Hosting live events is a crucial part of the success of your organization. Events can be important for a variety of reasons including fundraising, outreach, and raising awareness. There are so many moving pieces involved in creating a great event, but perhaps one of the most important is marketing your event to prospective attendees. After all, an event is nothing without attendees!

Luckily, event technology is capable of aiding and streamlining all of your event marketing. Bring in more attendees by letting your event technology help you:

1. Promote your event online
2. Track and use your attendee data
3. Communicate with attendees early and often
4. Use configurable marketing software
5. Raise awareness for your organization’s mission

Don’t shy away from adopting new technology trends as you plan and execute your next event. Marketing tools will ensure you see your attendee numbers growing steadily.

Let’s get started!

1. Promote your event online

The majority of people get their news straight from their phones. It’s a huge part of how we interact with the world today. Therefore, your organization should take advantage of any and all opportunities to promote your event online. Your organization’s website and social media pages, in particular, are crucial to the success of your event marketing.

To ensure everyone has easy access to information about your event, create a dedicated page on your website for it, including:

• The time/date of the event
• The event’s location
• The purpose of your event
• Why your event is important

If your events require a significant investment of time and resources to plan, it’s probably a good idea to use event-specific tools. Using digital marketing platforms designed for nonprofits will let you easily create campaign and event microsites that include embedded donation tools.

Remember, an effective website is only useful if people actually visit the site. Approximately 25% of traffic to your site’s ticketing and registration sites comes from social media. This avenue cannot be overlooked, so your organization should plan an effective social media strategy and track its engagement to ensure your online promotion is a success.

2. Track and use your attendee data

The complexities of data management have been known to be the downfall of many event planning teams. The data can easily become overwhelming if not properly maintained and managed. Make sure you are tracking and recording key attendee data so that you can more accurately appeal to individuals for future events.

People in your community or space attend your events because they support your cause, want to learn from your insights, or are simply interested in the event for personal reasons. If you want to guarantee that your invitees will actually be interested in attending your next event, the best place to start is in your list of past attendees.

Foster deeper engagement by establishing relationships with existing supporters or contacts and encouraging them to maintain their involvement in your organization. You can track your data in a constituent relationship manager, or CRM, to ensure the volume of your data does not result in an administrative slow-down at your organization.

3. Communicate with attendees early and often

As is the case with any fundraising or promotional effort, communication is key! Your organization should start contacting potential attendees well in advance of the event itself to increase the likelihood that your event gains traction. The best way to communicate with your attendees is via email— around 78% of event coordinators credit email marketing as their most effective marketing tactic.

Use your organization’s digital marketing tools to design an email campaign. You should be able to:

• Create and schedule your email campaign
• Segment your recipient list
• Receive detailed analytics reports about your campaign

Don’t let your nonprofit be held back by short-sighted communication strategies. Reach out to attendees frequently to remind them about your event. Motivate your attendees by impressing upon them the importance of supporting your organization.

4. Use configurable marketing software

If you want more people to come to your event, your organization needs to be organized and prepared to take tackle it from all sides. This means you should be equipped with all the tools you need to host and market your event beforehand.

Use configurable marketing software that is specifically tailored to the needs of your organization to ensure you are well-prepared.

At DNL OmniMedia, our experience is mostly in offering Blackbaud consulting services to nonprofits that need customized tech solutions. We recommend to clients (and to any organization!) to always look for configurable software or integrations. Adding capabilities in a way that won’t complicate your data management is the key to growing your toolkit sustainably.

5. Raise awareness for your organization’s mission

The best way to appeal to attendees is to spread the word about your organization’s mission and vision for your community. With all the moving parts of event planning, it can be easy to forget about simply communicating your organization’s mission or the core purpose of the event.

However, don’t forget the importance of personal endorsements from community members. Peer-to-peer fundraising allows individuals to share your organization’s information with their personal networks. Most people will be more likely to support an event or fundraiser if a friend or family member personally recommends it to them.

In the for-profit space, this is analogous to ‘social proof’, like online reviews and social media engagement. Look for ways to get actual customers, supporters, and industry experts involved online in organic ways. This will help to seriously increase your visibility.

Not only can these strategies provide a great boost for your broader efforts, but it will expose more people to your organization and as a result, help you promote your particular event.

Marketing an event successfully can often seem like an insurmountable obstacle, but it doesn’t have to be! Marketing technology has the power to greatly enhance the success of your organization’s event and entice more attendees. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to drawing a crowd.

The post Marketing Your Nonprofit Event: 5 Tech Tips to Draw a Crowd appeared first on Method.

Of course, nobody wants to work inefficiently. But sometimes it just happens if you’re using outdated tools (like paper donation forms) or slow processes (like manually preparing thank you letters).

Luckily, these days there’s an app for everything —so your best bet is to find a solution that simplifies as many of your day-to-day tasks as possible.

Enter Method:Donor — a customizable CRM designed for nonprofit organizations. Method is an online system that helps nonprofits manage their donor relationships and streamline their fundraising. Plus, it has a powerful two-way integration with QuickBooks. This means you can access donor and donation data in Method without logging into your accounting software.

Want more details? You’ve come to the right place! We’ve created a free ebook that explains how CRM software helps nonprofits simplify tasks and work more efficiently.

In this ebook, we discuss how Method:Donor:

• Eliminates the need for double (or triple) data entry
• Provides you with tools for building and maintaining strong relationships with your donors
• Allows you to generate reports in just a few clicks
• Gives you the ability to connect your donor and donation data to other apps
• Lets you create customized software that suits your unique needs

Ready to learn more?

Click to download your FREE copy of our ebook, “How Nonprofits Can Reduce Inefficiencies with a Customizable CRM.”

The post How Nonprofits Can Reduce Inefficiencies with a Customizable CRM [Free Ebook] appeared first on Method.

Whatever we call organizations in the nonprofit sector — charities, foundations, social enterprises, and so on — the point is that their paths to growth and success are based on strategies similar to those used by for-profit companies. Like these companies, nonprofits and charities require strong leadership, vision, and innovation, along with the right people and tools, to give their causes the visibility they deserve.

