Fundraising Marketing: Best Practices and Strategies

Everyone loves to support a good cause. According to Giving USA, individuals and organizations donated approximately $557 billion to American charities in 2023. These donations supported a wide variety of charitable causes, from churches to arts programs. 

Fundraising marketing is one of the best ways to engage donors and motivate them to contribute to your worthy cause. This strategy involves using marketing channels to promote your nonprofit organization and share your story with potential donors. It can take many forms, such as email marketing and posting funny videos on Instagram. 

This guide explores the importance of fundraising marketing and actionable strategies to improve donation rates. We’ll also highlight resources and tools to help you launch an effective marketing campaign. 

What is fundraising marketing?

Fundraising marketing uses promotional strategies to raise awareness of an organization’s mission and inspire people to contribute. This approach aims to build relationships with existing and potential benefactors to increase donations and gain support for ongoing initiatives.

This type of marketing campaign draws on the four P’s of fundraising: 

• People: the target audiences for your fundraising campaigns can include board members, donors, partner organizations, and volunteers
• Programming: the organization’s mission, initiatives, and services
• Promotion: the marketing channels and tactics used to publicize your nonprofit and engage the target audience
• Purpose: the unique value your organization delivers and the impact you plan to achieve with the raised funds

Fundraising marketing offers many benefits for charities of all sizes. This strategy helps you expand your reach and engage new donors. It also enables you to develop lasting relationships with your existing benefactors. Finally, fundraising marketing can boost the amount and rate of donations so your organization can do more good.

Building a community of supporters

Every nonprofit relies on a network of donors, volunteers, and other supporters. These benefactors provide the funds and resources needed to advance the organization’s cause. Developing a strong community of supporters will help your nonprofit achieve long-term growth and improve its impact.

Creating a unique social media presence is one of the most effective ways to increase connection. Each platform requires different strategies to engage audiences. Popular platforms include:

Instagram 

Connect with supporters on Instagram by sharing regular stories and videos about your nonprofit’s work. Focus on inspirational or informative content to encourage engagement and donations. You can also use relevant hashtags like #GivingTuesday to reach new audiences. 

TikTok 

TikTok allows nonprofits to share short videos about their mission and services. You can use this platform to tell stories about your organization and educate the public about your cause. Many organizations also experiment with trend-based videos to capture users. 

Facebook 

Use Facebook to share text-based posts and images of your nonprofit. Additionally, paid Facebook ads are an affordable way to reach your target audience and promote fundraising campaigns. 

Establishing email lists

Email marketing allows you to share success stories, updates, and other valuable content with supporters. However, you can only send these messages to people who have opted in to receive your emails.

These strategies will help you grow your email list:

• Add a popup signup form to your website
• Encourage attendees to sign up for your list at fundraising events
• Invite social media followers to opt in
• Offer a free digital resource to people who sign up

As your list grows, focus on creating valuable emails to engage and retain subscribers. For instance, you can share milestones and annual impact reports to show the results of donations.

Best practices for fundraising marketing

Once you’ve built the foundation of the platforms and channels you plan to use, follow these best practices to make sure you’re getting the most out of your marketing strategy.

Segmenting communications

Nonprofits often attract supporters with diverse backgrounds and interests. For example, a food bank may receive donations from individual community members, local businesses, and schools. Segmenting your marketing efforts allows you to deliver personalized content that will engage each audience effectively.

Segmentation involves separating supporters into groups based on similar characteristics, such as:

• Communication preferences
• Demographics (age, gender, job, etc.)
• Frequency of donations
• Geographic location
• Length of relationship

Tailor your nonprofit marketing for each segment. For instance, older adults may enjoy personal testimonials from the people your organization serves. Meanwhile, Gen Z donors might prefer infographics and videos about the cause.

Creating mobile-responsive donation pages

Some nonprofit websites aren’t built to accommodate mobile devices. For instance, users may struggle to tap small donation buttons or feel confused by distorted text, which could deter them from completing their donation.

Avoid this issue by creating mobile-friendly donation pages. Constant Contact offers mobile-responsive templates. These customizable layouts enable you to design responsive donation pages in minutes.

Here are a few other best practices for mobile-friendly pages:

• Create skimmable content with distinct sections and short paragraphs
• Increase button and menu size
• Optimize loading speeds
• Use different colored buttons and fonts to highlight calls to action

Communicating impact

Donors support causes because they want to make a meaningful impact. Use storytelling to communicate the positive results of their actions and encourage future giving. 

Suppose your nonprofit raises money to help children in foster care afford school supplies. Highlight the effects of this campaign by creating feel-good content, such as: 

• Infographics demonstrating how the donations improved the recipients’ grades
• Progress reports about the status of the campaign
• Testimonials from foster parents and teachers about the impact of the program
• TikTok videos showing the children using their supplies in the classroom

These inspirational stories can drive donations and increase awareness of your organization’s mission.

Using visual storytelling

As the only saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. This adage rings especially true for fundraising marketing. An emotionally impactful picture can make a lasting impression on donors and motivate them to support your cause. For instance, the Humane Society of the United States features images of animals in need in its blog posts to evoke compassion in visitors.

