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:
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:
6 Common Challenges with Marketing and How To Solve Them
/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica KingFinding new ways to reach and engage donors is a continual challenge for nonprofit marketing professionals. Effective marketing requires being creative, staying aware of ongoing trends, and navigating obstacles efficiently. Of course, there are still several common challenges that most nonprofits’ marketing strategies will encounter.
Facing challenges is a normal part of the marketing process, and what matters most is how your nonprofit responds to them. Do you first devote more time and resources to the problem? Attempt to minimize its impacts? Hold a meeting to reevaluate your nonprofit’s strategy?
Each of these approaches can be the correct solution depending on the specific challenge and the resources your team has to invest in resolving it at that time. Of course, the first step to overcoming many common challenges is to conduct research and determine if an equally common solution already exists. To help your nonprofit with that research, this article will explore six common marketing challenges:
For most nonprofits, the most common marketing challenges will be related to their digital strategy. This article will explore specific strategies for overcoming these problems, though keep in mind that often the most effective approach to technology-related issues will be reassessing how your nonprofit uses software and potentially investing in a new solution.
1. Lack of Defined Audience
Who is your nonprofit marketing to? While your marketing team may be aiming to attract a wide variety of audiences, creating materials that are too broad can inadvertently limit the number of supporters who will take interest in your nonprofit.
To define your audience, first assess your current supporters. Identify their shared characteristics, such as demographics, engagement trends, and interests. Use this information to divide your audience into several unique groups with similar goals, problems, and motivations. By defining multiple audiences, you will be able to better tailor your messages to each group, increasing the likelihood they will engage with your content.
Additionally, try varying your marketing strategies depending on the group you are targeting. Remember, not every supporter needs to be invited to every event, participate in every fundraiser, or read every article your nonprofit creates. For example, you may hold a gala specifically for your older major donors, as well as a 5K targeting younger, more active supporters.
2. Unclear Lead Sources
A marketing campaign is effective if it earns your nonprofit new leads who later become donors or volunteers. If your nonprofit lacks an established framework for tracking leads, it can be difficult to determine if your marketing campaigns were successful.
Use lead-tracking methods and resources such as:
Track clickthrough rates and popular landing pages to discover which links are resulting in supporters visiting your website and which of your pages are the most successful at attracting supporters.
Other marketing materials may require taking a more indirect tracking approach. For example, perhaps your nonprofit creates a matching gift video promoting corporate giving opportunities and includes it on your website homepage. Some donors who immediately apply for a matching gift may have been influenced by your video, while others may have done so independently.
To determine the video’s effectiveness, nonprofits could compare the overall volume of matching gift applications before and after posting the video to check if there was a notable increase. Alternatively, the nonprofit could create a follow up survey specifically for completed matching gift applications with a question asking how they learned about the matching gift process.
3. Unready Website
Your website is one of your strongest marketing tools, providing donors with key information about your nonprofit and leading them towards converting. A website that looks unprofessional, is difficult to navigate, or is generally unengaging can negatively impact the extensive work put into your external marketing materials.
If your website has a high bounce rate, session times, or low conversions, you may need to update it. To leverage your website as a marketing tool, ensure that it is:
If your nonprofit is in need of a new website, DNL OmniMedia’s nonprofit website design guide recommends partnering with a consultant.
A nonprofit marketing and website design consulting service can create a new website designed to your nonprofit’s specifications that also makes use of marketing best practices. For example, consultants will have insight into where to strategically place calls to action, what images best inspire action, and how you can create campaign pages that will be shared across social media.
4. Data Silos
Your nonprofit collects data from a variety of sources and sends messages to numerous staff members to take action on that data. However, nonprofits are often slowed down or experience outright interruptions in their work due to data not moving as it should and instead getting siloed in specific databases or systems.
Data silos are a common occurrence and can be particularly challenging if they occur during a marketing campaign. As your outreach efforts require receiving and sending an extensive amount of messages, it is essential that internal feedback, donor messages, and engagement data all flows to your marketing team as quickly as possible.
