In this post-COVID era, it can be easy to feel unsure about what route to take with your nonprofit’s fundraising efforts. On the one hand, you’ve likely become more comfortable with digital fundraising, virtual or hybrid events, and online outreach strategies. After all, these are the tactics you’ve had to employ over 2020, 2021, and into 2022 to help your nonprofit stay afloat. But on the other hand, life is finally starting to go back to normal. You and your team might be itching to embrace the “real” world again and plan in-person events, volunteer opportunities, and other programming.

It can be difficult to decide between an online or offline approach, especially when it comes to fundraising. But we have some good news for you—you can have the best of both worlds by using strategies from both online and offline fundraisers. 

You don’t have to abandon your online fundraising work in favor of in-person campaigns, or vice versa. You just need to harness the strategies you’ve learned from each in order to supercharge your next fundraising campaign. 

In this post, we’ll give you five tips for successful fundraising that incorporates both online and offline strategies: 

1. Keep your branding consistent across all marketing channels.
2. Personalize your marketing materials.
3. Direct donors to your online donation form. 
4. Send personalized thank yous to your donors. 
5. Gather and analyze fundraising data. 

1. Keep your branding consistent across all marketing channels. 

Whether you’re planning an in-person dance-a-thon or a virtual auction, you’re going to need a solid marketing plan that uses both print and online marketing materials if you want to reach as many of your supporters as you can. 

Effective and consistent branding will be critical no matter what kind of marketing material you’re designing. This helps your supporters (and potential supporters) identify and recognize your organization. Branding includes any colors, fonts, images, designs, and logos you use to distinguish your organization from others in the nonprofit sector. There are two things to keep in mind when branding your marketing materials: 

• Keep your branding simple. Don’t overdo it with loud colors, crazy fonts, and cluttered designs. A good rule of thumb is to stick to just a few appealing colors and keep it simple. 

• Stay consistent across mediums and match your branding across your organization’s operations. If your branding on your social media ads doesn’t match the branding on your fundraising letters or volunteer websites, your supporters can be easily confused and will likely view your nonprofit as unprofessional and unorganized. Coordinate with your entire team to make sure your brand is represented consistently across all of your operations and promotional materials. 

When you brand your marketing materials to be consistent with the rest of your organization’s operations, you can be better prepared to meet every supporter where they are, whether they interact with your organization through direct mail or Instagram posts. And the more people you can reach through your marketing strategies, the higher your fundraising potential is. 

2. Personalize your marketing materials.

Another way of meeting donors where they are is to personalize your marketing materials. Though direct mail often helps you communicate a more “personal touch” from your organization, you should also take the opportunity to personalize your online fundraising appeals, too. Try some of these strategies:  

• Segment your audience and target different groups accordingly. Sort your donors into groups based on shared characteristics like average gift size, preferred communication method, gender, and age. For example, you might notice that one of your segmented audiences is younger people who respond well to tweets. You then know how best to reach that portion of your audience and can personalize your approach when it comes to marketing your fundraiser to them. 

• Use supporters’ names. An effective fundraising appeal reads like it’s written just for you. One of the best ways to make your donors feel seen as individuals is to address them by name in your marketing materials. “Dear Marie,” or “Hello, Bill” will make emails or other communications feel much more personal than something plain and generalized like “Dear Donor.” 

• Thank your donor specifically for past contributions. A donor will be much more likely to get involved in your new fundraiser if you thank them for past monetary donations or volunteer work. Specific thank yous make a donor feel like their contribution wasn’t lost on your organization and like they actually helped you make a difference. This in turn increases their loyalty to your nonprofit and your cause. 

• Position the donor as the hero. Let your donors know what is possible because of them, not because of your organization. Use phrases like, “Donors like you gave over $15,000 last year to fight hunger in our state,” instead of “We spent $15,000 last year fighting hunger in our state.” To get your donors reading your online fundraising letters or emails, you have to put the focus on them and let them know how important they are to your organization’s ability to accomplish its mission. 

Use these personalization strategies to reach each individual supporter, whether you’re communicating with them through an email or a tweet. Once a supporter feels like they really matter to your nonprofit and your mission, they’ll be more inclined to participate in your newest fundraising push. 