Here, we’ll examine some of the key strategies that nonprofits can use in order to garner support and increase their impact.

1. Know your donors

The most successful charities truly know their donors. In the corporate world, this principle is called “knowing your customer.” But whether you’re referring to customers or donors, the underlying message is that it’s important to look beyond the numbers and learn more about what attracts individuals to your organization.

A forward-thinking nonprofit will always stay focused on the things their donors care about, where their preferences lie, and how much they’ve given in the past. Sophisticated organizations can even use this information to predict (with surprising accuracy) how much those donors will give in the future. This is a huge advantage, as it takes a lot of the risk out of strategic planning.

How do these organizations do it? It’s a combination of the right instincts, the right tools, and the right processes. Interact with your supporters at any opportunity, invest in a comprehensive donor management solution, and make market research an ongoing part of your operations. You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve when you have a better understanding of your audience.

2. Personalize every connection

When it comes to effective donor management, you cannot overestimate the importance of building relationships and personalizing every communication. The people who are giving to your charity need to know that they’re making a difference. They also need to feel that their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated.

Hold on. But they’re giving for the cause, not for themselves, right?

Of course, that’s a nice thought, and it may be true for some donors. But overall, that’s not how the business of nonprofit management works. Ask any successful for-profit business about the importance of personal relationships. They’ll tell you that building and maintaining those relationships is crucial to their success.  

The same thing applies here. In fact, in the nonprofit world, creating these meaningful relationships is even more important, because the donor is giving you their money without receiving a product or service in return.  

To maximize donor retention, treat each donor like they’re your biggest supporter. Every email, outreach and check-in call should be personalized and informed by their previous interactions with your nonprofit, their giving history, and the things they care about.

3. Leverage digital tools

Your donors are online and digitally active. For many younger supporters, it’s the best way they know of to learn about your nonprofit, see the work you’re doing, and plan their future giving.

Just as for-profit companies use technology to strengthen their brand, connect with potential buyers and manage customer relationships, your organization should do the same. At a minimum, this means you should have a well-maintained website and a strong social media presence.

From an internal perspective, cloud-based apps are great for providing your team with a shared workspace, a centralized dataset, and mobile access to essential information. For instance, nonprofits can leverage donor management software to:

• Send out personalized email communications
• Organize large-scale marketing campaigns
• Manage interactions with donor leads — and more.

4. Centralize your administration

Many nonprofit organizations consist of a network of local branches across the country, each operating as its own entity. Each one of those local entities has administrative expenses for supplies, technology, and staffing — and those expenses add up quickly. This arrangement is a recipe for duplication and inefficiencies.

There’s a real opportunity for centralization here. For example, the umbrella organization or head office can buy supplies in bulk for cost savings. A shared software solution can also be used to assist individual branches with standardizing administrative tasks. When each branch of a nationwide nonprofit is using the same programs, it promotes consistency in data management, campaign development, and donor communications.

5. Get the right data

Robert McNamara, former Ford Motor Company executive and former US Secretary of Defense, had a set of maxims for leading large organizations. One of them was “get the data.” Indeed, McNamara was one of the first advocates of data-driven management.

Just like private sector businesses, charities need metrics to assess their performance. These key performance indicators (KPIs) help paint a picture of how your campaigns are working and how engaged your supporters are. Important KPIs for nonprofits might include:

• Month-over-month and year-over-year financials  
• Donor acquisition cost: How much do you have to spend to acquire a new donor?
• Retention rate: What percentage of donors who gave last year gave again this year?
• Donor lifetime value: How much value do you obtain from a donor’s lifetime involvement with your organization?

When it comes to strategic planning, the scene at a nonprofit shouldn’t look that different from that at a private company — a group of smart people gathered around a conference table, looking for answers to complex questions and planning the way forward. Your KPIs should be an important part of that strategic process.

Using technology to promote best practices

Every nonprofit best practice — from knowing your donors to collecting essential data — can be supported by the right technology. Nonprofit-specific software can help organizations streamline many aspects of their day-to-day operations, including donor relationship management, donation tracking, email marketing, and reporting.

By investing in key tools right from the get-go, your organization will be well-equipped to capture new leads, turn those leads into donors, and execute campaigns to keep donors engaged for the long haul.

The post 5 Best Practices for Running a Nonprofit appeared first on Method.

Were you aware, though, that your CRM software can also help you market more effectively? When you think of a CRM as a data collection tool and not just a means of simplifying routine tasks, it makes sense. A good nonprofit CRM provides a reliable means of tracking donor contribution patterns over time. It also helps organizations establish meaningful insights into how much and how often individual donors contribute.

Having this data on hand gives you some valuable feedback about what and when your existing donors like hearing from your organization. This, in turn, allows you to engage strategically with potential donors across various channels.

For all of these reasons, it’s time to stop thinking of your CRM as just a donor database — it’s also a great tool to help you develop your marketing strategy.

The first step: choosing CRM software that works for your nonprofit

Of course, you need to implement a CRM before you can take advantage of its wealth of data. When selecting the right CRM for your nonprofit, consider what pain points you want to address:

• Are your team members being tasked with too much manual data entry?
• Are you trying to manage too many disconnected systems at once?
• Have donation follow-ups fallen through the cracks?

Nonprofit managers should aim to implement a CRM that resolves as many of these pain points as possible.

Of course, no single software tool is going to solve every problem or allow you to track every type of data. But by selecting a CRM that works with some of your existing tools, you’ll come that much closer to creating an integrated technology ecosystem.

For instance, a CRM that syncs with QuickBooks streamlines the process of logging donations and generating thank you letters and tax receipts. It also lets you see at a glance exactly how much money your individual donors are giving — without needing to access your accounting software.

