Your Cause

July 26, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising, Nonprofit Tools /by Jessica King

Nonprofit marketing is the key to growing your organization, gaining support, and having people show up to your events. Without marketing, there’s no way for people to know about your nonprofit and all the great work you’re doing.

It can be difficult to come up with effective marketing strategies for a variety of reasons, especially considering that it can take 18-20 points of contact to reach a new donor. Maybe you’ve been in the marketing world for a while and feel like your marketing plan could use a refresh. Perhaps you’re constrained by your organization’s small marketing budget. Or maybe you’re completely new to the nonprofit marketing space and have no idea where to start.

Whatever your position is, we’re here to offer a comprehensive list of nonprofit marketing ideas to choose from to help you successfully promote your organization’s work. Take a look at the categories we’ll go over:

What is Nonprofit Marketing?
Developing Your Organization’s Mission
Using Technology Effectively
Keeping Costs Down
Advertising Your Nonprofit
Fostering Relationships with Partners and Donors

Whether your organization needs low-cost ideas to fit its tight budget or is looking for a way to connect with more supporters, there is a marketing idea that can work for you.

Let’s get started!

What is Nonprofit Marketing?

Nonprofit marketing is the process of strategizing and planning ideas that will help your organization spread its reach and mission, obtain donations, and recruit supporters like volunteers, board members, and event attendees.

While nonprofit marketing is necessary for all organizations, it’s not always easy. You must be organized and focused on the goals you have for your nonprofit. Once you figure out the nonprofit marketing tactics that work for your nonprofit, they can help your organization by:

Spreading awareness of your mission. At the heart of your organization is your mission or cause. Nonprofit marketing can let people know what your organization is working so hard to achieve.
Securing donations. The more you can share your organization and its mission with others, the more potential donations you can receive.
Building relationships with donors. Of course, any monetary contributions your organization can obtain are useful, but recurring donations allow for a more stable income. If you can communicate with your donors effectively, they’ll be more likely to continue supporting your organization.
Gaining other supporters. Volunteers, board members, and event attendees offer valuable support just like donors do. Effective nonprofit marketing ideas can help you reach all kinds of people who are willing to assist you in achieving your mission.
Showcasing your services. Knowing exactly what your organization provides will inspire people to contribute to your nonprofit, and a comprehensive marketing plan can help highlight your services.

Now that you know just how useful the right nonprofit marketing ideas can be, we’ll go over some strategies for how to use them effectively. We’ve split these ideas into different categories based on the overall outcome they will have for your organization:

Nonprofit Marketing Ideas For Developing Your Organization’s Mission

A clear mission statement provides the basis for the values that govern what your organization does, how your employees approach their work, and how others see your organization.

Here’s how to get started with crafting your nonprofit’s mission:

Incorporate storytelling. It’s the classic dilemma: showing people the work your organization has done is way better than just telling them the services you provide. Gather stories and quotes from those your organization helps so that people can develop a personal connection to your organization. Seeing the impact your organization has on real people will help others understand exactly what they could contribute to.
Develop a stable marketing plan or strategy. Staying organized for any task requires making a plan, and marketing is no different. A comprehensive nonprofit marketing plan will map out what you want to achieve in the near and distant future to give your efforts some direction.
Exude confidence. If you want people to become a part of your organization, then you need to first believe in your work yourself. List your organization’s strengths so that people can see all the ways you excel as a nonprofit. In turn, people will be more willing to support your organization since it gives off a robust and self-assured image.

Create an original nonprofit tagline. It’s important to be able to sum up your mission in a short phrase or sentence. That way, people interested in your work can quickly get a sense of what it’s all about.
Come up with design, personality, and attitude guidelines. Cohesiveness is key. Not only do you want your marketing materials to match your mission, but the way your employees act should as well. Be clear with how you want your employees to represent your organization so that everyone knows your standards.
Provide information about your nonprofit’s goals and progress. Being transparent about what your organization is trying to achieve and the results you’ve gotten so far will help people to get a sense of where their help could fit in. It’s also just good practice for your nonprofit to be honest and forthcoming about its operations.

Once you have a good understanding of your organization’s mission, it’s time to get online and spread the word.

Nonprofit Marketing Ideas For Using Technology Effectively

In today’s media age, productive technology use is the key to marketing success. Using technology effectively can amplify your organization’s outreach even further and spread your mission to more people. Try out these tech-savvy nonprofit marketing ideas:

Text Messaging

With a 99% open rate and 90% read rate within just three minutes of sending, text messaging guarantees that your supporters won’t just open your messages and move on with their day. Instead, they will read and act on them.

To set up a winning text messaging campaign, you’ll need the right software and strategies. Here are a few best practices from Tatango’s guide to text-to-give:

Leverage comprehensive text fundraising software. Look for a provider with a full suite of user-friendly tools to create your text messaging campaigns, including automation, segmentation, scheduled sending, and real-time data reports. The right software will also ensure that your text messaging campaigns are compliant with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) so you don’t have to pay any unnecessary fees.
Choose a relevant text-to-give keyword. Your keyword is a word or brief phrase that supporters will text to your designated short- or long-code to opt into your campaign. The best keywords are both relevant and easy to spell and market. For example, a higher education institution could use the keyword “ALUMNI” for their alumni fundraising campaign.
Build your contact list. Market your text-to-give keyword and code widely across multiple marketing platforms so you can encourage different audiences to opt in. For example, you can advertise your text messaging campaign on your website’s donation page, on your social media, and in your direct mail.
Collect and analyze donor data. Assess how effective your text messaging campaign is over time by collecting metrics, such as the average donation amount, how frequently donors text-to-give to your cause, and donor lapses. This will help you identify any gaps in your strategy and optimize your approach to better engage and motivate donors to give.

Remember that the donation page you link to in your text-to-give campaign should be mobile-friendly. Because supporters will be navigating to the page on their mobile devices, you’ll need to make the process as quick and easy as possible.

Website

It’s important to have a strong nonprofit website to showcase your organization and cause. Here are some website nonprofit marketing ideas:

Make a website. A well-designed website for your organization is the most widely recognized, versatile online marketing tool. Ensure that yours is easy to use and features all the up-to-date information that potential donors, volunteers, employees, supporters, and clients need to learn about your organization.
Create a blog. Content marketing is a great way to share what’s going on within your organization and provide relevant information about your industry. Writing lots of blog content will show that you’re a reputable source for industry and nonprofit-related topics.
Write engaging copy. To make your copy easy to follow, break it up with graphics and try to be as concise as possible. It can also help your copywriters if you indicate what you’re envisioning for your brand’s voice and tone.
Work on your content’s SEO. SEO, or search engine optimization, is what ensures your content gets found on Google and other search engines. Find relevant terms people are searching for through keyword research and incorporate them into your website and blog.

While these ideas are an effective way to strengthen your site, there are plenty of other nonprofit marketing strategies out there.

Social Media

Social media is the perfect way to engage with your younger supporters. Check out these nonprofit marketing ideas for social media:

Build out your social media accounts. Social media is always changing, but it’s important to stay on top of the trends and new platforms. As of right now, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat are the places to be. Lean into trends and adapt them to your organization for a fun yet relevant social media presence.
Make videos. Videos often allow you to portray and elicit emotion in a way that images can’t. If you have the resources to do so, try creating a short video related to your mission and post it on YouTube, your website, and your social media channels.
Establish a connected online presence. Connect your website, blog, and social media accounts to provide a cohesive user experience. For example, provide the link to your website in the bio of your social media accounts and feature your social media accounts on the homepage of your website.

After you have developed your nonprofit’s website and social media accounts, remember to follow all general digital marketing best practices.

General Online Nonprofit Marketing Ideas

Finally, take a look at these general nonprofit marketing ideas to improve your organization’s online presence:

Encourage peer referrals with fundraising eCards. Design online greeting eCards for every occasion, so your supporters have plenty of options to choose from throughout the year. Be sure to connect each design to your cause by infusing brand elements like your logo, fonts, and graphics related to your work. Then, you can either offer them for free or in exchange for donations, so people can share how much they love your cause with their friends and families.
Include clear calls to action. To inspire action, tell people how they can help create change. Maybe you include a button in one of your blog posts linking to your donation page. Perhaps you add an event registration link to your email newsletter. Making it easy for people to take the actions you want them to make it more likely that they’ll respond accordingly.
Take advantage of virtual events. The boom of video chatting platforms in the workplace has opened up doors for virtual events. Now, you can plan an event that reaches hundreds or thousands of people all around the world. Host a panel or share some updates about your organization with your supporters for an engaging online experience.

Smart technology use can push your mission forward and help you gain support. However, it can get expensive to create so much content across different platforms, so it’s important to know how to budget your marketing plan.

Nonprofit Marketing Ideas For Keeping Costs Down

Nonprofits are typically on tight budgets, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t market their causes effectively. They just need to be smart about how they use their funds. Here are some ways you can promote your organization while keeping costs low:

Create a marketing budget. Allocate your resources where they will be most useful, and stay aware of how much money your organization has available to spend.
Print strategically. Consider what truly needs to be printed, aim to print double-sided pages whenever possible, and implement batch printing.
Unbrand direct mail. Cut spending by avoiding branded envelopes, but make it clear that the letter came from your organization so recipients won’t think it’s junk mail and toss it.
Add a “Donate Now” button to your Facebook page. If your nonprofit qualifies, Facebook will add the button to your page for free.
Team up with a local business to offset marketing costs. Local businesses are often happy to pair up with nonprofits as a way to give back to their community.

Keeping costs down where you can ensure that you can set aside the funds you need for bigger marketing projects and more expensive resources.

Nonprofit Marketing Ideas For Advertising Your Nonprofit

There are so many different nonprofit marketing ideas for advertising your organization’s services and making sure they’re put in front of the right audiences. This is great news because it means your organization can pick and choose the tactics that fit your nonprofit best. Check out some nonprofit marketing ideas for advertising your organization:

Online

Marketing your nonprofit online will allow you to reach a larger audience. Here are some nonprofit marketing ideas for spreading the word online:

Use Google Ad Grants. The Google Ad Grant program provides eligible organizations with $10,000 per month in Google Ad spending at no cost. You just have to apply, create your ads, and you’re good to go! However, you must maintain your account and follow all program requirements. If you need help with your Google Ad Grants account, schedule a free consultation with us.
Encourage peer-to-peer fundraising. Peer-to-peer fundraising is when individuals raise money for a nonprofit by reaching out to friends and family. Social media has made peer-to-peer fundraising even easier by building fundraising options on apps like Instagram and Facebook. For birthdays, holidays, memorials, or no occasion at all, individuals who are passionate about your organization can raise money for your cause.
Analyze your data. Track and review data such as clickthrough rate and time spent on each page to see if you can find any patterns and improve your marketing efforts. This nonprofit marketing idea can be especially useful when planning your advertising budget so that you can see where money needs to be allocated.

While it’s important to advertise your nonprofit online, there are still helpful ways to expand your organization’s reach using offline methods.

Schedule a free consultation for help with your Google Ad Grants account.

Offline

Combine your online marketing efforts with these offline nonprofit marketing ideas:

Sell branded merchandise. Turn your supporters into walking advertisements for your organization! Get creative with your merchandise to make it something that your supporters will love so others will get curious about your nonprofit.
Find brand ambassadors. Choosing a leader in your nonprofit to be the face of the organization can help with brand recognition and familiarize people with your nonprofit. Additionally, recruiting supporters or influencers to be brand ambassadors for your nonprofit is a great way to spread the word about your organization.
Give people a personalized experience. Whether that’s sending a letter to a donor thanking them for their support or reaching out to a supporter to deepen your relationship with them, customize the experience. People respond better when they know you took the time to give them something special.
Emulate larger organizations. Check out more established organizations’ blogs and scroll through their social media pages to get an idea of the progression of their organization.

