Nonprofit Fundraising Effectiveness 🌍

Effectiveness, major donors, and screaming moms.

November 08, 2024

Good morning! The fundraising season is winding down in favor of the holidays. This is great chance to thank your donors with a little holiday cheer and a reminder of their impact! Today we’ve got a few great tips and a funny story about a wild mom screaming in support of her well dressed son.

  • 1: Fundraising Effectiveness

  • 2: Zero in on your Major Donors

  • 3: Mother Son Fashion Show

Research
How Effective is your Fundraising?

We all have goals! Setting goals for your organization is a great way to focus your efforts. Assessing what worked post season takes time and reflection.

Fundraising Effectiveness Project

The Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) was established to conduct research on fundraising effectiveness and help nonprofit organizations increase their results.

Each year the FEP releases results on the state of the industry with helpful graphs insights.

The FEP also has a free Fundraising Fitness Test (FFT) with over a 100 performance indicator to evaluate your efforts.

If you’re looking to boost your efforts, its worth your time to check them out.

Tactics
Major Donors!

The most recent quarterly report from the Fundraising Effectiveness Project shows that donor numbers have declined across all size buckets, with the smallest donors experiencing the largest drop at -12.3%, making up two-thirds of the total loss this quarter.

Though the number of donors fell, actual dollars raised across the board increased slightly due to an increase in giving by major donors.

Major Donor Dollars

Many nonprofits don’t have CRM (customer relationships management) system. If this is the case, I would highly encourage you to create one. This could be a simple google sheet with name, number, email, and notes on their relationship to the organization. To take it one step further, you can identify the donors giving capabilities and a record of their giving.

Connecting with the Majors - ARRR

ASSESS: If you do have a CRM, you can use it to screen existing donors for giving capacity. A CRM that integrates with wealth screening software can simplify this process by automating much of it. For example, Bloomerang’s donor management system integrates with DonorSearch, a powerful wealth and philanthropic screening tool. If you don’t have a software there are plenty of wealth indicators to make an assessment.

REACH: After identifying prospective major donors, start building relationships with them to boost their interest in and passion for your cause.

Send outreach messages and connect on multiple platforms. You can invite prospects to an in-person meeting to share more about your organization’s programs or tour of your nonprofit’s facilities.

RANK: Use wealth and philanthropic indicators to segment major donors into tiers based on giving capacity and likelihood. Then, you can focus more personalized outreach efforts, like one-on-one meetings, on your highest-tier donors to increase your chances of receiving more high-impact gifts.

RETAIN: As you introduce major donors to your organization’s mission and staff, you should spend an equal amount of time getting to know more about donors on a personal level. Ask major donors about:

  • Their families

  • Their jobs

  • Dates that are important to them (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)

  • Their hobbies/interests

  • Which of your programs they are interested in

Retaining major donors for the long term takes a consistent effort. It is always in the best interest of a nonprofit to be constantly on the lookout for new major donors to ensure the health of the nonprofit.

Events
Funny Story - Fashion Show Rage

Over the weekend I had the honor of attending the 2024 Servite Fashion Show: Under His Wings.

For context, Servite is a Catholic all-boy prep school in Southern California and the fashion show is a mother-son fashion extravanganza equipped with a 20 ft catwalk.

Now I’ve been to a few football games where the season is on the ine. I’ve seen 300 lb men yell at the top of their lungs when their team’s running back rushes into the endzone sending them to the eastern conference. I can say with all honesty that that is nothing compared with what happens when a mom watches her high school aged son strut a catwalk at a Catholic fashion show. The screams of pride! The whole ballroom was shaking with maternal screams. I watched a mom bang her closed with on her table, shaking all the glassware at this 10 top, as her nailed a pose.

I could not stop laughing!

Pose Kenneth, pose!

GIF
Squeeze in for the team photo!

RAISING AWARENESS

  • SOFTWARE: Auction & Event Solutions has a premiere streaming feature to suit overseas donors. Distance no longer has to hold an organization back.

  • SPOTLIGHT: GivingTuesday has a ton of useful tools on their website. The Generosity Toolkit is among the best. Check it out!

  • GALA: Everyone is trying to provide new photo opportunities for their guest. This might be the most complete list of options there is.

  • INSPIRATION: Get endless inspiration for your fundraisers, drives, and events with a look at what’s going on around our nonprofit nation.

  • MARKETING: Digital marketing for your nonprofit has never been more complicated. Make PR an issue of the past.

  • AUCTIONEERS FOR GOOD: These auctioneers have gone above and beyond and are making strides for their organization.

  • DATA: Is philanthropy up or down? Use your CRM and data analytics to find out.

  • Fundraising Effectiveness Report: Get a glimpse of the state of the industry with the Quarterly Reports from the FEP.