You can prevent data silos by integrating your various software solutions. This ensures information in one database will be automatically updated in another system, rather than requiring a manual migration. Some platforms, such as Salesforce NPSP, can integrate with a wide variety of native and third-party applications, making it easier to synchronize your software and eliminate data silos.
5. Poor Follow-Up
Once your marketing campaign attracts a new donor, what steps does your nonprofit take afterwards? Nonprofits that only focus on the initial conversion and have limited follow-up are unlikely to significantly grow their donors’ value or make long-term connections necessary for cultivating major gifts.
For each of your marketing strategies, ensure you have a follow-up procedure in place. This can be as straightforward as sending automatic thank you messages to donors who give under a specific amount and flagging donors who give over that threshold for additional follow up, such as a thank you card or phone call.
This applies to fundraisers and events, as well. After participating in an advocacy campaign, peer-to-peer fundraiser, virtual gala, silent auction, or any other activity your nonprofit hosted, reach out to donors to thank them for their participation and provide next steps to continuing their involvement with your nonprofit.
You can improve your follow-up by using an email authoring tool. These tools allow you to construct follow up emails and welcome series for each event or campaign you host. You can also create separate emails for those who didn’t participate, invoking a sense of FOMO that will provide another call to action to attend your next opportunity.
6. Attaining Board Buy-In
When planning a new marketing campaign, ensure that one of your strongest assets, your board, is being leveraged to improve your campaigns rather than acting as an obstacle. When launching a new marketing campaign, include your board in your stakeholders to consider to help attain their buy-in early on.
While planning your marketing campaign, consider strategies for getting your board involved and how you can pitch these strategies to your board members. Some board members will naturally be more ready to help with your fundraising campaigns than others, but there are several steps you can take to make your board more fundraising-friendly overall. These include:
Making your board a part of your outreach strategy can lend your marketing campaigns additional credibility and access to new networks. Work with board members to tailor your marketing approach to specific donors they have a connection with, improving your ability to steward major giving prospects.
Marketing is often resource-intensive, requiring a significant amount of your budget and time to acquire new donors. To ensure your marketing efforts lead to a high return on your investment, have strategies in place to overcome common challenges, from defining your audience and ensuring you have internal buy-in to preparing your software for your next campaign.
Author: Carl Diesing, Managing Director
Carl co-founded DNL OmniMedia in 2006 and has grown the team to accommodate clients with on-going web development projects. Together DNL OmniMedia has worked with over 100 organizations to assist them with accomplishing their online goals. As Managing Director of DNL OmniMedia, Carl works with nonprofits and their technology to foster fundraising, create awareness, cure disease, and solve social issues. Carl lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife Sarah and their two children Charlie and Evelyn.
Nonprofit Website Design Made Easy: A Digital Guide
/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica KingYour nonprofit’s website is a powerful tool to expand your reach. With more and more people spending time online, your website can help you gain supporters from all over the world and make people more passionate about your cause. However, if your website doesn’t stand out from the crowd, it’ll be much more difficult for your organization to prove that it’s worthy of people’s support.
A tried and true way to improve your website’s digital presence is through designing an engaging website. With a well-designed website, you can maximize support and increase revenue, helping your organization better reach its goals.
Web design can be an easy process for anyone, even for people without previous design or technical experience. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to streamline the entire website development process. Use these key tips to create a well-designed website:
With a strong website, your organization can effectively market itself and turn casual site visitors into loyal supporters. Let’s begin.
Choose a nonprofit website builder.
A content management system (CMS), or a nonprofit website builder, can streamline the design process so your nonprofit can focus on creating great content. The right website builder will offer nonprofit-specific features that enhance the user’s experience and offer all the tools you’ll need to engage supporters effectively.
To support your programming and fundraising efforts (and grow your supporter base), choose a nonprofit website builder with the following features:
Getting started with all these tools might take time and require additional support. Your nonprofit website builder should offer training on how to use its system as well as live support from web developers. This way, you can use these features as efficiently as possible and reduce your stress.