Mixing up your advertising methods is a great way to reach many different people. It also allows you to learn more about your audience and which marketing efforts they respond to best.

Nonprofit Marketing Ideas For Fostering Stakeholder Relationships

All of your supporters are important, but developing relationships with partners and donors will strengthen your organization’s network and broaden your reach. Take a look at some of our marketing ideas for nonprofits looking to recruit more partners and donors:

Welcoming Partners and Donors

From the very beginning, you’ll want your new supporters to feel welcome in your organization’s community. Try out these nonprofit marketing ideas for new partners and donors:

Send a welcome package. Include helpful information about your organization and partner or donor program. Additionally, you’ll want to give them some fun branded merchandise such as a t-shirt, pen, or mug. Doing so can get people excited about working with you and show how much you appreciate them from the very start.
Take them out for a meal. Having lunch or coffee with a partner or donor is a great way to develop a relationship with them. You can show them that you care about getting to know them face-to-face, tell them a little more about your organization, and ask for feedback about your nonprofit.
Remind them of matching gift opportunities. If a donor’s employer is willing to match their donation, you could receive double the funding for your organization. It’s best for donors to use software that will inform them of matching gift opportunities beforehand, but it doesn’t hurt to them let know after they have made their donation to see if their employer can help.

Once you develop relationships with your partners and donors, it’s important to keep them strong.

Maintaining the Relationship

Keeping your relationships with your supporters is an essential part of your nonprofit’s success. Take a look at these nonprofit marketing ideas to help you maintain stakeholder relationships:

Thank your supporters and sponsors with greeting cards. Recognize your supporters for their commitment to your cause with eCards. Send cards during key times, like after they make a major donation or attend an event. Digital cards are also perfect to send during the year-end holiday season.
Be strategic with the timing of your messages. It’s important to build a regular email rapport with your partners and donors, whether that be by reaching out to them individually to chat or sending an email newsletter. However, make sure you look into the best time to send these messages. This may depend on the age, career, lifestyle, and time zone of your partners and donors.
Reach out to lapsed donors. Just because a donor hasn’t contributed in a while doesn’t mean that they’ve lost interest in your organization. Sometimes, donors are just busy or don’t have your organization on their minds. Sending them a gift or explaining how your donor program has changed can help to re-engage lapsed donors.

Forming relationships with supporters is one thing, but keeping them requires effective communication and dedicated donor stewardship efforts. Apply these nonprofit marketing ideas to your outreach to make sure you’re doing everything you can to create lasting connections with your supporters.

Additional Resources

Developing and implementing a marketing strategy can be a lot for a nonprofit to take on, but these nonprofit marketing ideas will give you a solid foundation on which to build. From solidifying your organization’s mission to fostering relationships with your supporters, there are so many ways to promote your nonprofit and make it stand out to prospects.

While we were able to give you a quick glimpse into several marketing ideas for nonprofits, you might want some more information about them. Below we’ve highlighted some resources about ideas that we mentioned:

Top 2023 Nonprofit Marketing Trends to Inform Your Strategy. Not sure if your marketing campaigns are fresh and innovative? Check out this year’s top marketing trends to shape your strategy.
Promoting Your Mission: 13 Free Nonprofit Marketing Tools. If you’re in the market for affordable (yet effective) marketing tools, look no further. Here are our top 13 picks.
Digital Marketing for Nonprofits: A Complete Guide. Diving into digital marketing can be a little scary. This comprehensive guide will soothe any apprehension and make it easy to get started.

This guide will cover top donor outreach strategies to transform your nonprofit’s outreach.

9 Donor Engagement Strategies to Transform Your Outreach

July 12, 2022/in Google Ad Grants, Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica King

Nonprofits rely on donors’ generosity to fund their mission programming and cover operating overhead costs. But an organization can’t expect to sit back and watch the revenue roll in without first outlining how they’ll identify donors, market their missions to them, and build relationships with them—which is where thoughtful donor engagement strategies come in.

A donor’s engagement extends beyond their donations. With the right tactics in place, you can transform them into lifelong ambassadors of your cause. On the other hand, failure to properly cultivate relationships with them means you’ll potentially lose their interest and their support altogether.

To help, we’ll walk you through the basics of engaging donors and explore proven methods that are known to drive nonprofit support, including:

What Is Donor Engagement?
Why Nonprofits Should Track Donor Engagement
Signals That Measure Donor Engagement
9 Donor Engagement Strategies to Drive Support

At Getting Attention, we empower nonprofits to connect with new prospects and promote valuable opportunities using the Google Ad Grant program. Through our time working with nonprofits, we’ve seen how different tactics drive results for nonprofits.

We’re confident this guide will give everything you need to better connect with your supporters and drive increased support in your fundraising initiatives. Let’s get started!

What Is Donor Engagement?

Donor engagement refers to the process of building and maintaining relationships between a nonprofit and its donors. This includes all interactions that encourage donors to become more invested and involved in the organization, including communications, events, volunteer opportunities, and fundraisers.

The primary goal of a donor engagement plan is to cultivate loyal relationships with donors by forging deeper connections. The more you engage donors, the more likely they are to stick around for the long term. In other words, their engagement directly impacts your donor retention rate.

To increase commitment, nonprofits often experiment with different donor engagement strategies like unique marketing tactics and public recognition to improve fundraising outcomes.

Why Nonprofits Should Track Donor Engagement

We’ve all heard that retaining a donor is more cost-effective than soliciting donations from first-time donors. New donors need countless touchpoints before deciding to give whereas current donors have already demonstrated an affinity for your cause and need less convincing.

Plus, due to fluctuating donor retention rates and increased marketing costs, the price of replacing lapsed donors has skyrocketed. As a result, losing donors is unaffordable for many organizations.

Tracking donor engagement is imperative to your mission’s continued success. Specifically, here’s what tracking donor engagement will enable your team to do:

Divide your supporters into meaningful donor segments. Send relevant appeals by grouping donors based on their donation tiers, donation frequency, and interests.
Identify areas to upgrade support. Locate major giving prospects by paying attention to long giving histories, notably high wealth indicators, and high engagement scores.
Create personalized acknowledgment and solicitations. Send targeted follow-up outreach that aligns with donors’ support levels and appeals to what they love about your organization.
Get ahead of potential lapses. Monitor people who have downgraded their support, whether they’re attending fewer events or stopped donating altogether.

Tracking the right details will allow your nonprofit to cultivate meaningful relationships and reduce the number of lapsed donors. Overall, investing sufficient time and energy can help you establish a solid foundation for your mission.

Signals That Measure Donor Engagement

Donor engagement expands far beyond financial contributions. While consistent giving is a top engagement indicator, there are several other factors that communicate donor involvement.

Using a powerful CRM and other digital tools, your nonprofit can track a range of donor engagement signals, like:

Gift amount and frequency
Recent upgrades or downgrades in donation size
Event attendance
Response rates
Hours volunteered
Social media interactions
Matching gift eligibility
Survey responses
Email subscription status and open rate
Website visits and time on site

As you can see, both financial and non-financial indicators can signal donor engagement. Using your CRM alongside other tools like Google Analytics for monitoring web traffic, you can identify donors who are at risk of disengagement or who are ready to upgrade their support.

For example, let’s say another donor consistently donates $50 on a regular basis, interacts with your social media posts, and fills out your surveys. They may be a great candidate for recurring giving. Monitoring the right metrics allows you to identify these upgrade opportunities!

9 Donor Engagement Strategies to Drive Support

With the fundamentals nailed down, you’re ready to craft a plan for engaging donors! Knowing what drives your supporters to stick around will help you interact meaningfully and communicate that your organization cares about its supporters.

Remember, each nonprofit’s donors are unique, so every organization finds success in different donor engagement strategies. Tailor your approach to your supporters, and you’ll be on the right path.

1. Google Ad Grants

If your nonprofit isn’t already leveraging Google Ad Grants in its marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to engage with existing and prospective donors. Here’s what getting involved in the program entails:

Google offers up to $10,000 in free advertising credits to eligible 501(c)(3) organizations per month.
Your nonprofit leverages this in-kind advertising space to promote your cause and its fundraising efforts to supporters by targeting specific keywords.
A (potential or existing) supporter conducts a Google search for a term related to your nonprofit.
Your nonprofit’s website shows up in the top spot on Google’s search engine results page.
The supporter clicks through to your nonprofit’s site and decides to get involved with your cause, such as by making a donation.

Our guide to Google Ad Grant impact shows that search ads (like Google Ads) have the highest ROI for nonprofits using paid advertising among other platforms. And since 98% of searchers click a result on page 1 of Google, you stand to gain a lot of exposure for your digital content.

Google Ad Grants are essential for increasing donor engagement on two key fronts⁠: attracting new supporters and providing additional engagement opportunities for existing supporters.

By utilizing the free ad space made available by the world’s most popular search engine, your organization can put your cause in front of tons of new and recurring donors, opening up even more chances for building on those relationships.

2. Matching gifts

Matching gifts are an extremely effective type of corporate philanthropy that places individual donors at the heart of their employers’ giving strategies. They help to deepen both corporate and donor relationships with your nonprofit.

Here’s how these workplace giving programs typically work:

An individual donor gives to your nonprofit.
You encourage the donor to look into their matching gift eligibility through their employer by providing access to a matching gift database or asking them to contact their company directly.
Upon determining their matching gift eligibility, the donor completes a quick online submission form to request their donation match.
The employer reviews the request and verifies that the initial donation adheres to pre-determined matching criteria.
A matching donation is provided by the donor’s employer, so your nonprofit receives two gifts for the price of one.

Highlighting matching gift opportunities is one of the most effective ways to engage donors⁠—and there are a ton of studies to back this up. Not to mention, following up with matching gift donors after their initial contribution provides your nonprofit with an additional touch point for reminding donors of your mission.

Research shows that 84% of donors are more likely to donate if a match is offered, with 1 in 3 donors indicating they’d give a larger gift if matching is applied.

Meanwhile, companies that do not currently match employee gifts may be willing to consider a Custom Matching Gift Program. To pursue this avenue, reach out to potential corporate partners and pitch the idea of a short-term workplace giving initiative that involves matching staff donations exclusively to your nonprofit.

Not only is this an excellent way to engage previously ineligible donors in matching gift campaigns, but it can also increase your fundraising reach as your mission is exposed to the company’s other team members.

Plus, having a successful corporate philanthropy partnership with a business can lead to further opportunities in the future, such as financial, media, or in-kind sponsorships.

3. Online greeting cards

Engaging donors requires you to get creative. Digital greeting cards might be just what you need to capture supporters’ attention! When you spend time creating visually-attractive designs, your eCards can act as an easy, cost-effective, and interactive way to engage donors.

There are a few ways you can leverage eCards in your donor engagement plan, including:

Provide cards as donation incentives. Give your donors a fun reason to give! eCardWidget’s guide to charity eCards explains that you have a few options for using eCards for fundraising. For one, you could sell your eCards in your online fundraising store. Alternatively, add them to your website where donors can give in exchange for eCards.
Send cards to thank donors. Showing appreciation for donors can go a long way in retaining their support. Have your fundraising staff send thank-you eCards as a way to recognize your committed supporters after they donate or during the holiday season.

We recommend that you create designs for every occasion. Create a mission awareness collection to amplify a cause awareness campaign, holiday cards to celebrate important days year-round, and tribute cards to let individuals give in someone else’s name. Your options are endless! Donors will appreciate having a fun, interactive way to support your cause and share it with their loved ones.

If you’re offering them in exchange for donations, make sure your online greeting card creation platform allows you to enable donations. No matter your approach, be sure to brand each eCard to your cause, even if you only add your logo to the corner.