Another valuable feature to look for in a nonprofit CRM is the ability to segment donor data. Many systems make it easy to filter or group donors into categories based on their giving patterns, geographic locations, or other criteria. This allows you to create specific lists of donors, like those who responded to individual campaigns or donated less year-over-year. You can then create and send mass emails to each segment, thus reducing the time spent sending individualized follow-ups to each donor on your list.

Use your CRM to establish a data-driven donor retention strategy

Once you have a nonprofit CRM in place, every member of your team should learn how to interpret the donation data in the software. Although there can be many reasons why individual donors stop giving — an economic downturn, a personal crisis, and so on — looking at the overall donation patterns in your CRM allows you to see which marketing campaigns are most effective with your existing donors.

This point can’t be overstated: it’s important to be strategic about your marketing campaigns. There can be a tendency among charitable organizations to downplay the need for organized marketing; instead, they assume that their loyal donors will keep coming back because they believe in the organization’s mission.

The reality is that nonprofits require a focused marketing strategy to continually engage and delight donors — and that strategy should be data-driven.

Your CRM can offer valuable insights into how you should market to your existing donors. For instance, maybe the data shows that people tend to give less year-over-year. Could you create an email campaign to show your supporters the positive impact of their donations?

On the other hand, maybe the data shows that donors have failed to respond to your last few email campaigns, but their end-of-year giving patterns are stable. In this case, perhaps you should turn your attention from email marketing to putting on a big end-of-year fundraising event.

Looking beyond existing donors: your CRM can also help with inbound marketing

Nonprofits are sometimes also reluctant to develop strong inbound marketing campaigns. With so many competing priorities, you may see maintaining your website and running your social media accounts as a waste of time and resources.

However, the truth is that nonprofits always need to be recruiting new supporters who believe in their mission. This means it’s important to spend time creating and sharing online content that spreads your message and attracts new donors. There are some proven techniques for boosting donor acquisition, like developing strong branding and using images that resonate with donors. But how can you tell when you’re getting these things right?

This is another area where a nonprofit CRM can assist. Of course, you can’t expect your CRM to replace your web analytics software. But if your CRM is linked to an online donation page on your site, you can certainly gain some insights based on giving patterns. Say you updated the front page of your site last week, and since then you’ve received an influx of new donations. Chances are you’ve hit the nail on the head with your new messaging.

Cross-referencing your CRM data with your web analytics data can also be useful. For instance, you might look at your CRM data to see how many new donors you attracted with a recent campaign. Then, you might use a web analytics tool to see which of your social media channels drove the most traffic to your website during that campaign.

Taken together, you can assume that some of your new donors came from those social media channels. This tells you where to concentrate your future inbound marketing efforts.

Conclusion

A CRM for nonprofits is more than just a database for tracking donor names and donation history. It can also provide crucial data to help you develop effective marketing campaigns and fine-tune your inbound marketing approach. And when used with your other software tools, your CRM becomes even more valuable, allowing you to develop powerful strategies for retaining existing donors and expanding your constituent base.

The post How Nonprofits Can Use CRM Software to Develop an Effective Marketing Strategy appeared first on Method.

What’s the biggest trend in the nonprofit space in recent years? Peer-to-peer fundraising!

Your organization has likely already tapped into the power of peer-to-peer fundraising strategies in the past, possibly without even realizing it. This fundraising style has become incredibly popular as a result of a few different technological and social forces, and it reliably engages donors for all different types of missions.

If your organization wants to learn more about peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, it can be tricky to know where to begin; peer-to-peer fundraising is itself a fairly broad fundraising approach.

We’ve put together a quick Q&A guide to help get your team started. We’ll walk through the basics of this fundraising style and provide a few of our own pro tips and resources along the way.

Jump to:

1. What is peer-to-peer fundraising?
2. How do these campaigns work?
3. Are there different types of peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns?
4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of these campaigns?
5. What do I need to conduct a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign?
6. What features should I look for in peer-to-peer software?
7. How should I structure my peer-to-peer campaign?
8. What types of events work well with these campaigns?
9. How can I promote my peer-to-peer campaign?
10. How can I boost the impact of my peer-to-peer campaign?

What is peer-to-peer fundraising?

Peer-to-peer fundraising is any style of nonprofit fundraising in which volunteers leverage their social networks to raise money on behalf of your organization.

This fundraising style is incredibly flexible and adaptable. From crafting a campaign strategy to planning effective fundraising events to managing volunteers, a large-scale peer-to-peer fundraising campaign takes a lot of work but yields high rewards.

How do these campaigns work?

In a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, your volunteer fundraisers ask their friends, family, and coworkers to contribute to the campaign, and your organization receives the donations.

While your nonprofit is at the center of this network of supporters, you don’t need to micromanage every interaction and donation solicitation the way you might in a more traditional fundraising campaign. It’s a decentralized style of fundraising that gives your team the flexibility to focus more on engaging donors than on soliciting them.

The main idea behind peer-to-peer fundraising is to draw on your community’s extended network of contacts in an organic way.

It’s a particularly effective strategy due to both the huge influence of social media in our daily lives and the rise of social giving patterns among donors of all demographics. Download the 2018 OneCause Social Donor Study to learn more.

Are there different types of peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns?

Yes, since peer-to-peer fundraising is such a flexible style, campaigns will vary in intensity. Here are a few examples to give you a rough idea of the range:

• High-intensity: A national nonprofit organization plans an extensive peer-to-peer fundraising campaign or large scale on-the-ground event (run, walk or ride) to lead up to its annual gala. Detailed plans, schedules, marketing strategies, logistics, and volunteer training courses are developed months ahead of time.
• Mid-intensity: A mid-sized or small nonprofit sets up a campaign ahead of a local 5K event. Fundraising teams can create their own pages to share among friends and collect pledges before the day of the big race.
• Low-intensity: A nonprofit configures an option on its website or social media profile for supporters to create their own mini-campaigns, typically around a special occasion, awareness day, or supporter-driven fundraiser. One common example is a supporter raising money on their birthday and asking for donations instead of gifts.

