Business planning

3 Ways to Improve Ways Your Fundraising Program

Fundraising has always been the concerns for the non profits and while they are always busy changing strategies, the best ways to improve the fundraising program is often ignored.

While this is the problem the only suitable solution to this is making a checklist of all the ways that will responsibly improve the fundraising program for you. This post, unlike others that speak only about fundraising focuses on the ways to improve the fundraising program; so make sure you read it until the end.

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1. Transparency – While most of the non profits and churches claim they behave and perform in a transparent manner with their donors, it cannot be ignored that there is still a lot of negligence. So while you draft how transparent you are, I have drafted for you the two primary ways in which you’re required to behave transparently.

  • Financial Transparency: Yes, this is extremely important – more than you think it is. You must release a note every year which shows how you are allocating your funds, but your donors are not going to sit and read through that long document. Make sure you give your donors an easy way to digest how you are investing their money. Create a graph, chart, infographic etc. And if it looks like you spent more in say, fundraising, than expected, explain why. Your donors love your mission and giving them a peek behind the curtain creates a sense of belonging and teamwork.
  • Program Transparency: This is all about showing the ‘Impact’. Program transparency helps your donors in knowing not only the percentage of the donations received but also the number of people that you’ve helped, the animals you’ve saved and everything that you said you’ll be responsible for. If you create an annual report, that’s a great start. Pull information from there so that you can use it in your fundraising materials, put an infographic on your website – anything that allows your donors to easily see the impact their giving is having.

2. Optimize Your Donor Experience – Personalization doesn’t just knowing your donor’s first name; it is also about knowing their interests, and reaching out to them when it’s right, and with the right giving amount. It’s marketing tips – reaching the right audience with the right message at the right time. Donor optimization also includes reaching donors in ways they’re most comfortable. Ask yourself the following questions to see if you are optimizing your donor experience. Make use of the right tools – segment your donors based on their last donations, birthdays, anniversaries, last gift date, a specific campaign – anything that helps you optimizing experience.

3. Audit Your System – This is the most important point in your checklist of the ways to improve your fundraising program and often the most neglected. Make sure you audit your system time and again and make sure everything is updated and just the way you need it to be. A great thing is to use an audit control system, or if you aren’t using any it is best to have the right people do it for you.

Here are a couple of questions that will help you audit your church or nonprofit efficiently and quickly –

  • How much time are you spending in your current data systems versus how much time you are spending talking to donors?
  • Do your systems talk to each other – is there a constant follow-up?
  • Can you easily run reports?

There are a lot of things that you need to keep in mind when driving the fundraising business, but these three mentioned above are the most important ones.

Take AwayYour nonprofit organization and church will be in the best performing shape if you can manage the details of the funds, the attendance of the visitors as well as the details of all the future events. However, if you cannot do these you can adopt a simple solution – church management software. Church Management Software effectively and efficiently manages all the details of the funds, the donor, the events of the present and the future without creating any confusion.

By Datadevelopments.

If you have any questions, please ask below!