4. Peer-to-peer giving

Organizations hosting peer-to-peer campaigns are able to reach new donors (via existing supporters who take on a fundraising role for your nonprofit) while offering one of the most engaging ways for existing supporters to participate.

Equipped with customizable donation pages from the organization’s peer-to-peer platform, supporters then reach out to their own networks of friends and family members to solicit donations for a cause they care about.

First-time donors are more likely to contribute when asked by peers, rather than directly by your organization. Donately’s guide to peer-to-peer fundraising explains that “even if they’re unfamiliar with your work, they can still form a personal connection thanks to the power of social proof.” That means this donor engagement strategy enables your team to get in touch with new supporters you may not have won over on your own.

All the funding goes to your organization’s mission, and you’re left with a ton of donors who are highly engaged with the cause. From there, you can work to continue building connections with new and existing individuals through additional donor engagement ideas.

5. Volunteer opportunities

Even your most dedicated donors don’t want their only communication with your team to be additional requests for funding. That’s why it’s an excellent idea to offer unique opportunities for involvement with your mission.

And one of the best ways to do so is by encouraging donors to participate in volunteer opportunities! This can be an excellent way for donors to see your cause in a new light.

Not to mention, you can even monetize this donor engagement strategy by highlighting the potential for volunteer grants. Many donors (especially those previously determined to be eligible for matching gifts) work for companies that provide financial support to the nonprofits their employees volunteer with.

6. Donor appreciation

Two of the most common reasons why donors stop giving to nonprofit organizations they’ve supported in the past are:

They were never thanked for their gift.
They were not informed about how the funding was being used.

Both of these undersights together can lead a donor to believe that the nonprofit in question didn’t really need their donation in the first place. ⁠As a result, donor engagement may decrease.

Luckily, effectively communicating appreciation for your donors can assist in solving all of the above problems. You’ll want to thank each individual donor for supporting your nonprofit with their hard-earned dollars through meaningful outreach via a variety of methods, such as:

A handwritten thank-you letter. Show a little extra effort by writing thank-you messages the old-fashioned way. It’ll add personality to your note and remind donors that they’re supporting an organization comprised of real people.
A video message. Think outside the box and create a more dynamic thank-you message for donors. Feature your nonprofit’s staff, supporters, board members, and even beneficiaries (with their permission). Not only are videos impactful, but they’re easy to make; all you need is a mobile device with a camera to shoot, edit, and send video thank-you messages.
Access to exclusive content and opportunities. After you’ve thanked your supporters, you can show further appreciation by providing unique content they can’t get anywhere else. For instance, invite them to meet and greets with beneficiaries, special webinars with nonprofit influencers, and other interesting chances to engage further with your mission.
Donor appreciation days. Who doesn’t love a party? Donor appreciation days allow you to pull out all the stops for your supporters. Make it a night to remember with free food trucks, games, goodie bags, and live entertainment. Or, you can organize an outing to a fun community activity, such as the zoo or a sports game.
Addition to a donor wall. Your donors want to leave their mark on your nonprofit, and you can symbolize this connection with a donor wall. Create different tiers based on the value of the donor’s contributions and add them to it on an annual basis. You can even host an inauguration ceremony for new additions to make your donors feel special.
Donor gifts. Re:Charity’s expansive list of donor gift ideas explains that thoughtful gifts help to show appreciation and that you value your relationships with donors. Gifts can include branded merchandise, gift cards, or tickets to activities.

Not only is thanking your donors the polite thing to do, but it also helps close the loop and reiterate to the donor that you received and processed their contribution successfully. So long as you show genuine appreciation for your supporters, you can cultivate lasting relationships with them and retain their support long-term.

7. Segmentation and personalization

Unfortunately, a donation appeal that begins with “Dear donor” or “To whom this may concern” and ends with a generic request of $5, $10, $25, or $50 is not likely to produce great results. That’s because it won’t elicit the emotional connections that are required for effective fundraising nowadays.

Why not? An effective ask needs to incorporate strategic segmentation and personalization⁠—two things that, when done well, can go particularly far for your donor engagement plan. It’s what makes a donation request feel like an intimate appeal to an essential partner in your organization’s mission (which, as you know, is what your donors are).

In order to drive donor engagement, segment your communications. You should group donors by specific characteristics to receive targeted information relevant to that slice of your network. Common segments might include:

Donation level (including frequency and amount)
Geographic region
Interests (e.g., lifestyles, attitudes, and mission engagement preferences like events or monthly gifts)
Preferences (including communication preferences and preferred involvement opportunities)

Further, you should also personalize your communications to each individual. That may include addressing the recipient by name, referring to a recent donation, or acknowledging how long the donor has been involved with your organization.

8. Unique fundraising ideas

Choosing unique, exciting, and refreshing fundraisers is an essential part of engaging donors! And that’s not saying you have to drop your tried-and-true fundraising ideas, either. Just try sprucing them up to make them stand out, and your audience will be more than happy to participate.

A few ways to spice up your existing fundraising ideas include:

Incorporate a fun theme. For example, if you usually host a fun run in the fall, consider getting into the holiday spirit with a Halloween costume theme. This will help set your fundraiser apart from others.
Add entertainment. While your fundraiser surely has a main event, don’t be afraid to add side entertainment and activities to keep attendees engaged. For instance, add a concession stand to your fun run, or incorporate a wine tasting at your next gala.
Implement gamification. To get attendees to emotionally invest in your event, implement gamification elements so they further connect with your fundraiser. This could mean incorporating a fundraising thermometer so attendees can visually see the impact of their gifts, encouraging them to make larger gifts.

Aside from these strategies, you can also consider taking your in-person fundraising events virtual. By doing so, you’ll be able to connect with more supporters all across the country and even the globe. Or, if you’re intimidated by the thought of an entirely online event, you could make your next event hybrid instead.

9. Powerful storytelling

The story you tell about your nonprofit and its mission is essential for securing and retaining donor support.

To bring your strategic storytelling practices to the next level and inspire more supporters to get involved, it’s important to incorporate essential storytelling elements. Include these three fundamental components:

A group or person in need of aid (your organization’s beneficiaries)
A compelling hero (your nonprofit’s team and the donors who support your work)
A key solution (what your organization does to make a difference).

From there, you’ll also want to include supporting data, an emotional narrative, sensory details, and relevant imagery when possible.

The idea is that donors feel connected to the story and desire to play a role in the solution⁠—thus, supporting (or continuing to support) your organization in its work!

Final Thoughts on Donor Engagement

Your donor base forms an essential component of your overall nonprofit organization, and their engagement with your cause is critical for continuous mission success. A highly engaged donor is more likely to contribute to your cause time and time again⁠—so you don’t want to settle for base-level efforts.

Luckily, utilizing donor engagement strategies like workplace giving promotions, strategic fundraising, and cost-effective marketing can make a huge difference. That means it’s time to begin incorporating these ideas into your donor engagement plan and make sure you equip your team with the tools required to do so effectively!

Want to learn more about engaging donors in your nonprofit organization? Browse these additional resources:

How to Optimize A Google Grant Account: 8 Mistakes & 9 Tips. Engaging donors means promoting the right opportunities to them. We recommend using Google Ads through the Google Ad Grant program. Find out how to set up and optimize your account for your nonprofit’s needs.
Digital Marketing for Nonprofits Made Easy: A Guide. Consistent communication is essential for engaging donors and acquiring new supporters. Dive into the digital communication world and learn how to market your mission in exciting ways.
The Ultimate Guide to Donor Retention: 8 Strategies. Engaging donors will naturally boost your retention rate. Learn other ways to ensure your donors stick around for the long term.

Matching gifts despite economic downturns and how corporate funding remains steady

Matching Gifts Remain Steady (If Not Growing) Despite Economic Downturns

July 11, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica King

Effective fundraising can be difficult in the best of times, and strenuous economic circumstances can throw a wrench in any organization’s well-laid-out plans. That said, matching gift programs remain a top source of funding for many nonprofits, and matching gifts despite economic downturns is entirely possible.

In order to best craft a matching gift strategy for your organization, it’s essential to both look at past examples and cite probable trends for the future.

Which is why, in this guide, we’ll share valuable insights into the following:

What We’ve Learned From Previous Economic Downturns
What We’re Seeing Regarding Program Updates in 2022
What We Can Expect for the Future of Matching Gifts

The good news is this ⁠— research shows that matching gift opportunities remain steady and are likely to continue doing so. At the same time, it’s important to equip your team with the knowledge surrounding matching gift programs, their current status in the nonprofit sector, and what you can do to set your mission up for success.

Let’s begin.

What We’ve Learned From Previous Economic Downturns

Since the conclusion of the Great Depression in 1939, the U.S. has fallen into thirteen economic recessions. In the most recent circumstances, we’ve seen the effects that difficult national (and even global) financial crises have had on one of the most popular forms of corporate philanthropy⁠—matching gifts.

Luckily, the evident impact has been largely positive, which is a benefit to the companies, their employees, and nonprofit causes around the world.

Matching Gifts in the Great Recession

The Great Recession, which occurred from December of 2007 to June of 2009, was one of the first to take place while matching gift programs were a commonplace type of philanthropy. And while many were concerned about companies taking away the giving opportunities, this didn’t tend to be the case.

In the words of Aron Cramer, president and CEO of Business for Social Responsibility, “This recession is wiping away a lot of things, but so far, corporate responsibility seems to be a survivor.” Looking back on the happenings, we’re glad to report that corporate giving continued to thrive throughout the downturns.

Here’s what a few well-known companies had to say (and do) concerning corporate giving in the 2008 recession:

General Electric — According to its 2008 annual report, the GE Foundation reallocated an additional $20 million to increase its support for organizations providing communities with basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. In fact, General Electric’s overall philanthropic giving grew by 13.6% as compared to the previous year⁠—despite a stock price decrease of 55%.

In the words of GE’s Chairman and CEO at the time, Jeffrey Immelt, “When we come out of this fog, this notion that companies need to stand for something – they need to be accountable for more than just the money they earn – is going to be profound.”

Starbucks ⁠— In December of 2008, Howard Schultz, at-the-time CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company, published a contributor piece in the Huffington Post outlining his passionate belief in the participation of corporate social responsibility. Amidst the economic downturn of the time, Schultz proclaimed that it was not the time to cut giving and other social contributions.

In his own words, the Starbucks CEO stated, “With that mindset comes the false belief that investments in people and training can wait; that corporate social responsibility can be put on the back burner.” And the idea is reflected in Starbucks’ matching gift data, as well! Not only did the company retain its matching gift program despite overall financial hardship, but it saw a 28.6% increase in matching gift totals from year over year (source: 2007 and 2008 Global Impact Reports).

Matching Gifts + COVID-19

The next recession seen by the U.S. took place between February and April of 2020 and was the direct effect of the coronavirus pandemic during the same time period. And again, many were pleasantly surprised at the charitable responses taken by tons of businesses, small and large.

Check out these companies’ matching gift responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn:

AbbVie ⁠— In order to aid in COVID-19 relief efforts, global biopharmaceutical company AbbVie opted to significantly increase its charitable contributions to nonprofit causes amidst the pandemic outbreak. In late March of 2020, the company announced a $35 million donation above and beyond its existing nonprofit funding⁠. This was in addition to an expanding matching gift program for its employees, offering to match team member donations at a 2:1 rate, rather than its typical dollar-for-dollar approach.

According to chairman and chief executive officer, Richard A. Gonzalez, “AbbVie is making this donation to nonprofit partners that will have an immediate and significant positive impact in communities that have been hit hardest by this unprecedented crisis. Our 30,000 AbbVie team members around the world are proud to be able to help make a difference in the fight against this virus.”