From complex multichannel campaigns to casual mini-campaigns, peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns can be conducted across a range of intensities. Remember, though, that proper planning and strategy are necessary for the success of any campaign, no matter how casual or low-intensity.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of these campaigns?

As with any type of fundraising campaign, there are pros and cons to choosing to conduct a peer-to-peer style campaign over a more traditional one. Consider these benefits:

• The nature of peer-to-peer fundraising makes them very useful for reaching new audiences and expanding your network of online supporters.
• These campaigns can be highly engaging for large segments of your support base when planned effectively, which can help to significantly boost donor retention.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns can generate a ton of donor engagement data, which, when properly recorded and analyzed, helps you continually improve your fundraising and marketing strategies in the future.

However, peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns might not always be the best choice for every nonprofit. There are two main drawbacks:

• Effective peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns require dedicated software designed to host individual donation pages, manage the campaign as a whole, and track the performance of each volunteer. Depending on your budget, this investment might need to wait until you’ve had time to prepare.
• These campaigns typically require significant amounts of planning and marketing to stay on track and meet their goals on time. Don’t commit to a peer-to-peer campaign unless your team is able to develop a top-to-bottom plan for its execution.

Even with these drawbacks, peer-to-peer fundraising remains a highly effective choice for nonprofits of all sizes. The main point is to not rush into one; the most successful peer-to-peer campaigns are the centerpiece of that nonprofit’s fundraising year and the result of careful planning and investment.

What do I need to conduct a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign?

We’ve already touched on a few of the tools and team members you’ll need to help organize an effective peer-to-peer campaign. Here’s a rough checklist to keep in mind as you begin planning your campaign:

• A team of volunteers to host and promote their individual campaign pages
• Active social media followings on multiple platforms
• Peer-to-peer fundraising software that can track and manage the performance of each campaign page
• Marketing and engagement tools and strategies to keep your community fully engaged with the campaign

If you’re investing in peer-to-peer fundraising software for the first time, take your time choosing the perfect set of tools for your needs. Additional engagement tools like gamification and marketing features will be included in leading software options.

Study up on a few peer-to-peer fundraising best practices for more information on how to begin preparing for your campaign.

What features should I look for in peer-to-peer software?

Chances are your organization has already made other significant investments in software in the past. If you’ve already been through the process of choosing a CRM platform or other database, for example, you know how important it is to think about the features you want and need before diving into making a purchase.

Strong peer-to-peer fundraising software should include features like:

• CRM integration capabilities
• Gamification tools, like leaderboards and thermometers
• Plenty of page customization options
• Social media sharing tools
• Comprehensive reporting features
• Robust reporting and admin functionality

Remember, too, that new software is an important investment. Your new peer-to-peer platform should be scalable, able to handle as many volunteers as you might need for future campaigns down the line. Explore our P2P buyer’s guide to learn more about the features to look for.

How should I structure my peer-to-peer campaign?

Most mid- to high-intensity peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns follow a structure or schedule similar to this:

• Campaign planning, volunteer recruitment, and training several months in advance. These are done in tandem with event planning if the campaign will culminate in a major annual event.
• Pre-campaign marketing efforts to raise awareness within your extended network and get volunteers excited to begin.
• Campaign kick-off, typically marked by an announcement or community event.
• The main fundraising period, broken up by one or two benchmark or check-in events. Smaller-scale fundraising events with competitive elements work well to boost energy throughout campaigns.
• Wrap-up period of fundraising, the perfect time to ratchet up the energy and help your volunteers reach their goals using additional fundraising event ideas and creative incentives.
• The campaign’s conclusion, typically ending in a public event or celebration.

This is a general framework for how most peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns are structured, but it’s important to develop a campaign that is will excite your nonprofit’s particular community of support.

Implementing additional fundraising ideas and incentives throughout the campaign is a great way to make it your own. Explore Bonfire’s exhaustive list of fundraising ideas to start brainstorming.

What types of events work well with these campaigns?

As mentioned above, many peer-to-peer campaigns are structured with one or more community engagement or fundraising events at the beginning, middle, or end. The scale of these events will depend on the scale of the campaign itself, but effective peer-to-peer events often share a few characteristics.

The best peer-to-peer events are typically active and participant-centered, like walkathons and 5Ks. Other annual events, like galas and auctions, can also work well as grand finales, but take extra effort to maintain a sense of community during the campaign, focusing on your mission that brings all of your supporters together.

For any large or small-scale events you plan for your campaign, remember that their main purpose is to create and sustain the campaign’s momentum while also helping your volunteers to reach their fundraising goals.

How can I promote my peer-to-peer campaign?

Peer-to-peer campaigns should be promoted with multichannel strategies. That is, use all of the marketing outlets at your disposal in strategic and coordinated ways to attract and engage supporters wherever they might encounter your campaign.

Providing your volunteers with effective customization and social sharing tools on their fundraising pages goes a long way to simplify the marketing process. Encourage them to heavily engage their networks on social media.

Your organization should also take an active role in directing everyone’s social media efforts. Creating a unique hashtag for volunteers and donors to use or developing unique viral challenges are great ways to grow your campaign’s visibility online.

Don’t forget to conduct some traditional outbound marketing, like an email campaign, as well. These are useful in the lead-up to your campaign and for promoting your grand finale events that can attract even more members of the wider community. Just make sure to put as much thought into your messaging and segmentation strategies here as you do in your social media efforts.

How can I boost the impact of my peer-to-peer campaign?

Always be on the lookout for additional ways to boost the impact of your campaign, remembering that there are more benefits to peer-to-peer campaigns than just raising money. A strong campaign can seriously improve your donor engagement and retention rates. Consider these strategies:

• Take extra care to thank all the donors who give to your campaign or attend an event. Thank you letters and emails are always a good idea for improving retention; encourage your volunteer fundraisers to thank all of their friends who donated, too
• Creating timed fundraising contests and offering incentives to top fundraisers is a great strategy for pumping up the energy and motivating donors at crucial times in your campaign.
• Promote matching gifts to donors when possible. 1 in 3 donors says they’d be willing to give more if they know it’ll be matched by their employer. Plus, helping donors boost the impact of their gifts is great for deepening your relationships with them.