Brand your website.
By customizing your website to be unique to your nonprofit, you’ll be able to build brand recognition and help supporters feel more connected to your organization. With added brand awareness, site visitors will start to see your organization as credible and will be more likely to turn into loyal supporters.
Include the following features to boost your branding strategy and create a professional-looking website:
Remember that the key to developing your brand is simplicity. If you make your web design complicated or distracting, users will be more likely to click away from your website. Create a clean design that intrigues users but allows them to focus on your website’s content.
Create event landing pages.
Your nonprofit will likely host events and fundraisers to help advance your mission. In order to effectively market your event, you’ll need well-designed event landing pages. An event landing page is a designated page that gives supporters a complete overview of your event. This way, existing and new supporters can easily learn about your event and sign up.
To make your event landing pages visually appealing and informative, include:
Your event landing page should motivate people to sign up, so get creative and point out all the highlights of your event. Tailor your event landing page to your audience so you can appeal to their interests and compel them to want to join in on the fun.
Optimize your website for mobile devices.
By extending your website’s reach to mobile users, you’ll be able to get more people to learn about your nonprofit and bring in more donations. After all, people are spending more time on their phones than ever. Why not prioritize your audience’s convenience so they can engage with your website right from the palm of their hand?
According to Morweb, the best nonprofit websites include the following mobile-friendly features:
Not sure how to optimize your website for mobile devices? No sweat! The right website builder will automatically optimize your website for mobile devices so all users can engage with your content.
Create a strong donation page.
In order to develop an effective online fundraising strategy, you’ll need a well-designed donation page. A donation page that is accessible and visually appealing will attract more donations and help your nonprofit boost its revenue. Plus, donors who have a positive experience on your page will be more likely to give again,
Your donation page should include the following to maximize support:
As with all of your nonprofit’s webpages, make sure to use consistent branding on your donation page. Branding builds credibility and will help drive more site visitors to your page so you can increase revenue. As a result, your nonprofit will be able to better reach its goals.
The Gist
Nonprofit website design doesn’t have to be complicated! The right nonprofit website builder will streamline the process and make it easy to build a beautiful website. With a strong digital presence, your nonprofit can reach more people and take its digital fundraising strategy to the next level. Good luck!
Our Top 8 Tips and Tricks for Designing Nonprofit Logos
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Marketing /by Jessica KingWhether it’s a portrait of a mythical siren in a green circle or a red-and-white Play button, logos are all around us. Many for-profit companies use logos to identify their products and services, but nonprofit organizations have just as much to gain from effective logo design!
In this guide, we’ll walk through all you need to know to start designing nonprofit logos, including:
Every nonprofit can benefit from a well-designed logo, whether your organization is just starting out or has been around for some time and wants to take its branding to the next level. Using the tips and tricks in this guide will put you well on your way to creating the best one.
What Makes a Good Nonprofit Logo?
The most important aspect of a logo is that it reflects what you want your nonprofit’s brand to look like. Branding is what makes your nonprofit stand out in your supporters’ minds. After all, 93% of nonprofits believe donor engagement is positively impacted by a strong brand identity—and your logo is the center of that brand.
Kwala recommends nonprofit logo design tips such as:
Your logo influences how your supporters perceive your nonprofit, so you’ll want to make it memorable, impactful, and unique.
8 Tips for Designing Nonprofit Logos
An effective marketing strategy uses your brand’s logo to give the audience an idea of who you are and what you stand for with a single glance. Plus, when you add a logo to each of your marketing materials, it helps your mission to stick in potential supporters’ minds.
To design the logo that accomplishes this, you’ll need to put a good amount of time and effort into the process. Get started with these eight helpful tips:
1. Start with your mission statement.
Your nonprofit’s mission statement is the core of all the work you do. So, naturally, you’ll want to express it through your logo design. Supporters should be able to tell, generally, what your nonprofit does with a quick glance.