General Mills ⁠— General Mills, Inc. similarly chose to increase its employee matching gift program in response to COVID-19 as a way to further motivate its employees to give back to their communities. In March of 2020, the company increased its maximum matching gift amount per employee by 50%. Not to mention, when you consider General Mills’ already-established 2:1 match ratio, the company set its employees up to continue making a significant difference, resulting in over four times their initial donations’ impact.

Mary Jane Melendez, president of the General Mills Foundation, reported the following: “As a company, we have the values, insights, and partners to positively impact the lives of millions of people worldwide during this unprecedented time as the world navigates the COVID-19 pandemic. These grants will help expand food access and lend added support for many of our communities around the world.”

And it didn’t end there, either! Double the Donation compiled a list of even more key companies that chose to expand their matching gift initiatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic⁠. This includes Apple (introduced a two-to-one ratio as opposed to their traditional dollar-for-dollar match), Google (significantly increased their matching gift cap to $20,000 per employee), Honda, Microsoft, and more.

What We’re Seeing Regarding Recent Program Updates

This has been a significant year in terms of changes—both regarding corporate matching gift programs as well as in the overall economic landscape. Luckily, despite any economic downturns we’ve seen, the adjustments in matching gift programs have been overwhelmingly positive.

Let’s browse a few companies that have enhanced their employee donation-matching initiatives in the past year—and specifically, how they’ve done so.

Reinstated Programs

These programs that had previously lapsed have been brought back, further empowering their employees to get involved:

Murphy Oil Corporation – Corporate matching gift program reinstated
Kimray – Corporate matching gift program reinstated with a new maximum match of $2,000

Increased Match Ratios

Increasing matching gift ratios enables employee donors and the nonprofits they support to do exponentially more with the funding they contribute. Now, with growing match ratios, these companies aim to double, triple, and even quadruple their team members’ individual gifts:

The Chicago Community Trust – Corporate match ratio increased from 2:1 to 3:1
Virtus Investment Partners – Corporate match ratio increased from 1:1 to 2:1
CBRE Inc. – Corporate match ratio increased from 0.5:1 to 1:1
Halliburton – Corporate match ratio increased from 2:1 to 2.25:1

Elevated Donation Maximums

As corporate donation matching maximums grow, so does the capacity for donors’ matching gifts to make a difference for the causes they care about. Check out these companies’ programs, now with more room for eligible matching:

LinkedIn – Corporate match maximum increased to $15,000
National Grid USA – Corporate match maximum increased from $500 to $2,000
The RMR Group – Corporate match maximum increased to $1,000
Northrop Grumman – Corporate volunteer grant maximum increased from $400 to $500
The Chicago Community Trust – Corporate match maximum increased to $7,500
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts – Corporate match maximum increased from $4,000 to $8,000
Nike – Corporate volunteer grant maximum increased from $1,000 to $2,000
Hearst Communications – Corporate match maximum increased to $10,000
Loomis Sayles – Corporate match maximum increased from $1,000 to $2,000
CBRE Inc. – Corporate match maximum increased from $500 to $1,000

Matching gifts as a whole tend to ebb and flow; one program may end, while another few begin. However, we’ve seen the overall offerings increasing steadily in the past few years. And as we jump into the new year, we can continue to expect program enhancements, new offerings, and more.

What We Can Expect for the Future of Matching Gifts

As the U.S. economy trends downward, many are once again beginning to question the future of matching gift fundraising opportunities. Will companies cancel these programs as their own profits are in danger? Or will they up their giving efforts as their communities’ needs continue to grow?

Unfortunately, there’s no way to look directly into the future and figure out what companies will end up choosing. However, a look at the past, and an analysis of current matching gift trends, can help us craft our hypotheses.

And that being said, here’s what we can expect to occur in terms of matching gifts despite economic downturns:

Companies with existing programs will continue to match employee gifts.

First things first, most companies that already match employee donations are likely to continue doing so. A matching gift program is typically an ongoing initiative rather than something that is often canceled and re-instated at a later, more promising point in time. Most companies see matching gifts as what they are⁠—long-term, positive investments⁠—and will not opt to negate their offering, even despite a nearing or existing recession.

Not to mention, the vast majority of companies will have already established their matching gift budgets for the time being. Plus, cutting corporate philanthropy programming in order to increase business profits would be a pretty poor public relations strategy⁠. This is especially true in a time when corporate social responsibility is being increasingly demanded from businesses across the globe.

More companies will begin offering employee donation-matching initiatives.

In a recent survey, 39% of companies reported plans to expand their workplace giving programs (such as matching employee gifts) in the next two years. Regardless of challenging economic conditions, the demand for charitable-minded companies is increasing.

Employees want to work for companies that support the greater good⁠—often through nonprofit causes⁠. Not to mention, consumers want to spend their dollars in the same way by supporting businesses that care about giving back.

This is particularly crucial in a time such as now, which is being referred to as the “Great Resignation.” Individuals are leaving their existing companies in droves in order to find employment that better suits their wants and needs. For many, that means locating opportunities with companies that prioritize social responsibility and philanthropy⁠—especially to the nonprofits that they themselves support.

Thus, more and more businesses are looking for new ways to demonstrate their participation in corporate social responsibility. One of the easiest and most impactful ways to do so is with employee gift-matching, which is why employers are launching new programs every day⁠. And we expect that they’ll continue to do so!

Some employers will expand their matching gift program thresholds.

Considering how many companies opted to increase their matching gift programs during the recessions of 2008 and 2020, it can be expected that some will choose to do the same now.

Economic difficulty and community needs tend to share a positive correlation⁠—when one increases, the other follows suit. As a result, corporations see a growing demand for nonprofit services and feel compelled to do even more.

And as a bonus for nonprofits, these expanding programs tend to see particularly high levels of employee participation as well. When team members see their employers giving or offering more to charitable causes, they can be increasingly inspired to contribute their own dollars as well.

Next Steps for Elevating Your Nonprofit’s Gift-Matching

What can you do to help your organization make the most of available corporate donation-matching dollars? The #1 step you can take is ensuring your donors are aware of the opportunities in the first place.

In fact, studies show that over 26 million individuals are currently employed by companies with matching gift programs. But more than 78% of this group has never been informed about them! And, despite being eligible to participate, these individuals will be unable to secure matching gifts from their employers on your behalf if they don’t know about the programs.

So keep an eye out for companies with matching gift programs as they’re constantly changing, and new programs are being added every day. Then, be sure to educate your donors about the vast opportunities at hand⁠—and how they can get involved.

For donors interested in matching gifts who work at employers without a program, provide them with the resources they need to pitch a matching gift program to their employer. This might be information about your nonprofit’s programs specifically and how your initiatives align with the given company’s values or general information about how matching gift programs can boost employee engagement and motivation.

Interested in learning more about matching gifts (despite economic downturns and beyond)? Check out these other information-packed resources:

14 Important Questions to Ask About Matching Gifts. You probably have some questions about matching gifts and how your organization can make the most of these programs for your cause. Read up on these frequently asked questions and answers to find out everything you need to know!
The Ultimate Guide to Securing Corporate Sponsorships. Matching gifts aren’t the only corporate giving program these companies are offering, either. Browse this comprehensive guide to determine the best ways to secure corporate sponsorship opportunities for your cause.
Matching Gift Best Practices: Raise More for Your Nonprofit. Do more with matching gifts! These tried-and-true matching gift fundraising best practices will show you how to inform your audience about the programs, simplify the participation process for donors, and much more.

This guide will help you understand the relationship between donor data research and retention and how to leverage it for fundraising.

An Ultimate Guide to Donor Data Research and Retention

July 11, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica King

You’ve likely heard the saying that it’s cheaper to retain a donor than it is to find a new one. It’s why maintaining high levels of retention is so crucial for many organizations. Luckily, donor data research can help!

In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about donor data⁠ and how it can impact your overall retention rates. This will include:

Types of Donor Data to Prioritize
How Nonprofits Can Collect Donor Data Insights
The Impact of Donor Data Research on Retention

By collecting detailed information about your supporters, you can develop beyond-surface-level relationships and better target your marketing outreach to each individual. In the end, you’ll see more donors continuing to support your efforts, providing your organization with improved fundraising results over time.

Ready to find out how to leverage donor data research in your retention strategy? Let’s begin with the basics.

Types of Donor Data to Prioritize

There’s a ton of information available out there about each and every person. To optimize your donor retention strategy, you need to know which types of data will be of use to you.

We recommend prioritizing the following:

Contact information

An individual’s contact information is the most essential element of their donor profile. It’s what you need to get in touch with the donor after their initial contribution, thank them for their support, and begin developing a relationship. In the end, it’s also what you’ll use to send follow-up donation requests.

Ideally, this donor data should include as many of the following details as possible:

Name
Phone number
Email address
Mailing address

If you have multiple ways to get in contact with a donor, it can also help to note their preferred communication methods. This might incorporate text messaging, phone calls, email correspondence, direct mailings, and more.

Nonprofit involvement

Next, it’s important to have a solid understanding of an individual’s historical nonprofit involvement⁠—both with your organization and others. Thus, ideal data on an individual’s nonprofit involvement should include:

Previous donations to your nonprofit
Volunteerism experience
Giving to other organizations (especially those with similar missions)
Nonprofit board participation

For example, you’ll want to engage with a long-time repeating donor much differently than you would a first-time contributor to your cause. Luckily, this information should be one of the easiest to collect and leverage⁠—particularly when it comes to giving history in regards to your own organization⁠—using your nonprofit’s CRM or donor management system.

Employment details

Did you know that your donors’ employment information is one of the most crucial pieces of data you can access? Not only can this information help roughly identify your supporters’ wealth status (more on that below), but it can also open up significant opportunities for matching gifts, volunteer grants, and more. Plus, understanding employment status can even help uncover invaluable business connections and open doors for potential corporate sponsorships as well.

So what exactly do you need to know? The company an individual works for is likely the simplest data point to find. From there, however, additional information such as employment type (full-time, part-time, seasonal or temporary, retired, etc.), job title, and tenure at the business can provide further insights into a donor’s employment.

Matching gift eligibility

A donor’s matching gift status is most often directly related to their employment. But an individual’s matching gift eligibility is such a key component that it should be considered its own donor data point altogether.

Once you know where your donors work (and typically, their employment type), you’ll be more likely to determine whether they qualify for workplace giving programs. From there, you’ll be able to easily and efficiently communicate that eligibility to each individual.

As a result, this data point can function as an additional engagement opportunity (or more likely, multiple). Not to mention, studies report donors being more likely to give if they know that their gift can be matched! And when you follow up with match-eligible donors after they give, you can keep your organization at top of mind for longer, remind them about the impact of potential matches, and ultimately drive more corporate revenue toward your cause.

Wealth data

Understanding a supporter’s wealth level is an essential part of determining ideal donation request amounts and, thus, optimizing your donor relations strategy. In order to craft a solid estimate for an individual’s ability to give, consider the following types of wealth marker information:

Real estate ownership
Stock ownership
Political giving
Business affiliations
Salary estimations

Together, these data points enable you to recognize and identify prospective major donors and target them as effectively as possible within communications.

Bonus! Hobbies and interests

An individual’s choice of hobbies and interests can tell you a lot about who they are as a person⁠—rather than just a wallet. Though this may not be as “essential” as the other data points listed, having this information in your donor profiles is never a bad idea.

For example, let’s say you’re having a face-to-face conversation with a major donor. Knowing about their hobbies and interests, such as favorite sports (and sports teams), pastimes, animals, foods, and more, can help identify opportunities for genuine connections and similarities and begin building a rapport in the relationship.

How Nonprofits Can Collect Donor Data Insights

Now that you know what kinds of data points are of interest to your fundraising team, how exactly will you go about collecting that information?

Here are a few key methods you might use:

Online donation forms

Did you know that your organization’s online donation forms can provide a wealth of invaluable information about your donors? And if so, are you doing as much as you can with the donor data you collect?

