Over the last few weeks, we’ve shared some resources to help you get started on specific aspects of your year-end online fundraising. But really, there’s a lot you can be doing all year to increase your base of supporters, engage them in your mission, and convert them to active donors. Using the Internet to Raise Funds and Build Donor Relationships: Tools, Tips and Techniques for Boosting Donations, a new handbook from Convio, will help your organization see the big picture and create effective strategies for long-term success.
This guide integrates many of the tips and best practices you’ve read about here, into a detailed overview, with frequent reminders of the benefits of online vs. traditional donor relationships, suggestions for the types of tools you’ll need, some metrics that will help you to set goals for your program, and real-world examples.
To make the most of the advantages of online fundraising over offline methods – cost-effectiveness, timeliness, and the ability to find out more about your supporters over time and more easily communicate with them based on what they respond to – you’ll need to take an approach that includes:
- Build and manage your email list: drive traffic to your site, and make sure it’s optimized to convert visitors to subscribers. Make your join button easy to find across the site, keep “required” information limited, and have incentives (such as an insightful newsletter or invites to special events) for joining your organization or signing up to your email list. Send messages to your existing supporters, asking them to “tell a friend” about you and follow you on social network like Facebook and Twitter. Consider engaging a reputable “list append” service that finds email addresses to match postal addresses in your existing database.
- Develop relationships with your supporters: over time, you can survey or poll your members to find out more about themselves and their interests (helpful for list segmentation), and create special messages and landing pages based on what they tell you. Consider using a Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system, which can help you take a deeper look at your supporter/membership data to help you understand who your supporters are, what motivates them to donate, if they are one-time donors or recurring donors.
- Create compelling campaigns, and involve supporters in promoting your cause: know and clearly communicate your goals, share your progress, and thank people for contributing. Communicating at every step, once cost-prohibitive with more traditional offline methods, can improve your response rates significantly and keep your supporters engaged.
- Engage your supporters as volunteer fundraisers and word-spreaders: many organizations have been successful with peer-to-peer campaigns like walk/run/ride events and eCards. Consider virtual events too, since traditional offline events like races can get expensive to organize. You can strengthen your relationships with supporters by engaging them at this level, while expanding your organization’s visibility with their networks.
- Measure your success: you’ll want to measure at every step how well you’re doing – how many visitors to your site are signing up and/or donating, how many people are opening your emails, who’s clicking through and taking action, and how many of your supporters stick with you over time. Online methods also allow you to more easily test different messaging strategies with different groups of supporters, so you can hone your efforts.
While offline methods for building your organization’s reach will remain important, there’s every reason, and lots of great help available, to make sure your online presence is a powerful one. What’s inspiring you to take the next steps online and ramp up your online fundraising strategies?