As a flexible style of fundraising, it’s easy to incorporate other techniques and elements into peer-to-peer campaigns. Make the most of yours by thinking outside the box!

Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns and social fundraising techniques are extremely effective and popular with donors across all demographics. However, if you’ve never conducted one before, it can feel overwhelming to jump right in.

Take your time getting started! Careful strategy always pays off when it comes to peer-to-peer campaigns, no matter how large or small your goals.

The post Nonprofit Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: A Guide in 10 Questions appeared first on Method.

In many cases, customer relationship management (CRM) software can help nonprofits take their fundraising efforts and donor retention to the next level. A CRM for nonprofits helps to strengthen the bonds between an organization and its donors by making it easier to stay connected. It can also help the organization run more efficiently and significantly increase donations.

With all of these potential benefits, what’s the problem? Well, there are costs associated with implementing a robust nonprofit CRM — and this often means getting the approval of board members who may have limited knowledge of this software. So, what should a board of directors know about nonprofit CRM software to persuade them of its value?

It will improve efficiency

Board members may not fully understand nonprofit technology, but they likely understand the value of efficiency. A nonprofit CRM can make employees and volunteers more efficient by keeping donor information all in one place. By selecting a CRM that is mobile-friendly, this data can be accessed anywhere at any time, making it available on-site during fundraising events. Furthermore, by selecting a CRM that integrates with your accounting software, it eliminates the time-consuming double-entry of donor information into multiple programs.

A board may not respond positively to “We need to upgrade our donor management software,” but they will likely be interested in suggestions that help your team and organization run more efficiently.

It can increase the number and size of donations

A nonprofit CRM allows you to know so much more about a donor than just what their last contribution was. Instead, having a centralized source of data gives you greater insight into your supporters’ histories and preferences. For instance, you might track each donor’s preferred method of contact, be it traditional mail, email, text, or phone call. You could also monitor patterns in how your supporters respond to email campaigns, fundraising events, and other initiatives.

Having this information at your fingertips allows you to target your fundraising efforts. By reaching out to your donors strategically, you’ll be more likely to bring in larger repeat donations; this is one benefit of CRM software that is sure to capture the attention of your board.

It will positively impact donor retention

With an average donor retention rate of less than 50%, it’s no wonder that there is a lot of pressure on nonprofits to acquire new supporters. However, recruiting new donors is far less cost-effective than retaining existing ones. How can nonprofits level up their strategy to retain and re-engage previous donors?

Consider the experience of for-profit businesses: there’s a lot of emphasis on making the sale, but new customers can easily be lost to a competitor if they aren’t nurtured. The same is true for a new donor. If you lose contact with them or don’t show your appreciation for them after the initial donation, they’re likely to disappear.

This is the power of using the right CRM software. Implementing a nonprofit CRM helps to streamline every aspect of building donor relationships, from sending thank you letters to tracking conversations to scheduling reminders to reach out. By maintaining ongoing communication with your donors, you’ll help them feel more connected to your organization, thereby improving retention rates.

It will improve the quality of reports available to the board

Your board can certainly appreciate that by choosing the right donor and donation management software, you can generate more detailed and informative reports with less manual effort. These reports will provide additional accountability and clarity into your organization’s work. In addition, these reports may shed light on additional fundraising opportunities or show distinct areas for improvement that may otherwise have been missed.

It can improve the reputation of the organization

Presumably, your board members want to be associated with a well-run and efficient organization that is professionally operated. When it comes to managing data and streamlining workflows, upgrading from spreadsheets to a nonprofit CRM can put even small to mid-sized nonprofits on par with much larger organizations. Improving internal processes can also have a positive impact on staff and volunteer morale, which ultimately impacts how the organization appears to supporters.

Choosing the right CRM for your nonprofit

Understandably, your board of directors may have some concerns about approving CRM software for your nonprofit. They may worry about the CRM being user-friendly enough to be of maximum value, particularly if there is high turnover on your team. They may also have concerns about how the system will work with your existing tools and whether it is adaptable enough to meet your nonprofit’s specific needs.

Keep these concerns in mind as you research potential CRMs for your organization. What kind of user training does the vendor offer? Do you need a CRM that integrates with your accounting software? Is the CRM customizable enough to accommodate key processes and help your team work effectively? By answering these questions during your research process, you’ll be well-prepared to communicate to your board why you’ve selected a particular CRM.

Method:Donor: A CRM designed for nonprofits

For nonprofits that want to streamline their workflows and improve donor retention, it’s hard to beat a customizable CRM that integrates with QuickBooks. Method:Donor helps nonprofits build stronger relationships with their supporters, work more efficiently, and eliminate time-consuming double data entry. Even the most skeptical board members will see the benefits — so sign up for your free trial and start reaping them!

The post What Your Nonprofit Board Should Know About CRM Software appeared first on Method.

Social media use by nonprofits continues to increase. A benchmark report found that nonprofit audiences on the three most popular social media platforms grew steadily in 2017, with Facebook audiences growing by 13%, Twitter by 15%, and Instagram by 44%. These numbers aren’t surprising, and they’re not expected to slow anytime soon.

But if your organization is like most small and medium-sized nonprofits, you face a number of challenges. Optimizing your social media use can feel overwhelming, especially given that most organizations must operate within tight budget constraints.

Fortunately, you don’t need unlimited funds to make a splash online. The following tips can help your nonprofit make a big impact on a small budget.