As a donor completes their gift by utilizing your nonprofit’s online donation tool, they’re likely prompted to enter a range of details⁠—from their name and contact info to the way they got involved with your organization.

Matching gift software

Matching gift software (such as Double the Donation) is a specific type of fundraising technology that typically integrates with an organization’s online donation form, CRM, and more. it’s one of the simplest and most impactful ways to collect information about donors’ employment⁠—including current company and matching gift program eligibility.

There are a few ways that this software typically works! For one, a matching gift database search tool can be embedded directly into the organization’s online donation page and/or confirmation screen. Once donors visit the page, they are prompted to enter their company’s name in the auto-completing search tool, which then provides them with detailed information about the company’s available matching gift program criteria and next steps. Not to mention, the company name entered in the search tool is automatically associated with the individual’s donor profile for the organization to come back to.

Even if donors overlook the matching gift tools during the online giving experience, matching gift software may identify additional match-eligible supporters through corporate email domain screening, automated email follow-ups, and more.

Data append services

Have you already utilized multiple of the above methods for collecting donor data and realized you still have a number of holes in your donor profiles? That’s when you may want to consider data append services to help fill in the gaps!

Data appends are typically conducted by third-party agencies that have access to tons of publicly and privately held data sources on millions of individuals. All you need to do is supply the service provider with the information that you do have (for example, a donor’s first and last name and email address).

The appends service then scans that information against the rest of the data and provides additional details about each individual (such as their place of employment, mailing address, birth date, and more).

Asking directly

One of the most straightforward ways that an organization can collect information about its donors is by going directly to the source⁠—the donors themselves.

Common ways for doing so include sending out a brief online survey in which donors can provide a range of requested information or offering donors access to a customizable online donor profile for your organization. In either case, individuals can share details about themselves, which your organization can use to get better acquainted with its audience.

The Impact of Donor Data Research on Retention

Once you’ve collected a plethora of information about your donors, it’s time to use that information to optimize your supporter relations strategy. Consequently, you’ll typically see significantly improved retention levels in no time.

These are some of the specific, tangible benefits of donor data research that result in nonprofit supporters sticking around for the long haul.

Personalization in communications

Personalized communications are more likely to grab recipients’ attention. This typically results in higher open rates, conversion rates, and more.

In order to personalize your organization’s messaging, however, you must have donor data to incorporate. At the very least, you need to know⁠—and use⁠—your donors’ names! Other helpful data points can include recent donation history (amount and campaign), events attended, and personal connections to your organization’s mission.

Take a look at these examples:

“Dear Brenda, Thank you so much for your recent donation of $200 to our cat rescue organization. Your generous support continues to make our mission possible⁠—and we’ve loved getting to know you at our recent gala, too!”

“Dear donor, thank you for your donation! Your generous support continues to make our mission possible⁠.”

Increased personalization makes donors feel more intimately connected to your organization as a key component of your mission. When this occurs, they’ll be more likely to continue supporting your cause with additional gifts for years to come.

Want to learn about nonprofit digital marketing trends and techniques? Subscribe to the Getting Attention newsletter.

Targeted donation request amounts

Organizations often use specific donation asks to encourage donors to make larger gifts⁠—both within online donation forms and with face-to-face major donation requests. However, you can’t just choose a set range of dollar amounts and use it as a universal suggestion for all donors.

Why? If your suggested amounts are all beyond a prospect’s giving ability, they’re likely to feel discouraged from giving and perhaps never complete their intended gift. At the same time, if you request small or mid-size “typical” donation amounts from a potential major donor, you’re likely to leave significant funding on the table.

That’s where targeted donation asks come in! By understanding your supporters—complete with a solid foundation of donor data research⁠—you can craft ideal gift requests for each individual. The donor will be more likely to contribute to your cause, and you’re likely to maximize the donations you receive.

Workplace giving opportunities

Workplace giving programs⁠—such as matching gifts and volunteer grants⁠—can offer a significant form of funding for nonprofit organizations. They can also increase donor engagement, encourage on-the-fence individuals to contribute, and keep supporters coming back time and time again.

In fact, 84% of donors even report that they’re more likely to donate if they know a match is being offered, and mentioning matching gifts in your fundraising appeals results in a 71% increase in response rate.

All of that is to say that they’re great ways for nonprofits to boost donor retention. And, your donor data research sets you up for continuous success in that field by identifying eligible donors to follow up with.

Multi-channel marketing

The most effective way to ensure your marketing materials reach existing donors and encourage them to keep giving is to use data-driven approaches. Storing basic donor information such as their demographics, engagement with your nonprofit, and interests helps you hone in on the best strategy to drive conversions. Specifically, donor data can help you:

Know which platforms to prioritize. Keeping track of your most popular communication channels helps you decide which are worth further investment. For instance, if 90% of your donors prefer email communications to direct mail, that’s a good indication of where you should focus your budget and efforts. Some of the other channels include SMS, direct mail, social media, email, website, in-person, and strategic partnerships within your community.

Pivot your strategy over time. Your donor base is constantly changing, so your outreach approach should too. Your marketing copy should include a blend of evergreen and topical focuses to accommodate upcoming campaigns and more general messages of support. Track data such as donor response rates to gauge which approaches work best.
Create CTAs. Different calls to action work for different segments of your supporter base. Tracking donors’ campaign interests makes it easier to make calls to action resonant and personal to more of your donors.
Target the right keywords. One of the best digital marketing channels for nonprofits is search ads. Plus, with the Google Ad Grants program, you can get up to $10,000 of free advertising space on Google’s search engine results page every month. Donor data such as location and interests can help you decide the best keywords to target. For instance, if you want to reach donors in a certain area, you can target local keywords for your most-populated donor areas.

Want to learn more about Google Ad Grants? Watch the video below for a rundown:

It’s much more difficult to advertise without donor data to guide your tactics. Boost your return on investment in marketing across every channel by intentionally leveraging relevant donor information.

Main Takeaway for Donor Data Research and Retention

The more you know about your donors, the better you can craft relationships with them. And the stronger your donor relationships, the more likely they are to continue supporting your cause time and time again.

Ready to learn more about donor data management and what you can do with the information for your cause? Check out these additional resources:

Data Hygiene: Keeping Your Donor Database Clean. In order to collect, organize, and leverage donor data research for your cause, it’s important that you understand data hygiene best practices. Check out our recommended best practices here.
Nonprofit Marketing: A Behind-the-Scenes Guide for Success Data-informed marketing can bring your organization’s strategy to the next level. Learn all about nonprofit marketing, and how to develop a detailed plan, in this guide.
The Ultimate Guide to Securing Corporate Sponsorships. The more you know about your donor base, the better you can target potential corporate sponsorships. Read up on our top tips and tricks for securing sponsors for your next event or project.

Explore these five designer-approved nonprofit graphic design steps to make a bigger impact with your next marketing campaign.

5 Insider Nonprofit Graphic Design Steps to Boost Campaigns

July 5, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica King

Nonprofit marketing helps organizations raise awareness about their missions, promote their services in the community, and attract volunteers and donors.

Take your nonprofit’s marketing strategy to the next level by incorporating high-quality graphic design. These graphics have a host of benefits for your nonprofit—for example, studies indicate that 46% of consumers decide the credibility of an organization based on its web designs and visual content. Quality graphics also make your message more engaging for your supporters and boosts your overall brand awareness.

We’ll cover these five designer-approved steps to creating a great nonprofit graphic design strategy:

Establish Your Nonprofit’s Brand
Choose Graphic Design Tools to Get Started
Tell Stories Through Your Graphic Design
Keep Your Nonprofit’s Audience in Mind
Stay Open to New Graphic Design Ideas

Graphic design has high rewards for nonprofits, but getting started can be difficult. To help you take that first step, we’ll jump into how to develop your nonprofit’s brand.

1. Establish Your Nonprofit’s Brand

Every organization needs a unique brand, including nonprofits. While you may not be selling a product or service to customers like most brands do, you’re still selling something—your impact. When potential supporters come across your marketing materials, they’re deciding if they want to “buy” into your mission by supporting the cause.

Your nonprofit’s brand needs to be recognizable to supporters immediately. Surveys show that choosing a signature color to represent your organization can increase brand recognition by 80%. That way, anyone who comes across your marketing materials will immediately associate them with you.

Here are the key visual branding elements to include in your graphic design strategy:

Logo. A well-designed logo will be the most noticeable part of your brand for your supporters. Create a logo for your nonprofit that expresses your organization’s personality, isn’t overly complicated, and resonates with your audience.
Fonts. Using the same fonts across all your communications ties them together in your supporters’ minds. Choose two distinct yet harmonious brand typefaces: one for titles or headings and one for body text. To avoid a cluttered look, don’t use more than three fonts.
Color Scheme. It’s recommended to select up to three main brand colors and four to five secondary colors. Make sure to consider color theory to choose a color scheme that balances harmony and contrast.
Images. Whenever you include photos or graphics in your marketing materials, make sure they reflect your organization’s mission and your supporters’ values. Additionally, make sure your nonprofit has the appropriate permissions and licenses to use and share them.

To keep your branding consistent across all marketing materials, create a nonprofit brand guide that details all the elements above, as well as information about the communication platforms you use and the audience for each one.

2. Choose Graphic Design Tools to Get Started

Once you’ve established a brand for your nonprofit, you can start designing! You’ll need to have a set of graphic design tools that will help your work, not hinder it. Choose tools that are beginner-friendly and cost-effective.

Here are our recommendations to get you started:

Graphic Creator

According to recent studies, 45% of marketers use infographics to promote their products or services. Join this movement by creating graphics that are custom to your nonprofit. To get started, you’ll need to choose a beginner graphic creator where you can use templates to design flyers, infographics, social media posts, and even short videos.

Canva is a streamlined, beginner-friendly tool. It’s more user-friendly and low-cost than platforms like Adobe Illustrator, making it perfect for busy nonprofit professionals. The platform offers customizable templates for documents, presentations, social media posts, videos, and more. You’ll also have access to Canva’s library of free-use graphics, images, and fonts.

Make sure to apply for Canva’s nonprofit plan to access premium features for free.

Stock Image Source

When you can, take pictures of your supporters engaging with your cause during events or your staff working with beneficiaries. These images will communicate the work you do and show your audience the real people behind your impact.

However, it’s not always feasible to have a professional-quality, organization-owned image ready for every occasion. This is where stock photos can come in handy.

There are many different sources you can use for quality stock images. While some require paid subscriptions, there are plenty of free options available as well.

Pexels is an online source for free stock images. The website has an easy-to-use search bar where you can type keywords related to your nonprofit to find the perfect images. The site offers stunning, unique images for various terms from “animal rescues” to “charity food pantry,” so you’re bound to find media that suits your organization.

Don’t forget to look here for videos, too—Pexels offers thousands of clips that could be the perfect B-roll footage for your next video campaign.

Website Builder

With an intuitive website builder, you can create and update your organization’s website without having to hire a web developer to code the site from scratch.

WordPress is one of the most popular website builders across all sectors. Select a sleek theme and easy-to-use layout to give your supporters a pleasant user experience. This solution is flexible and allows you to get creative. For example, you can include blogs, newsletter signup pages, eCommerce stores, and even educational courses within WordPress.

Morweb, on the other hand, provides web support specifically for nonprofits and other mission-driven organizations. Morweb can help you develop a custom website with modules streamlined to provide an intuitive user experience, meet accessibility compliance, and integrate with external APIs. Additionally, Morweb’s team will be there to support you each step of the way, even during the migration and post-launch phases.

3. Tell Stories Through Your Graphic Design

No matter what graphic design tools you use, everything you create should point back to your nonprofit’s mission. Using graphic design to tell stories is a great way to highlight your organization’s community impact and function.