You can market your nonprofit’s mission through your logo design by following these three steps:
One example of a nonprofit with a mission-centered logo is Feeding America, whose mission is to ensure equitable access to food for everyone in the United States:
The grain stalk “growing” from the two I’s in the logo is a common symbol related to food security. The colors they chose also work well with their mission—green is associated with peace and life, and orange is associated with friendliness and affordability.
2. Brainstorm on paper before moving to digital design platforms.
When you create your nonprofit’s logo, you have a lot of options in terms of what digital design tools to use. But your most valuable tools might just be a pencil and paper.
In many cases, it’s easier to navigate the features of a digital design tool when you already have a visual reference for what you want the finished product to look like. Plus, if you’re working with a professional graphic designer, you may be able to get your ideas across to them more effectively with a sketch than if you just wrote down or told them your vision for your nonprofit’s logo.
3. Keep it simple, but make sure it stands out.
Good graphic design is all about balance, especially when it comes to creating logos. On one side of the spectrum, you need to make your logo stand out from other similar organizations so that supporters recognize your nonprofit. But on the other side, simpler designs are more memorable and tend to stand the test of time.
The Girl Scouts logo design is a good example of this balance:
They use a basic color palette of white, black, and their trademark green in their logo, which is made up of their name and just one shape. But that shape is a trefoil, which is distinctive to the Girl Scouts because it represents the three points of the Girl Scout Promise. The organization makes its logo even more memorable (and delicious!) by selling shortbread Girl Scout Cookies in the trefoil shape.
4. Make sure all text is readable.
To make your logo stand out, you might want to write your organization’s name in a unique font, have the words read in a direction other than horizontal, or use standout colors for text. Those ideas are all well and good—as long as you can still read the words easily.
If your logo uses a custom typeface or has vertical or diagonal text, it’s often best to make the words the main focus of the design. Bold text colors are also generally more readable than pastels or light neon shades. But whatever color you choose, make sure it contrasts with the background (light-colored text on a dark background or dark text on a light background tends to work well).
For example, the Trevor Project’s logo does a great job of giving text a unique look but ensuring it’s readable.
Whether it’s against a light or dark background, the logo’s orange text is striking and contrasts well. And even with the vertical direction and hidden star, the text is fairly easy to read.
5. Design with your audience in mind.
A good logo design will resonate with your nonprofit’s audience. Besides being able to identify your nonprofit by its logo, your supporters should relate to the logo in some way.
To create a logo your supporters connect with and understand, you’ll want to do some research on these audience-related topics:
If you work with a professional graphic designer, be sure to clearly explain the audience you’re trying to reach so the experts can design a logo that meets your nonprofit’s needs.
The Humane Society of the United States is an example of an organization with a logo design that fits its audience.
The logo is shaped like the country where their supporter base primarily lives and includes a variety of animals that audience members may be interested in helping.
6. Remember that your first idea may not be your best idea.
You don’t have to make the perfect logo on the first try. When your organization creates its first logo, the design will be more effective if you revise it several times based on feedback from inside and outside your nonprofit.
Also, if you’re designing a nonprofit logo with your audience in mind, you’ll probably notice that your audience will change over time. Both for-profit and nonprofit organizations will rebrand and roll out new logos when they feel it’s time to adapt to a new social climate. So, keep in mind that your logo will be most effective if it evolves with your audience’s needs and interests.
The YMCA is one nonprofit that has rebranded several times in its long history.
The two black-and-red, sharp-edged logos that the organization used throughout the 20th century contrast strongly with the version they started using in 2010. The new logo has softer edges and uses a variety of colors to appeal to modern audiences. Plus, it focuses on the letter Y to emphasize inclusion, but it also includes the acronym YMCA because the organization is still known by both names.
7. Create several versions of your logo.
Once you’ve settled on one new logo design, you’ll want to create several versions of it. Each place where you use your logo will have a different amount of available space, so you’ll need a logo that can fit each one. For example, you’ll be able to fit a much larger logo on a t-shirt than you would on a social media graphic.