Create a Plan

You wouldn’t operate your nonprofit without a strategic plan. Similarly, don’t approach your social media without a written plan in place. Start by gathering or developing the following information:

• Which platforms you currently have a presence and audience on
• Which platforms are currently producing the best results (likes, follows, engagement, donations, sending viewers to your website, etc.)
• A social media mission statement that aligns with your organizational mission
• Your organization’s target audience
• Key goals (Sharing news? Increasing donations? Attracting volunteers?)
• Key success metrics

Once you’ve identified these factors, you can come up with a content strategy. It may help to think of your social media content as an extension of your other communications efforts. Align your social media posts with your website, blog and email outreach to create consistent brand messaging. Remember: your content should offer value to your audience, as well as ask for their support.

Next, create a publishing calendar that meets your audience’s needs. Balance your social media communications with other types of content like blog posts, emails, and newsletters. Not only will having a calendar make it easier to keep up, but you’ll also ensure that your organization stays top of mind for your audience.

Enlist Supporters to Boost Your Messaging

If you’re just getting started on social media (or your efforts need a bit of a boost), enlist some trusted supporters. There’s no shame in asking staff, volunteers or long-time donors to engage with your posts. An active group of supporters can go a long way toward amplifying messages, especially when you’re building up a new audience.

Include Interactive Content

When it comes to social media success, engagement is key. Posting interactive content boosts engagement, as it asks your audience to do something. Bonus: creating interactive content can be easier for you, as it may not require hours of writing to come up with a unique post.

Examples of interactive content include:

• Polls
• Quizzes
• Surveys
• Calculators
• Q&A sessions
• Webinars
• Asking your readers to share their stories
• Asking your readers to like, share, or respond with an emoji

Respond Quickly and Consistently

You want your social media to spark engagement…but that means you have to be engaged, too. When a reader reaches out through social media, respond quickly. The timing of your response is important, as it may help cement their image of your organization as responsive and reliable. Check your notifications regularly and respond as soon as you can.

Some sites, such as Facebook, will publicize your response rate on your profile. If your organization “typically responds within a few weeks,” people will be discouraged from reaching out to you at all.

Utilize Hashtags

Large social media platforms — like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram — are pay-to-play. That means they have their own search engines and organizations can pay to increase the reach of their posts. But if your nonprofit doesn’t have the budget for this, using hashtags may offer a solution.

Adding the right hashtags to your social media posts will increase your organization’s visibility in search results. How do you choose an effective hashtag? There are two ways:

• Using an already-popular hashtag
• Creating your own branded hashtag

At first, jumping onto an already-trending hashtag may be most effective. As you grow your audience, start using branded hashtags of your own. Encourage your followers to use your hashtag when they share or re-post your messages. You may have to test a few options before one takes off, but the payoff can be huge.

Use Visuals in Your Posts

Studies indicate that social media users are much more likely to engage with posts that include pictures or videos. Large, high-quality images tend to attract the most attention. Experiment with embedding videos, infographics, GIFs and photos that resonate with your audience. Pictures of donors and events may be especially effective, as they showcase your organization’s personality.

Build Relationships with Donor Management Software

Once you’ve acquired a crowd of social media followers, how do you turn them into a strong support base?  Using the right donor management software makes it easy.

As you engage with new supporters online, be sure to add them to your donor management software. From there, you can easily organize your contacts, track offline interactions, and improve your outreach through customized and automated workflows.

To further streamline your social media and fundraising efforts, include a link to your online donation page in your social media profiles. When an individual enters a donation, they’ll automatically be logged as a new donor in your database — it’s that simple.

Conclusion

When you’re working with a small budget and limited staff, as most nonprofits do, optimizing your social media usage can feel overwhelming. However, tracking the connections you make, automating your follow-up communications, and providing convenient opportunities to donate allows you to make the most of this popular marketing strategy. That’s why Method:Donor is here to assist, with donor management software that helps you turn social media followers into loyal supporters.

The post Big Impact on a Small Budget: Social Media Tips for Nonprofits appeared first on Method.

For nonprofits, raising the necessary funds on time is clearly an essential aspect of making sure your fundraising campaign is successful. Since your fundraisers are the ones battling it out to solicit funds for your cause, it’s likely that their motivation levels will dip after a period of time. And this is natural — they’re humans, after all, and constantly trying to raise money can get pretty exhausting after a while.

This is why it’s up to organizations themselves to motivate their fundraisers and ensure they remain inspired throughout your fundraising campaign. While encouraging your fundraisers may seem like a difficult task, rest assured that it’s not. The following tips will show you how to motivate them in creative ways to keep them excited about fundraising.

Fundraising Games

You should definitely consider setting up some fundraising games to keep things fun and light. We’ve all heard the old adage All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Well, let’s modify the quote a little: All fundraising and no play makes Jack and Jill dull fundraisers! The reason games work is because they give fundraisers just that little something extra to look forward to while working. At the same time, these games help to build a bond among volunteers, which ultimately helps your cause.

But what games can they play, you ask? Well, there are so many simple yet fun ones to choose from.

The Banned Word Game

Your team chooses a word that everyone is banned from saying throughout the day, whether it’s while fundraising on the phone or talking to each other. Each time someone says the culpable word, a count is kept on a large whiteboard for everyone to see. The person with the highest score at the end is deemed the loser and has to take everyone out for lunch. (Pro Tip: make the game even more fun by ensuring that the word is something unavoidable, such as “fundraising” or “donation”!)

Shoot the Hoop

Each volunteer is assigned a fixed number of sponge balls, and a basket is placed in front of each person. After a volunteer gets someone to make a donation, they get to throw three balls into the basket. A leadership board is maintained and at the end of the day, the volunteer with the highest number of balls in their basket wins a prize.

Misplacement

When a volunteer goes for a bathroom break or simply to stretch their legs, the other volunteers either:

• Misplace an item on the missing person’s desk,
• Add a new item to the desk, or
• Leave the desk unchanged.

When the volunteer returns, they have to figure out if anything is different and what it is that is different. At the end of the day, the person with the most accurate guesses gets to be taken out for ice cream by the others.

Keep Them Informed

As a fundraiser, knowing the impact of the hard work you’re doing should be a great boost as opposed to being in the dark. Nonprofits can and should leverage this simple fact to generate motivation among your fundraising volunteers. Use different channels like text messages or email to get the word out and highlight your progress.