Storytelling is the way to go in order to get your message to stick in your supporters’ minds. People often remember stories considerably more than statistics, and using this method can increase conversions by 30%. Stories also get your supporters emotionally involved in your mission, inspiring them to take action.

You don’t have to—and shouldn’t—limit your storytelling efforts to words alone. Graphic design can add to verbal stories or become a story in itself. To incorporate graphic design into your nonprofit’s storytelling on different platforms, start with these ideas:

Create a carousel of images celebrating a successful event on your website.
Feature those who’ve benefitted from your services in social media posts with images and descriptive captions.
Design header images for marketing emails to detail your mission statement creatively before diving into the specifics of the message.
Add charts and graphs in your brand colors to your presentations to show successes and areas of improvement backed up by data.

Wherever you use stories in your designs, make sure they reflect both your organization’s overall goals and the intent of that particular piece of communication.

4. Keep Your Nonprofit’s Audience in Mind

Your goal is to make your nonprofit stick in your supporters’ minds. So, you’ll need to shape your designs to reflect their needs, wants, and interests by analyzing your donor data.

However, not every supporter of your nonprofit has the same needs, wants, or interests. To develop designs that appeal to various segments of your audience, keep these considerations in mind:

Demographics

Gathering demographic data on your supporters is the first step to understanding your audience. If you know more about the groups who support your cause, you can tailor your design strategy to their interests.

These are some common demographic factors that will be helpful to know about your nonprofit’s audience:

Age
Gender
Location
Education
Family status
Wealth

These factors all influence how your audience thinks and what they value, shaping their unique motivations for engaging with your nonprofit. For example, younger generations may want to see social media graphics or digital flyers about creating positive change in society, while older generations might prefer charts incorporated into presentations related to tax-deductible giving.

Past Engagement

Demographics give you more context about who your donors are, but past engagement data will tell you more about how individual supporters interact with your nonprofit.

These considerations will be most useful from a design-strategy standpoint:

Type: This refers to the way(s) supporters interact with your nonprofit, such as giving monetary gifts, in-kind gifts, volunteering, etc.
Recency: This indicates when they made their last contribution or attended their last event.
Frequency: This metric refers to how often supporters donate or volunteer.
Amount: This illustrates how much money they give each time, or how much total time they’ve spent volunteering and attending events.
Motivation: This information highlights why they’re involved with your organization (for example, a personal connection to your cause).

Engagement analytics can also help you prioritize certain groups within your audience to boost retention rates. After all, retaining your current supporters is more cost-effective for day-to-day operations than attracting new ones.

Decide which set of engagement data is most important to your graphic design strategy based on your nonprofit’s current goals. If you want to increase the frequency of the donations, for example, highlight the benefits of becoming a monthly donor in your designs.

Supporter Segmentation

When you combine demographic and past engagement data, you can start segmenting your supporter base.

A supporter segment is a group of people who interact with your nonprofit and share characteristics. Your segments may include a group of long-term major donors who are likely older, wealthy, and educated. Another segment might be made up of volunteers acquired through social media who are younger and have fewer means to donate at this point.

Once you’ve established segments that represent your core group of supporters, you can use your understanding of who you’re targeting in each of your marketing campaigns to adapt your graphic design choices. When communications are personalized to them, your audience will be more likely to engage with your nonprofit’s communications and respond to your calls to action.

5. Stay Open to New Graphic Design Ideas

When you’re getting started with nonprofit graphic design and developing a marketing strategy, you’ll need to stay flexible with your ideas and process.

Flexibility doesn’t make planning any less important—you should still outline each of your design ideas in detail and make sure they align with your goals. But don’t be surprised if you end up going in a different direction based on initial reactions to your concepts, new data on your audience, or new trends in your space.

Here are some popular nonprofit marketing trends that can help your organization reach and resonate with its audience:

Personalization. Because it’s so easy to access data about your supporters, be sure to personalize each communication to their preferences. In an email marketing campaign, for example, you might include their name in the subject line. When it comes to graphic design, tailor your imagery and copy to the segment you want to appeal to (e.g., for cat lovers, use images of kittens in communications from your animal shelter). Consider accessibility-related concerns your audience might have as well.
User-generated content (UGC). This term refers to content created by your organization’s supporters (e.g., a volunteer posting pictures documenting their experience), which is often seen as more trustworthy or authentic. You can make it easy for supporters to create UGCs by providing a kit of branded templates they can customize. For example, to motivate them to share your upcoming charity race, you could create social media post templates they can add their names or a personal message to.
Technology grants. Initiatives like the Google Ad Grants program give nonprofits funding or free credits they can put toward their marketing efforts. Many organizations are taking advantage of these programs to make their advertising budget go further and reach wider audiences. By applying for the Google Ad Grant, for example, you can drive more interested users to your website, where they’ll see your engaging graphic design work. Check out the video below for more benefits of the program:

Consider reaching out to specialized consultants to improve your marketing results. To help manage your Google Grant account, you might work with a marketing consultant. They’ll help you pick relevant keywords, maintain compliance, design engaging ad copy, and more.

If you work with a graphic designer, for example, you’ll give them an overview of your strategy and tell them about your plans for certain designs. Then, they’ll come back with examples of content.

Additional Resources

Creating great graphic designs for your nonprofit will go a long way in attracting, engaging, and retaining supporters. Follow these steps to start adding graphic design to your nonprofit’s marketing strategy.

For more tips and tricks about nonprofit graphic design and marketing, check out these resources:

Getting Started with YouTube for Nonprofits in 3 Steps. Want to know how to translate graphics into video? Learn how to use this media channel to engage your audience.
Nonprofit Branding: The Complete Guide + 10 Examples. Discover the basics of building a brand for your nonprofit, and get inspired by examples from 10 top nonprofits.
Promoting Your Mission: 13 Free Nonprofit Marketing Tools. If you’re in search of more marketing tools, look no further than this comprehensive guide with our top recommendations.

Virtual event marketing for associations is critical for the success of your events and to drive member engagement.

Virtual Event Marketing: 6 Tips for Associations

May 16, 2022/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica King

Virtual events have become a standard part of associations’ calendars. Unlike in-person events, they cost less, require less planning, help associations reach a larger audience, and allow attendees to tune in from the comfort of their homes.

But just like any event, their success depends on good marketing. If you’re planning your first virtual event or want a refresher on virtual event marketing for associations, this guide’s for you.

You’ll learn:

The importance of virtual event marketing for associations
Promoting a virtual association event: 6 best practices

The importance of virtual event marketing for associations

Your event planning is for nothing without marketing.

Virtual event marketing creates awareness for your event by grabbing attendees’ attention and ensuring they know about the event in the first place. Virtual events can be attended by anyone, from anywhere so you don’t have to be as limited in where you market or where your audience lives.

Your marketing should also get attendees excited about the event and generate pre-event engagement. This is super important considering that nearly half of marketers use it as a primary indicator for event success. Engagement helps you achieve your event goals like fundraising targets. It also makes sure that you’re getting a positive return on what you’re investing in, whether that be staff, logistical costs, sponsorships, or your virtual event software.

Promoting a virtual association event: 6 best practices

With virtual events becoming increasingly popular, standing out from the crowd can be tricky. But it doesn’t have to be as long as you keep the following six tips and best practices in mind when promoting your virtual association event.

1. Use dedicated event management software

There are many moving parts to planning a successful event besides marketing like ticketing, registration, payments, email communication, and managing your contacts. It’s always helpful to centralize them in one place because it makes planning and promoting your event easier.

With the right event management software, you’ll be able to find what you need in one place. Look for virtual event software that helps you:

Organize, promote, and host your event from one place.
Simplify registration and event delivery with custom and automated registration, a simplified event lobby, and an integration with Zoom.
Create a virtual exhibit hall so sponsors can engage with attendees to drive revenue.
Easily transition from registration to hosting a single one-off webinar or multi-session event.

2. Study your performance from past events

Studying past performance helps with future planning. Review marketing data from previous events you’ve hosted to learn what did and didn’t work. Then, adapt as needed.

For instance, compare registrations versus actual attendance or review fundraising targets versus actual figures. If you’re underperforming, think of why and what improvements you can make. Maybe the promotion period was too short. In that case, create resources well in advance.

You can also assess how your technology performed on the day in terms of speeds, session delivery, and overall user experience. If there were tech issues, think about what you can do to fix them. You may need a new virtual management software or a more reliable internet line.

Finally, don’t be afraid to gather feedback from attendees on your performance through a post-event survey.

3. Consider your audience

An event will usually have multiple audiences, including sponsors, exhibitors, and attendees. Understanding all these audiences helps you an event tailored to them and present your brand in an appealing way.

Your audience influences the content of the conference, the speakers you choose to deliver this content, the messaging for each audience to promote the event, and the channels to deliver that message.

So, think carefully about these audiences to create, promote, and deliver an event they’ll enjoy. Don’t be afraid to sit down with existing members to better understand their hobbies, work, and how they spend their free time. You can also gather data by asking potential attendees questions during the registration process.

4. Create resources in advance

Create your event resources in advance to share with members early. This can help hype up your members for your event and act as a promotion tool.

It also helps simplify your marketing process once it kicks into gear. You’ll have all the resources you need and won’t be scrambling to get them created at the last minute, which can be stressful and lead to sub-par resources and marketing.

Resources may include landing pages, promotional emails, and FAQ pages. Creating a page or handbook covering FAQs is an excellent place to start. Make sure it covers crucial questions about the event, like how to sign up and use the platform to participate.

5. Empower members to get involved

Your existing members are often your strongest advocates. They also have lots of experience and knowledge they can use to promote your virtual event.

So, encourage members to market your event—usually an easy task if you already have substantial member benefits and/or a referral program. Provide them with resources to do this and, if required, train them to confidently promote the message and details about the event.

6. Foster plenty of pre-event engagement

Pre-event engagement (chat rooms, forums, polls, Q&As – all before your event happens) can create excitement around your event. It encourages networking, can build a sense of community, and improves connectivity during the event. Members will be more familiar with you, your association, your goals, and other members.

Just make sure you don’t engage members too late. It won’t give you enough time to benefit from the engagement and members adequate time to review the opportunity and plan for it in their schedules.

Also, be careful of doing it too early. The excitement and enthusiasm around the event may wear off, and you won’t carry in the buzz you want. Plan to engage members 30 days out from the event.

You can foster virtual event engagement before an event by:

Running social media contests encouraging members to use specific hashtags.
Offering a giveaway where you raffle off an item on the day.
Promoting the event in industry publications or member blogs.
Incentivizing engagement with tiered registration packages or early bird perks like a discount.

The bottom line on virtual event marketing for associations

Virtual events are a popular option because of their low cost, large reach, easier planning, and convenience, but like any event, their success depends on marketing.

With strong marketing and advertising tactics, you can drive awareness, excitement, and engagement around your event – which helps you achieve your fundraising targets.

Just make sure you promote your virtual association event the right way: study up on nonprofit marketing best practices like using dedicated event software, creating resources in advance, and fostering pre-event engagement. Do that, and the odds of hosting a successful event will be just that much higher!

How to Optimize A Google Grant Account: Top Tips & Mistakes

April 20, 2022/in Google Ad Grants, Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica King

Whether you’re preparing your program application or have already created several ad campaigns, it’s never too early (or too late!) to optimize your Google Grant account.

By not understanding Google Grant optimization, many nonprofits miss out on the incredible opportunities the Google Ad Grants program provides nonprofits.