Designing your logo as a vector will come in handy so you can change its size without affecting image quality. If you need help with this, contact a professional graphic designer. Also, you’ll want a few variations of your logo to fit the aesthetic of each piece of content you create.
To look at an example, the United Way uses several different versions of its nonprofit logo across its marketing materials.
They have a main color logo with the organization’s name and a symbol, one with the same elements in black and white, and a version with only the symbol and no text. Each design is obviously a variation on the same theme, but different versions work in different situations. For instance, the black-and-white logo is the easiest to print, and the symbol-only version fits well in tight spaces.
8. Experiment with your designs in context.
When your logo design is finished, you’ll put it on every piece of marketing content your organization creates, including:
To make sure you like how your logo looks and envision how it will fit into each content type, create a few sample designs. Once you come up with some ideas that work well, add the samples to your organization’s brand guide for reference over time.
charity: water is one nonprofit that uses its logo in creative ways across different marketing materials.
In the example above, they used their logo in place of a title on a flyer that gives an overview of their organization, and they made a physical version of the design to fit into an Instagram photo.
Tools to Get Started With Designing Nonprofit Logos
As mentioned previously, there are a number of graphic design tools available to help you create a logo for your nonprofit. Some of our favorites include:
These tools all work well for beginner graphic designers and can easily be used in-house. But if you want to take your logo design to the next level, your best bet is to partner with nonprofit graphic designers.
Kwala is a graphic design service that connects nonprofits with a team of experienced professionals. These designers then work with nonprofits to create logos as well as a variety of other graphics. 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 Nonprofit Logo Design Resources
A strong logo is central to your nonprofit’s branding and marketing, which fuels your ability to make an impact. Ultimately, your logo should reflect your organization’s mission and resonate with your audience. Use the tips in this guide and the resources available to you—particularly the help of nonprofit graphic design experts like those at Kwala—to help create the best logo for your nonprofit.
For more information on nonprofit logo design, check out these resources:
How to Start An Effective Nonprofit Blog
/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica KingSo, you’ve decided to join the exciting world of nonprofit blogging. Your website’s blog lets you tell your nonprofit’s story in your own words, update audience members about your events and activities, and even engage with a new audience of potential supporters.
But just like any marketing endeavor, you must approach nonprofit blogging strategically. Your posts should be intentional, engaging, and informative. This helps your organization build a professional reputation and ensure your content meets your online engagement goals.
With that in mind, we’ll explore these five steps to starting an effective nonprofit blog:
Of course, the very first step of starting a nonprofit blog is ensuring that your CMS supports blogging capabilities. Popular platforms like Drupal and WordPress have built-in blogging features that make it easy to get your new blog up and running. Once you’ve determined a blog is an actual possibility for your organization, you can launch into the following steps.
1. Set goals for your blog.
After deciding to launch a blog for your nonprofit’s website, you might have some lofty ambitions in mind, such as entering the ranks of the best nonprofit blogs and inspiring thousands of new supporters to join your cause. Certainly, it’s good to dream big and aim high.
But when you’re first starting, set specific, achievable goals that you can feasibly reach given your organization’s time and resources. For example, you might identify goals such as:
Your blog can be an effective tool to increase awareness of your mission and encourage more donations and volunteers. By setting specific goals, you can more easily measure progress toward these ambitions.
2. Find your storytelling style and voice.
A blog allows you to be creative and speak directly to your audience. Work on cultivating a unique voice—this is the tone you use to address your audience and the feeling you wish to convey to readers. Having a distinctive, engaging voice can set your blog apart and make your posts more memorable.
As you develop your blog voice, think about your target audience—what tone of voice will they respond to best? For example, younger audiences may prefer a more casual style, while older audiences often appreciate more formal and authoritative writing.
Also, consider your nonprofit’s overall brand—what image or personality are you trying to convey? Would you like to come off as a helpful teacher introducing new concepts to your audience or a friend speaking casually about the activities and programs you have going on?