By knowing that your campaign is on an upward trend, your fundraisers are sure to be enthusiastic. An effective tactic here is to mention how close you are to your goal. When they’re close enough to reach that magic number, volunteers are likely to double their efforts. After all, no one quits when the finishing line is in sight, right? Send out texts like, “Hey Rodrigo, guess what? We’re almost there! We’ve raised $100,000 so far and just need another $10,000 to reach our goal.”

With tools like CallHub, these tasks become even easier since you can simply schedule your text messages in advance and send them once you reach your milestones.

To keep things fun and creative, use compelling images to show your progress on your website or social media. A fundraising thermometer is a good way of motivating fundraisers for one final push towards reaching your goal.

Communicate Regularly

Interacting with fundraisers regularly, right from when they join to when they start fundraising, is key to keeping momentum and motivation levels on the rise. Make it clear to them what their roles and responsibilities are and how the funds they raise will be used towards impacting a cause.

Give volunteers a way of getting in touch with you in case they have any concerns or queries they’d like addressed. CallHub helps you do this by letting you rent a phone number that you can publish on your website, which fundraisers can text. By making sure to respond to their messages, you’re showing that you care about them and are prepared to listen and act upon their suggestions. This goes a long way in actually motivating them to work towards your cause and also ensures that you retain them in the long run.

There are different channels you can utilize for communicating:

• Text messages: To send campaign updates and motivational messages. Tools like collective texting are great for maintaining conversations with your fundraisers.
• Phone calls: To personally thank fundraisers for their efforts or wish them well on their birthday or fundraising anniversary.
• Email: To demonstrate campaign impact and goals reached.
• Webinars: To indicate the do’s and don’ts that fundraisers should follow.

Use Leaderboards

A little bit of friendly competition never hurts anyone and is a great way of keeping enthusiasm levels high. Infuse a sense of competitiveness among your fundraisers by making use of leaderboards, with the top fundraiser (or fundraising team) winning a prize for their efforts. You can give out prizes or badges every couple of weeks or months to ensure motivation levels don’t waver.

The best part of maintaining a leaderboard is that it also helps to foster a sense of community around your team and cause, which keeps the drive to fundraise up and running. If you’re making fundraising calls, CallHub lets you maintain leaderboards that show fundraiser ranks based on the number of calls they’ve made. This helps you assess the fundraising “race” and determining who is closest to winning the prize.

Celebrate!

What’s one good way of recognizing hard work? Celebrating your efforts, of course! As you reach important milestones in your fundraising journey, make sure to acknowledge them. Celebrating every little step of the way keeps the zest alive within your group and gives them a reason to continue fundraising on a regular basis for your cause.

Recognizing your volunteers’ work by hosting fun events will increase enthusiasm levels among your fundraisers. You could even scale up the level of your celebration as you get closer to your goal:

• On reaching 25% of your goal: Send an email or text message congratulating fundraisers on their work and reminding them how important they are.
• On reaching 50% of your goal: Host a barbecue party in one of the organizers’ backyards. Make it a costume party to see who can dress up in the goofiest costume.
• On reaching 75% of your goal: Organize a team dinner in a nice restaurant.
• On reaching 100% of your goal: Rent an auditorium and have a grand party with fundraisers and their families. Alternatively, you can organize a team outing.

As author J.D, Crighton said, “You have the power to motivate and inspire. Let your enthusiasm shine.”  Keep this quote in mind and use the above tips when galvanizing your troops to fundraise!

Image credit – unsplash.com

The post How to Creatively Motivate Your Fundraisers appeared first on Method.

For starters, nonprofits need to market to and build strong relationships with their supporters, just as companies need to keep their customers engaged. Successful organizations have to demonstrate value, service, and a personal connection in everything they do — maybe even more so than for-profit businesses.

And much like small companies, most nonprofits are working with small teams and tight operating budgets. They must use their limited resources as efficiently as possible to maximize the impact they can have in their communities.

For all of these reasons, a good customer relationship management (CRM) system can be a game-changer for nonprofits. As the name implies, CRM software can help any type of organization better manage its relationships with its patrons. Many systems also offer features to help streamline workflows and improve efficiency.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that not all CRMs are suitable for the unique needs of the nonprofit industry. If you’re seeking a CRM for your nonprofit, here are some key features to look for.

1. Ability to Cultivate Donor Relationships

Obviously, the best nonprofit CRMs will actively help organizations cultivate donor relationships. Not only should the CRM track offline and online donations, but it should keep track of attendance at events, phone conversations, and other points of contact. The ability to schedule tasks also ensures that follow-ups occur in a timely manner.

These features will help you reinforce connections with your donors, as well as improve internal communication and organization amongst your team members.

2. Donor Management Features

To turn donors into loyal supporters, it’s important to let them know how much your organization appreciates their contributions. For instance, most donors expect tax receipts. They also certainly expect and deserve thanks for their generosity.

A good CRM for nonprofits can generate both of these documents automatically and email them instantly to donors. Contributors will appreciate this kind of prompt service. Best of all, it won’t take any additional manual effort on the part of your team to delight your supporters.

3. Email Integrations

Just as for-profit businesses are adopting technology to help them work more efficiently, so too are nonprofits. For instance, many nonprofits increasingly rely upon email for communication.

Besides offering the ability to schedule thank-you and follow-up emails, a good CRM for nonprofits should integrate with popular email providers and email marketing software. CRM email add-ons display a convenient overview of a donor’s history while users compose messages. Meanwhile, email marketing integrations make it easy to send out mass emails for fundraising campaigns.

4. Automation Features

Too many nonprofits waste time with manual effort for donor and donation management. The right CRM software can easily automate tasks and streamline workflows.

For instance, the process for accepting online donations typically starts with an online donation page. A good CRM will make it simple for even non-technical people to create an effective fundraising page. In turn, information entered on this page should automatically be saved to the CRM and trigger appropriate follow-up activities. After all, most nonprofits don’t have the time or money to spend on complex website development or repetitive data entry.