Proper management helps you maximize your $10,000 budget, boost the number of conversions made in response to your ads, and keep your account compliant with Google’s grant policies.We’ve compiled our knowledge of Google Grant optimization into these core topics:

Avoid These 6 Google Ad Grant Management Mistakes.
Follow the Appropriate Google Grant Account Structure.
Choose the Right Keywords for Your Google Grant Account.
Optimize Your Google Grant Account’s Ads.
Track Your Google Grant Account’s Conversions and Other Metrics.
Use Manual Bidding for Your Google Grant Account.
Use Targeting and Extensions To Improve Response to Your Ads.
Follow Website Compliance Guidance.
Let A Google Grants Professional Optimize Your Google Grant Account.
Look into Google Ad Grants Training.
Google Grant Optimization Checklist

Using the tips we share, you’ll be several steps closer to optimizing your Google Grant account and connecting with more prospects. Let’s get started.

Avoid These 6 Google Ad Grant Management Mistakes.

Mistakes happen, especially in the confusing world of Google Grant management. Confusion or unfamiliarity with Google’s Ad Grant policies can result in an unintentional violation of Google’s guidelines.

With that in mind, let’s cover the top management mistakes that you can avoid with a little training and a few reminders:

Mistake 1: Failing to Follow The Google Ad Grants Management Policy

Several years after its inception, the Google Ad Grants program created a set of compliance policies that nonprofits must follow to maintain their status in the Google Ad Grants program. These policies include guidelines for your account and the ads you run.

While Google Ad Grant recipients should look over the list of requirements in full, a few standout points are:

Having at least 2 ads per ad group
Having at least 2 ad groups per campaign
Maintaining a 5% CTR each month
Not using single-word or generic keywords
Having a minimum keyword quality score of 2
Enabling at least 2 sitelink ad extensions

The goal of these rules is to enhance the search experience for users and help nonprofits benefit from the program as much as possible.

Mistake 2: Using Generic Keywords

Another mistake in Google Grant management is relying on generic keywords. Short, generic keywords like “fundraising” lack the specificity your ads need to be effective.

Instead, look for specific long-tail keywords. For instance, you might bid on terms like “animal shelter volunteer opportunities” rather than “volunteer opportunities.” These will connect you with more qualified users, and they’re also typically cheaper to bid on.

Additionally, it’s essential to know the difference between generic keywords and broad keywords. Here’s a breakdown of these two terms:

Generic keywords are keywords where it is unclear what page someone will find after clicking on them. For example, “video,” is a generic keyword. Will the page have a video to watch? Explain video making principles? Review YouTube videos?

Broad keywords are a parameter you can select for your keyword campaigns to influence what types of queries your ad will show up for. For example, you might want the keyword “animal shelter volunteer opportunities” to show up for searches that don’t include the exact keyword, like “animal shelter volunteering” and “volunteering with animals.”

Generic and broad keywords both cast a wide net for searches. However, while broad keywords help you connect with supporters who just phrased their searches a little differently, generic keywords can violate Google Ad Grant policy.

Mistake 3: Using Dirty Keyword Data

Any nonprofit professional who deals with metrics understands the importance of data hygiene. In terms of Google Grant management, cleaning your keyword data is a process that involves pausing or removing irrelevant and low-quality keywords.

Here are some key reasons why you should optimize your keyword data:

Keyword traffic may fluctuate over time. Some of the keywords you target will not be relevant year-round. For example, seasonal keywords or those related to specific events do not need to be tracked outside of those time frames.
Low-quality keywords can clutter your data. Google assigns a quality score to keywords, calculated based on expected CTR, landing page experience, and ad relevance. Scores below 3 are considered poor quality. Using low-quality keywords is against Google’s policies, and targeting these terms is a waste of your ad budget.

Keywords are a vital part of optimizing a Google Grant account. Not to mention, they play an essential part in your nonprofit’s organic SEO strategy. Start your account optimization process by using search terms with a quality score of at least 3 and removing irrelevant ones.

Mistake 4: Featuring Just 1 Ad Per Group

Nonprofits sometimes make the mistake of featuring only one ad in each ad group, resulting in account suspension. Within Google Grants, individual ads are organized into groups that fall under broader campaigns.

Even if you follow every other compliance step, using only one ad per group is not a viable way to run your Google Grant account. Plus, single ads prevent nonprofits from analyzing performance across different ads, resulting in missed learning opportunities.

Instead, include multiple ads per group. Differentiate your ads by including different ad copy to drive users to click through to your site. Keep an eye on your campaign results to see which ads have the highest click-through rates (CTR), conversions, and site engagement. Finally, replace ads with low CTR with refined versions that drive better results!

Mistake 5: Providing a Poor User Experience

In the context of Google Ad Grants, a poor user experience is often linked to your ad copy, call to action, or linked landing page being misaligned. It’s confusing for website visitors when they click on an ad urging them to join an email list but instead are directed to an online donation page.

This mistake can frustrate potential supporters, deter them from taking the action you want them to, and ultimately impact your ability to optimize your Google Grant account. Think critically about the user experience you’re providing with your Google Ads.

Mistake 6: Neglecting Your Landing Pages

Your nonprofit’s website plays a crucial role in marketing your mission. It’s a place to share all of your resources, content, and marketing material in one convenient location. Plus, the ads you create for your Google Grant account will direct users to your website. In that sense, a neglected website and poorly designed landing pages can do more harm than good.

A poor-quality or irrelevant landing page can negatively impact your keyword quality score. What’s more, higher quality scores often lead to a lower cost-per-click rate, so you’ll receive more traffic for the same price.

Here are a few of the most common landing page issues that nonprofits encounter:

Keywords featured in your ads are not included on the landing page.
It’s unclear what supporters are supposed to do on the page.
There is a lack of rich, engaging content.
The overall website is challenging to navigate.
The website loads slowly. Reports show that 53% of mobile users will abandon a website if it takes 3+ seconds to load.
The layout is overwhelming and has an unprofessional layout.
Broken links signal the website is outdated or even unsecured.
The branding is inconsistent and makes the site appear untrustworthy.
The site lacks an SSL certificate, meaning it isn’t secure.

If users follow your ad and have a bad site experience, even the best-written ads won’t help you earn conversions. Not to mention, there are also rules in place regarding website quality. For instance, you’ll need to include a clear description of your organization, have an adequate load speed, and feature unique content. Conversely, optimizing your landing pages will keep your quality score up and maximize your chances of reaching and converting qualified users.

Follow the Appropriate Google Grant Account Structure.

After you apply for Google Ad Grants and get approved, you’ll set up your first ad campaign. Before creating your ads, it’s vital to understand the structure of your Google Ad Grant account. That way, you can get a feel for how to set up your campaigns.

Your Google Grant account is broken down into the following:

Campaigns: These are the largest building blocks of your Google Ads account. They contain multiple ad groups and ads. To optimize your Google Ad Grant account, we recommend assigning a theme to each campaign. For instance, if you work for an animal shelter, you might create a “Volunteer” campaign with keywords related to animal shelter volunteer opportunities in your area. You might have another campaign for “Donations,” “Adoptions,” etc. Themes allow you to easily organize your ads within campaigns.
Ad Groups: Think of these as clusters of ads within your campaigns. Ad groups are associated with specific keywords that someone might search related to your cause. Note that Google requires you to have at least two ad groups per campaign.
Ads: This is the smallest element of your Google Grant account but is arguably the most important since it consists of the copy and links you’re promoting. Google requires you to have at least two ads per ad group. Google will automatically rotate between these ads and provide you with performance data. For instance, if ad A performs significantly better than ad B, you’ll know to tweak ad B to improve its performance.

One important thing to remember when optimizing your account is not to spread your budget too thin across several ad groups and keywords. You’ll have more success by allocating more funds to a core group of services or resources related to your mission.

While this structure is required for your nonprofit’s Google Grant account, following it will provide you with insightful performance data you can use to produce better ads over time.

Choose the Right Keywords for Your Google Grant Account.

Choosing the keywords you want to target is one of the first steps you’ll take when setting up your first campaign.

Instead of blindly guessing what you think people are searching for and will drive conversions, we’ve created a checklist you can follow to come up with educated keyword choices. As you start optimizing your Google Grant account, here are some dos and don’ts for choosing the best keywords for your cause:

DO create a list of keywords that you want to target. Using specific keywords relevant to your organization is an excellent place to start. Leverage Google Keyword Planner to get helpful metrics regarding different keywords, such as search volume trends, average monthly searches per keyword, and bid estimates. You can also leverage Google Trends to explore what people are searching for related to your mission.
DO target keywords based on time and geography. These keywords could relate to holidays like, “Christmas gift drive” or location-specific events like, “clothing donation centers in Boston.” Some keywords are seasonal, so focus on them when relevant.
DO bid lower on upper-funnel keywords and vice versa. Upper funnel keywords are general search queries that someone higher in the search conversion funnel might search. On the other hand, lower-funnel keywords usually are longer, more specific, and searched by people who are likely to convert.
DO clean up your keyword list regularly. Pause any seasonal terms like “Thanksgiving food donations” when they are not relevant, and remove low-quality keywords that do not serve your account.
DO use negative keywords to exclude your ads from specific search queries. More than likely, there are search terms you don’t want your ads to display for. Add negative keywords to your ad groups to avoid ranking for those terms. You might also leverage a strategy called “traffic sculpting,” in which you add negative keywords to an ad group to avoid competing with your ads in other ad groups.
DON’T use generic and single-word keywords. Examples of this include “volunteers” and “animal shelter.” Not only does Google ban the use of these keywords, but your nonprofit will probably be outbid for generic search terms like these. Instead, try using long-tail keywords such as “animal shelter volunteer opportunities near me.” Long-tail keywords like this involve multi-word phrases and are highly specific.
DON’T include branded and nonbranded keywords in the same campaigns. You’ll likely rank organically for branded terms, so allocate your grant money to run ads for nonbranded search terms.
DON’T use keywords with a quality score lower than 3. Google scores keywords on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their quality. Keywords that receive a score of 1 or 2 are considered low quality and are not permitted for targeting. These keywords must be removed or paused.
DON’T forget to research industry trends and search terms. If like many nonprofits, you’re struggling to maximize spending on your Grant account, try researching new keywords to expand your campaigns. What keywords could you add? When was the last time you looked at Keyword Planner for new ideas? What are your competitors ranking for?

A healthy Google Grant account will have around 25 keywords per group. However, conducting keyword research could help you uncover dozens more valuable keywords.

Optimize Your Google Grant Account’s Ads.

But don’t forget the reason behind all of your optimizing: the ads!There are several best practices to keep in mind when creating your ads. Here are a few to get you started:

Create compelling ad copy. It should go without saying that your ad copy is one of the most crucial components of your ads. This is primarily why Google requires you to have multiple ads per ad group—it allows you to see what resonates with people and encourages them to click through. We suggest leveraging keywords in the ad copy to parrot back similar phrases to what users are searching for, including a specific call to action, and using short sentences to keep your ads scannable.
Choose the right landing pages. Your landing pages are just as important as your ad copy. It’s where you’ll drive users when they come across your ads and ultimately determine whether they get involved with your nonprofit. Choose the most relevant landing pages for each ad, whether it’s a digital donation page, volunteer registration form, or email newsletter signup form.
Have 3 to 5 ads per group. While Google only requires 2 ads per ad group, we recommend using at least 3. Try to vary these ads so you can experiment with different targeting approaches. The ads within each group will rotate, and Google prioritizes the ads that perform the best.
Highlight what’s unique about your nonprofit. Avoid blending in by sharing what’s interesting about your organization.
Don’t immediately optimize ad rotation for your campaigns. No more than one ad from an ad group can show at a time. The “ad rotation” setting allows you to specify how often Google will serve your ads relative to one another. Within your Search and Display campaign settings, you can choose “Optimize” or “Do not optimize” for this setting. If you’re starting a new campaign, we suggest that you don’t optimize your ad rotation. Instead, keep ads rotating indefinitely to see which messaging works best and optimize rotation manually on your end.

Producing high-quality ads doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Keep these tips in mind to steer your nonprofit’s choices when creating ads.