Here are a few words you might use to define your blog’s tone:
For example, according to Kanopi’s guide to healthcare web design, medical-focused websites often take on an authoritative, professional tone to reassure potentially anxious visitors seeking medical help. On the other hand, an organization that seeks to increase voter registrations among young voters might use an upbeat, witty, and playful tone to appeal to young adults.
Create a style guide for your blog that describes your unique tone and storytelling style. Include examples of words and phrases to use and ones to avoid to match the brand personality you’re looking to cultivate.
3. Create a content strategy.
Your content plan will be the bread and butter of your nonprofit blogging strategy. Having a clear blogging plan ensures that your blog roll will stay updated with new, thoughtful, and well-researched content. This shows supporters that your organization is active and continually working on new and exciting projects, initiatives, and events.
Follow these steps to build your blog’s content strategy:
Your content strategy doesn’t have to be set in stone—it can be a rough outline that you adjust when necessary. Current events will undoubtedly impact your organization throughout the year, so you can write posts as needed to address recent developments and news stories as they come up. But outlining a plan ahead of time ensures that your blog won’t become stagnant or outdated at any point.
4. Craft your graphic design strategy.
Images can stir emotions, inspire empathy, and ultimately lead to visitors feeling a deeper connection to your cause. Double the Donation’s guide to nonprofit web design says it best: “humans are a visual species, so information that’s conveyed in a visual way is more immediate and visceral.”
Establish your graphic design strategy up front to ensure your blogging team is on the same page when designing graphics and choosing images. Ask yourself the following questions while developing your approach:
As you build your graphic design strategy, take some time to standardize your blog post layout. Include specific guidelines in your brand style guide for the font styles and sizes, colors, button types, post margins, and other stylistic elements of your blog posts. This ensures consistency, even if multiple team members are uploading posts.
5. Promote your blog.
Once you start creating well-researched, informative blog content, you’ll need a way to drive traffic and increase engagement with your posts. Marketing your blog posts can increase awareness of your blog, boost your website traffic, and introduce more people to your mission.
Promote your blog across platforms such as:
You can grow your blog audience quickly by promoting your content regularly across each of these platforms. The more eyes you can get on your blog posts, the wider your audience of potential new donors, volunteers, and other supporters will be.
Adding a blog to your nonprofit’s website can be a great way to revamp your online presence and grow awareness of your mission. By following these steps, you can ensure that your blog is a valuable, trustworthy resource for learning more about your cause and how to get involved.
Author: Allison Manley, Director of Marketing & Communications for Kanopi
Allison is a recovering (and award-winning) designer who applies her creative and organizational skills to marketing strategy for Kanopi. Her diverse, multi-disciplinary background — which in addition to design includes glassblowing, publishing, podcasting, and figure skating — contributes to strong relationships to which she offers a broad perspective.
Her job is to tell the story of Kanopi by sharing information, writing, working with staff and partners, and keeping the brand cohesive across all channels. When not keeping the Kanopi brand on point, Allison is working on double jumps on an ice rink, chasing small children, or organizing something somewhere.
Advocacy Events: 6 Fundraisers to Earn More for Your Cause
/in Nonprofit Fundraising /by ContributorThe 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:
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:
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:
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:
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
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Tools /by Jessica KingYou’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:
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.
Fundraising Flyers: How to Boost Nonprofit Marketing
/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica KingWhen 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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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 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.
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:
5 Nonprofit Marketing Ideas You Need to Promote Your Cause
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising, Nonprofit Tools /by Jessica KingNonprofit 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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
While it’s important to advertise your nonprofit online, there are still helpful ways to expand your organization’s reach using offline methods.
Offline
Combine your online marketing efforts with these offline nonprofit marketing ideas:
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:
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:
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:
9 Donor Engagement Strategies to Transform Your Outreach
/in Google Ad Grants, Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica KingNonprofits 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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
Matching Gifts Remain Steady (If Not Growing) Despite Economic Downturns
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica KingEffective 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:
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:
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.”
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:
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.”
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:
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:
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:
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: