Articles: Fundraising

Crowdsourcing can help you harness the crowd to increase awareness, cultivate new volunteers, gather information and even get work done—all for a minimal investment. How can you put it to work for you?

If your organization works with corporate sponsors, you’ve probably put some thought into defining the different levels of sponsorship and what to include in each. Such perks can help lure new sponsors by offering a return on their investment beyond just a charitable contribution or can tempt existing sponsors to increase their donation.

What if a percentage of the $150 billion spent annually in online shopping could be donated to nonprofits working to make the world a better place?That’s exactly the promise a growing number of web-based businesses are making—purchase something from an online retailer you find through their site, and they’ll send a percentage to the organization of your choice. Neither users nor their designated charities pay anything—the donations come from participating merchants, who pay the sites a commission for each online purchase referred through them.

(This article originally appeared in the Nonprofit Times.) As user demand increases, vendors are adapting their donor management system offerings to support mobile devices and cloud computing, one of several recent market trends that are adding value and capability to the software. They’re also enhancing functionality that’s critical for nonprofits, like integrated email and ease of use, in many cases adding substantial functionality without raising prices. 

What tools can help you raise money and rally support for your cause through an online auction? We take a look at the software tools that are widely used in the nonprofit sector.     

What does it mean to "engage people"?  Gideon Rosenblatt talks through six different levels of engagement people can have with your organization, in an article reprinted from Groundwire.

Are your online communications working?  How can you tell?  In this article, we talk through four types of measures-- Views, Followers, Engagement, and Conversion-- that help you track your efforts to see if they're worthwhile.  

Chances are, your organization has a website. Perhaps you also send out broadcast emails, or maintain a blog, Twitter or Facebook account. Is the effort you’re putting into online communications working? How can you tell?

If you are already using email communication tools and are equipped to receive online donations through your website, email fundraising is an easy step forward. For a better sense of what's involved, we bring you a look at two smaller organizations and their email fundraising campaigns.

Email fundraising is a technique that’s within the reach of the smallest organization.  This article walks you through the basics: how to design a campaign, write emails, build an email list, select software to send email and take online donations, and measure the results.

You’ve defined your requirements, talked to vendors, seen demos, found the right donor management software for you and worked through the contract—now you’re done, right? Not so fast. You still need to implement the system, which requires additional planning, teamwork, configuration, data migration and testing—my favorite part!

New donor management software will improve your life, solve all your organization’s problems and make all your goals a reality. Right? And it comes with prime waterfront property in the Everglades. This last sentence is only slightly less true than the first, but we take it as common wisdom. In fact, many non-profits change systems when they don’t need to, for the wrong reasons, or in an ineffective manner—and sometimes all of the above!

You already know the value a good email campaign can bring to your nonprofit, whether it is an eNewsletter, or email advocacy and fundraising appeals. But how can you tell if your electronic communications are actually having the impact you hoped for? Is the work you’re putting in worth the effort? Email metrics can help you determine the effectiveness of your communications and fine tune them to improve their efficiency.

Looking for an inexpensive way to track your volunteers, donors, partners, and other constituents? We've full updated this popular article, which recommends a set of free and low cost databases that have worked for those in the field. We've added new tools, tips and thoughts to help you find something that works for your organization.

It can be hard to understand how online payment processing works. Many different steps and a lot of jargon make it seem more complicated than it is. To help you see the big picture, we’ve laid out a typical payment process in diagrams.

Here’s the whole diagram – but don’t worry, we’ll break it down.