Track Your Google Grant Account’s Conversions and Other Metrics.

As you set up your Google Ads account, sign up for Google Analytics and connect it with your Ad Grant account. The metrics you gather from Google Analytics will help you refine your ads, improve your landing pages, and ultimately optimize your Google Grant account.

For one, Google requires you to track and report on conversions and CTR.

Conversions

For many nonprofits, conversions are the goal of their ads. Conversions measure how many people take the ad’s desired action after seeing it, such as making a donation, registering for an event, or signing up to volunteer.

Here are a few best practices for conversion tracking:

Track conversions that are meaningful to your organization. Google Analytics offers different options for conversion tracking. Focus on those that align with your goals. For example, you might track registrations for your upcoming annual gala or donations made during your year-end giving campaign.
Set up goals in Google Analytics. Setting up goals in Google Analytics can help you see what impacts your ads’ conversion rate. In addition to enhancing conversion performance, Google Grants accounts are required to set up goals.
Take note of which ads are best at leading to conversions. Experiment with the style and wording of your ads to analyze which ones yield the most conversions. From there, you can improve future ads to ensure the best performance from your campaigns.

Google requires Google Ad Grants accounts to track their conversions if applicable. To do so, set up an account within Google Analytics by using these account setup instructions.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The Google Ad Grant team uses CTR to measure ad quality. Google interprets a high CTR for an ad as the ad being very relevant and valuable to users. While Google Analytics will automatically calculate each ad’s CTR for you, it can be helpful to understand how it’s calculated manually.

Calculate CTR by dividing the number of people who click your ad’s link by the number of impressions the ad receives. Here’s what the formula looks like:

For example, if your ad is shown to 100 people, and 5 people click the link, your CTR will be 5% for that ad.

If you notice that your CTR is lower than you’d like, here are some ways you can boost that metric and directly optimize your Google Grant account:

Pause keywords with a low CTR. Take a look at the keywords that receive the most impressions and pause any with a low CTR. While a keyword may be relevant to your mission, you should focus on keywords that yield results.
Improve your ads. Do your ads inspire readers to click through to your website to get involved or learn more about your mission? Think critically about your ad copy and whether you’re pointing users to a relevant landing page.
Use A/B testing. One of the great things about Google Ads is that you can rotate between multiple ads for the same keywords. This makes it incredibly easy to see which ad copy performs the best, so you can boost your CTR with each rendition of your ads.

Google requires you to have a 5% click-through rate for each ad. Otherwise, your account will be at risk of being temporarily suspended. But don’t worry! An optimized Google Grant account will easily meet the minimum threshold.

Use Manual Bidding for Your Google Grant Account.

Google recommends that nonprofits automate their bids with Google Ads to save time managing their accounts.

However, we suggest that you start with manual bidding. That way, you’ll have more control over your budget.

If you go with automated bidding, we suggest that you don’t use the “Maximize Clicks” automated bidding strategy, even though it’s Google’s default option. That bidding strategy focuses on clicks rather than conversions (your ultimate goal for your ads). Instead, select the “Maximize Conversions” bidding strategy. This will allow you to be more competitive with bidding and effectively spend more of your ad budget.

Use Targeting and Extensions To Improve Response to Your Ads.

To help your ads reach their intended audience, Google offers targeting settings and extensions to improve your ads’ performance and optimize your Google Grant account.

Targeting

Targeting ads help you streamline your message to address a narrow audience who are highly likely to support your cause. Let’s take a look at these three different ways you can target your ads:

Geotargeting. Leverage the geotargeting feature to focus on areas your nonprofit serves. For example, if your nonprofit operates out of New York, ads that appear for Atlanta-based searchers won’t be very effective. However, if many of your donors reside in another area (say Chicago), you may want to target users in that area as well.
Ad scheduling. Create an Ad Schedule for all of your campaigns—even those you’re planning on running 24/7. This will help you pinpoint specific times when your ads perform well, so you can adjust your schedule moving forward. To create a schedule, go to one of your campaigns, click on “More” under Settings, hit “Schedule,” select a campaign, choose “All Days,” and save it.
Device type. If you’re working with a limited budget, you may want to exclude certain devices from receiving your ads. For example, eCommerce reports show that desktops tend to have higher conversion rates at 4.36%, while mobile has the lowest at 2.95%. To exclude a device from receiving your ads, go to the “Devices” tab, choose a device type, change the bid adjustment to “Decrease” by 100%, and apply the changes. Although, keep in mind that a supporter who sees your ad on mobile may decide to explore your site later on their desktop!

You want your ads to be shown to individuals who are likely to convert, so you don’t waste your grant money or negatively impact your ads’ performance. These targeting features will help you connect with likely prospects.

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions provide users with more information about a nonprofit’s services, programs, and mission. They help expand the ad listing, ensure it’s as useful as possible, and take up more ad space on the search engine results page.

By providing information that matches the user’s intent, ad extensions directly impact your ads’ CTR.

Some of the most commonly used ad extensions include the following:

Sitelinks: Create mini-ads within your ads that link to other pages on your site.
Callout Extensions and Structured Snippets: Include additional plain text within your ads to emphasize key points (great for including extra detail that wouldn’t fit in the main ad’s text).
Price: Quantify the donation amount or cost of services that a prospect would need to know (e.g., veterinary services, event ticketing price, and so on).
Location and Call: Display your organization’s address and phone number. Users will be able to click the number and call you directly.

Ad extensions give users with more ways to interact with your cause. Note that your ad extensions won’t always show up with your ads. Instead, Google will show them when the extension (or combination of extensions) is expected to improve the ad’s performance and when your ad’s position and Ad Rank are high enough to show extensions.

Your best bet is to include the most relevant ones for your ads, increasing the likelihood that they’ll be displayed.

Follow Website Compliance Guidelines

Like with most other aspects of the Google Ad Grants program, there are specific rules for your website to follow. An insufficient, unprotected, or otherwise useless website can lead to a temporary suspension of your Google Grant account.

Here are the basic rules you’ll need to follow to ensure your website adheres to Google’s basic eligibility guidelines:

You must own the domain. Your nonprofit must own the rights to landing pages linked in your ads. If this landing page is a donation-hosting service, it must belong to one of these pre-approved sites.
Add additional domains to your account. If you plan to link to other domains with Google Grant ads, add them to your account first. This way, Google is aware that your nonprofit owns these domains.
Maintain high-quality websites. Any domains used must be high-quality web pages. Valuable web pages have several important factors that we’ll cover in the next section.
Avoid any commercial activity that does not align with your mission. Commercial activity like selling products, services, or consultations can’t be the sole purpose of your website. Limited commercial activity is allowed, provided it aligns with your mission—think selling t-shirts with your nonprofit’s logos to help raise money for your cause.

Following these basic compliance regulations will help keep your Google Grant account compliant.

Let A Google Grants Professional Optimize Your Google Grant Account.

Working with a professional agency can take the weight off your shoulders when it comes to optimizing a Google Grant account. Professionals provide tailored services that help you set up and manage your Google Ad Grants account as efficiently as possible.

Here at Getting Attention, we strive to help nonprofits make the most of their grant money every month. We make the process simple and easy to understand from completing your application to tracking your data. Our services include:

Google Grant Applications: The Google Grant application process can be intimidating. The experts at Getting Attention are here to help guide you through the process and make sure your account is accepted on the first try.
Google Grant Hygiene: Data is crucial for optimizing your Google Grant account. Getting Attention is ready to help you clean up your data and make analysis more efficient. Whether you need to remove irrelevant keywords or outdated information, our experts are ready to step in.
Keyword Research: If you’re feeling lost when choosing keywords, let our agency handle the research for you. We can ensure that your account tracks the most relevant and effective keywords to extend your ads’ reach.
Google Grant Account Reactivation: With so many compliance rules, suspension can happen, and our team is one of the best resources for getting your account back up and running.

Our goal is to optimize Google Grant accounts so that nonprofits like yours can reinvest focus into their worthwhile missions. To learn more, contact our team to request a free consultation today. Plus, we’re happy to discuss our expertise in other areas. That way, you’re receiving the most comprehensive support possible.

Look into Google Ad Grants Training.

Even if you outsource work to a professional Google Grants manager, it never hurts to look into training. Google has plenty of free training resources that can help you optimize your Google Grant account and maximize ad performance. Not to mention, third-party sites also provide resources and advice based on their experience.

You can start your training by exploring our blog and checking out our top recommended training courses.

If you have any unanswered questions about managing your Google Grant account, our team of professionals is here to help. Reach out and request a free consultation where we can discuss your needs.

Google Grant Optimization Checklist

Now that you’ve learned some helpful tips for optimization, it’s time to put them to use. We’ve created a checklist to help you keep track of the essentials of successful account optimization:

Use our checklist below to make sure you don’t overlook anything when optimizing your Google Grant account.

Account Structure

Center campaigns around themes
Include 3-5 ad groups per campaign
Have 3-5 ads per ad group

Keywords

Include approximately 25 keywords per ad group
Choose keywords relevant to your mission
No generic or single-word keywords
Target keywords based on time and geography
Separate branded and nonbranded keywords into different campaigns
No keywords with quality scores below 3
Use negative keywords to avoid ranking for those terms

Conversions

Track conversions in Google Analytics
Set up conversion goals in Google Analytics
Track conversions that are meaningful to your organization
Adjust ads based on which ones increase conversions

Use keywords in the ad copy
Include specific calls to action in the ad copy
Highlight your mission
Manually rotate your ads for new campaigns

Metrics

Track meaningful conversions for your nonprofit
Use A/B testing to determine what drives conversions and clicks
Have at least 1 conversion per month
Maintain a 5% CTR each month

Bidding

Use manual bidding when possible
If you set up automated bidding, select the Maximize Conversions option

Targeting

Narrow down your target audience with geotargeting
Pinpoint specific times when ads perform well with ad scheduling
Adjust which devices your ads can be viewed on
Link to other pages within your ads by using sitelinks
Include additional plain text with callout extensions and structured snippets
Include the cost of services with the price extension
Display your address and phone number with the location and call extensions
Capture leads with the lead form extension

Website Maintenance

Ensure you own your nonprofit’s domain
Include one focus per page
No commercial activity that’s related to your mission
Include ad keywords on your landing pages
Create clear calls to action
Ensure the site is mobile accessible

Partnering with a Google Ad Grants agency

Google Grant applications
Account hygiene
Keyword research
Account reactivation

Training Resources

Getting accepted into the Google Ad Grants program is an exciting moment. Keeping up with the ins and outs of account management can be a challenge, but this streamlined checklist should help. Download a PDF version of this checklist for quick access in the future.

Final Thoughts on Optimizing A Google Grant Account

Optimizing a Google Grant account isn’t a one-and-done sort of deal. Rather, someone will need to actively manage your account, check keyword data, refine your ads, and more.

To make the most of your account, implement the tips covered in this ultimate guide. If you’re seeking more assistance with optimizing your Google Ad Grant account, reach out to the team at Getting Attention to set up a free consultation today. We’re happy to discuss your needs so that you can get more out of the program each month.

In the meantime, explore the following additional resources to continue learning about Google Ad Grants:

Worthwhile Marketing Grants for Nonprofits & How to Apply: This resource contains anything you need to know about marketing grants for nonprofits. The guide discusses everything from why marketing grants are important to how you can find them.
Need Google Grants Keywords? Here’s Your Roadmap to Success: Your keywords play a crucial role in your Google Ad campaigns. Learn how to research and select the right ones that will connect you with likely supporters.
Google Analytics for Nonprofits: Tracking Web Performance: To monitor and optimize your Google Ads, your nonprofit needs to understand how to use Google Analytics effectively. From setting up your account to navigating your Google Analytics dashboard, learn everything you need to know about the platform.