5. Integration With Your Accounting Software

Accounting software only ever works as well as the data it can capture. Often, nonprofit employees or volunteers have to manually copy information from the system that captures contacts and donations to their accounting software. This takes time and can lead to data entry errors.

A good CRM will solve this problem by integrating with popular accounting software like QuickBooks. By automatically syncing your donor and donation data to your accounting database, you’ll save time and improve your data accuracy.

6. Accessible Mobile Interface

These days, people like to be able to work anywhere from any device — and nonprofit employees are no exception. During the course of the day, you may be visiting different sites and going online using your laptop, desktop computer, tablet, or phone.

For maximum productivity, the best nonprofit CRMs will have mobile app functionality. This ensures that the features you need to use look good and work well no matter which device you’re working on.

7. Customization Options

Every nonprofit has its own unique needs and workflows. Furthermore, no organization wants to change their processes just to fit the constraints of their software. That’s why a customizable CRM is an ideal solution for nonprofits that don’t have the budget for a custom-built system.

Customizable CRM software will make it easy to personalize donation pages, add new data fields, and set up custom processes. And as time passes and certain aspects of your organization evolve, the CRM can evolve along with them. In the end, this level of flexibility will save you money and increase productivity, allowing you to focus more energy on fundraising.

Choosing a Great CRM for Your Nonprofit

A great CRM can help nonprofits reduce manual data entry, streamline workflows, and improve donor relationships. While adopting new software may seem like a daunting task, don’t let the initial investment deter you. In the long run, the time you’ll save will allow you to focus your efforts on the work that really matters.

The post Essential Features of a Nonprofit CRM appeared first on Method.

In today’s competitive philanthropic environment, these events must be well-executed to produce maximum results.

The right planning, marketing, and event management tools help ensure event success, but the right strategies must be in place for the plan to go off without a hitch. Here are three foolproof strategies for planning top-notch fundraising events.

1. For best results, start planning early

The phrase ‘plan early and often’ rings true in the nonprofit world for good reason. When it comes to planning charity events and fundraisers, there are so many moving parts that it can be hard to keep everything straight.

Start planning your fundraising event at least 3-6 months out to give you and your team enough time to get organized and excel. This also gives your donors time to plan for your event.

To get ahead of crunch time, complete as many tasks as possible as early as possible, including:

• Identifying and segmenting your donor and supporter list
• Dealing with event logistics and planning for the day of the event
• Organizing employees and volunteers
• Running your financial and non-financial event goals by your board

While planning early is a best practice for any kind of fundraising event, it’s especially critical for success when events and campaigns are centered around specific days, like Giving Tuesday.

2. Know how to connect with your target audience

Everyone loves a fundraiser, but the only way to get people there is to invite them — preferably with a creative and unique invitation idea. In the world of fundraising events, marketing effectively to your supporters and donors is important for two reasons:

1. It ensures that people register for and attend your event.
2. It drives attendees to donate time or resources to your cause.

Let’s look at these communication channels a little further.

Registering and engaging with attendees

Registering people for an event can be a nightmare without the right tools. However, there are countless event registration platforms out there with endless features.

To take the guesswork out of event registration, look for a few baseline must-haves in your registration technology:

• The ability for attendees to customize ticket sales, packages, and individual donations with ease
• A sponsor-specific registration page that can be easily customized
• Easy check-in functionality for your event team and attendees
• Back-end organization capabilities for seating arrangements, promotional activities, financial data, and more

Reaching out and engaging with attendees also requires a strong donor management platform to hold all relevant donor contact and outreach details. Your team can leverage a nonprofit CRM solution to easily contact new and returning donors and spread the word about your upcoming event.

Encouraging donations

Once the event is in motion, it’s time to maximize donations. Carefully explain to your supporters how your online auction site works. Additionally, you should keep your supporters updated on the status of auction items throughout the entire auction time period. Explore the OneCause online charity auction guide for more information about the steps you should take to ensure a smooth user experience.

When hosting a fundraising event, the best way to attract donations is to have clear call-to-actions (CTAs) on your website and in your social and email communications, as well as clear call-outs on your event registration page and even on the tables at your event. This way, people can easily add a donation during registration, or donate in real-time during your event with a Text2Give solution.

3. Create a seamless omnichannel experience

The best fundraising events are the ones attendees reminisce about for days or weeks after the event concludes. This means creating a true omnichannel campaign around your event instead of a simple one-and-done approach.

While the word ‘omnichannel’ is most closely associated with marketing campaigns, the concept also rings true for nonprofit teams looking to spread their message to a wider audience.

For your next fundraising event, create an omnichannel experience for attendees before, during, and after your event.

Before:

• Set up social media accounts specific to your event, as well as an event microsite with all relevant information.
• Include these social and web links in every single promotional email or direct mail communication you send.
• If you are hosting a charity auction, open up your online auction site a week or two in advance so attendees can start bidding on items early.

During:

• Ask event attendees to include your event hashtag in any social posts they share from your event.
• Hire a videographer or professional photographer to capture content for a post-event production.
• Provide instructions for text donations during your event to truly intertwine the in-person and online elements of a modern fundraiser.

After:

• Send a thoughtful follow-up email to all attendees and single out high-profile donors or sponsors.
• Include some videos or pictures from your event for a personal touch.
• Think about extending the time period on some high-ticket auction items for even more impact down the road.
• Include CTAs to donate on all follow-up communication to keep your charity top-of-mind.

Elevate your fundraising with technology

From nonprofit-specific CRM platforms to innovative text-to-donate solutions, the incredible growth in technology has opened doors to nonprofits that were previously reserved for other forward-thinking organizations.

To truly take your next fundraising event to the next level, you must be willing to invest the time and resources necessary into taking your event online, at all stages of the planning process.

The post 3 Strategies to Plan Top-Notch Fundraising Events appeared first on Method.