Follow these best practices to create compelling visual stories:

• Develop a straightforward narrative with a beginning, middle, and end
• Choose striking images that reflect your nonprofit’s mission and highlight your impact
• Use color, lighting, music, and other elements to evoke specific emotions in your target audience
• Minimize the number of words to let the images speak for themselves

Developing consistent messaging across channels 

Nonprofits often use multiple channels in their marketing and fundraising strategy. You might send a monthly e-newsletter, share social media content, and buy pay-per-click ads. Creating clear and consistent messaging will build familiarity with your supporters and improve engagement.

Use these tactics to maintain consistency across channels:

• Create a distinct brand personality: Start by developing a distinct voice for your organization. This personality should appeal to your target audience and help you stand out from other nonprofits. For instance, if you want to attract younger donors, you might develop a lighthearted and satirical brand personality.
• Design a consistent aesthetic: Use the same visual elements to make your nonprofit instantly recognizable across all marketing channels. These elements should include your nonprofit’s logo, a distinct color palette, fonts, and the same style of photos and videos.
• Write messaging guidelines: Nonprofits often have multiple team members working on digital marketing for fundraising. Develop clear guidelines to keep everyone on the same page. These rules should address the tone, storytelling techniques, language to avoid, and other considerations.
• Adapt content: Repurposing content across channels allows you to share the same message in multiple formats. For example, you can convert a blog post about your latest fundraiser into multiple Instagram posts.

The American Red Cross has mastered the art of consistent messaging. The nonprofit uses the same distinct logo and red-and-white color palette across its online presence. This uniform messaging helps potential donors recognize the brand and builds trust.

Optimizing your digital marketing strategy

After you’ve started sending out messages and posting on social media, there are a few key ways to continue to evaluate and improve your content.

Running A/B tests

Fundraising marketing often involves extensive trial and error. You might notice that some social media posts get hundreds of likes, while others go unnoticed. Similarly, certain emails may yield dozens of donations, but others barely get opened.

A/B testing can help you analyze these patterns and understand what drives conversions. This process involves dividing your audience and sending two or more versions of content to different segments. Comparing the performance of each version can help you identify effective elements and marketing techniques. For example, you could send similar emails with various calls to action to see which resonates most with your target audience.

Constant Contact has built-in A/B testing capabilities. The platform can recommend multiple subject lines and send each version to a segment of your audience. It automatically tracks engagement for each audience and picks a winner to send to the rest of your subscriber list. This feature makes A/B testing a breeze and enables you to refine your fundraising marketing.

Leveraging AI in marketing

Nonprofit organizations can harness artificial intelligence (AI) to improve fundraising efforts. This technology has many applications in fundraising marketing.

For example, AI tools like BigQuery allow nonprofits to analyze enormous amounts of donor data. The technology can identify patterns in behavior, demographics, giving history, and other relevant factors. These findings allow you to segment your donor list more effectively and personalize your marketing efforts.

In addition, Constant Contact offers a broad range of AI-powered marketing tools. These features enable you to automatically send fundraising emails, build campaigns, generate marketing content, and more. Using these tools can save you significant time so you can focus on building strong donor relationships.

Building a marketing plan for fundraising events

Event marketing can help you get the most out of your fundraising functions. This approach focuses on boosting attendance and donations for current and future events. By beginning your marketing efforts long before the event itself, you can gradually build up the support and awareness you need.

Start with these simple steps:

1. Leverage donor data: Start by collecting data about your existing donors. For example, you can send the surveys about your cause or review your donation records. Assess this information to deepen your understanding of your supporters’ interests and charitable goals.
2. Nail down event messaging: Nonprofits host fundraising events to connect with donors and drum up support. Promote these events with cohesive messaging that fits your organization’s mission and values. For instance, if your nonprofit prioritizes inclusivity, your marketing materials should feature people from diverse backgrounds.
3. Create a multi-channel marketing approach: Select a few marketing channels and plan how you’ll promote your event across them. For instance, you could repurpose a promotional event video for your blog, Facebook page, and YouTube channel.
4. Build a marketing calendar: Start advertising your event several months ahead of time to gain traction. Optimize engagement by creating a marketing calendar with a consistent posting schedule.

Marketing during the event

Especially if your event is online or lasts for multiple days, it’s important to continue marketing even while the event is happening. These marketing efforts should aim to both increase event participation and encourage repeat donations to your organization in the future.

Effective marketing strategies for fundraising events include:

• Use pay-per-click ads to promote your fundraiser to your target demographics.
• Create engaging social media posts about upcoming events and include a registration link in the captions.
• Send a press release about your event to local news channels and industry outlets to increase exposure.
• Plan unique seasonal fundraising events to pique your audience’s interest.
• Use text and chat to provide real-time updates during the event to provide the best experience for attendees.
• Offer attendees plenty of information about ways to stay involved.
• Create a new email marketing segment of people who attended previous events, as they’re more likely to attend future ones. 

Post-event marketing

The work doesn’t end once your event has wrapped up. Stay in touch with attendees by sending them a follow-up email about how much money you raised and next steps. You can also leave a strong impression with direct marketing fundraising methods, such as mailing supporters handwritten thank you cards.

Next, update your social channels and website with highlight reels and testimonials from the event. This content will create hype for future fundraisers and provide social proof of your organization’s impact. 

Make a difference with fundraising marketing

Set your nonprofit up for success with fundraising marketing. This strategy will help you promote your cause and attract new donors. Effective fundraising marketing can also increase your donation rate and allow your organization to grow sustainably. 

Consider contacting a marketing agency who are experts in fundraising for assistance with your marketing campaign. A reputable agency can help you develop a strategic marketing calendar, generate content, and measure performance.