3. Direct donors to your online donation form.

Your donation form is where the actual act of giving happens the majority of the time, so you have to find creative ways to direct your donors to it. While having consistent branding and personalizing your fundraising appeals will certainly help your donors get there, there are a few other things you can do, both online and offline, to guide them to your donation form. These include: 

• Putting a QR code to your donation form on your fundraising letter or postcard. Incorporating a QR code on a printed letter is a great way to merge online and offline fundraising approaches. The recipient of your fundraising letter can simply scan the QR code and go directly to your donation form to complete their transaction. Make sure your donation page and form are optimized for mobile devices, and, just to be safe, include the web address and donate-by-mail options so that donors feel that they can give in the way that works best for them. 

• Informing donors about how they can check their matching gift eligibility on your donation page. According to 360MatchPro’s matching gift statistics, 65 percent of Fortune 500 companies offer donation matching to their employees. Sometimes, however, people aren’t aware of the opportunity to have their gift matched. You can solve that problem by partnering with a software provider that allows you to include a searchable database tool directly on your donation form and by providing resources that educate people about matching gifts. Mail a brochure or write a blog post on your website about matching gifts and how donors can find out if their employer participates. 

• Using CTAs on your print materials. We usually talk about calls to action, or CTAs, in terms of websites. Many nonprofits use CTA buttons on their sites that say things like “Join the fight to end cancer!” or “Donate now!” which  take supporters to a donation form. Why not apply the same idea to your print materials? You can always use a CTA phrase in a fundraising letter or postcard, or even replicate a CTA button in print by writing out a CTA and then including a QR code with it. 

• Including links to your donation form on your social media posts. It’s obvious that having a healthy flow of traffic between your website and your social media pages is beneficial to your nonprofit. But are you linking to your donation form on a regular basis? Make sure to provide links to your donation form in your Facebook statuses, Instagram bio, and tweets as you see fit. However, avoid linking to the form too much—you don’t want to seem overly pushy about getting donations. 

Take these ideas for driving supporters to your donation form and modify them to meet both your organization’s and your donors’ needs. Using fundraising data can help you determine the most effective way to do this. 

4. Send personalized thank yous to your donors.

It’s easy to feel like a fundraiser is over once the last donation has been counted. But you can’t let your nonprofit miss out on the opportunity to thank your donors, which helps with donor retention.

Placing an emphasis on retention is critical because stewarding existing donors is more cost-effective than constantly acquiring new givers. That means you need to work hard to thank your donors for their contributions.   

Many nonprofits ensure that a donor is thanked right after donating online and then send a more personalized email or thank-you letter. You can also get more creative in how you thank your supporters. For example, you might send a personalized thank-you postcard, create a short thank-you video to email out, mail out free swag, or even message individual supporters on Facebook. 

However you decide to thank your donors, be sure to be specific. Thank them by name, identify what they’ve contributed, and tell them how their donation will be used to further your cause. 

You’re probably noticing a trend—this is yet another way you can meet your supporters where they’re at! Some of your donors will respond better to a thank-you video than free swag, so pay attention to your audience’s needs and work with your team to meet them. 

5. Gather and analyze fundraising data.

After your fundraiser is over, you’ll need to get an idea of how effective it actually was. You can do that by gathering and then analyzing the data about your fundraiser. You might decide to track the following throughout your campaign: 

• Traffic generated through your QR code
• The way traffic is driven to your donation page 
• Average donation amount 
• Donor demographics such as age, area of residence, and gender 

You and your team can use data like this not only to determine whether you should opt for an in-person fundraiser or virtual fundraiser next. You can also see what kinds of donors you’re reaching with your multichannel approach to marketing and fundraising, and determine how you can better connect with them and retain their support far into the future.

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Even though the pandemic is hopefully coming to an end, you don’t have to throw virtual fundraising out the window. Instead, take the things you’ve learned from online fundraising and apply them to your in-person efforts, and vice versa. This will help you not only increase your fundraising potential, but will also increase your ability to connect with your supporters in new and more meaningful ways, ensuring that they’ll remain loyal to your nonprofit and your cause. 

Hosting events is one of the most time-tested ways to hit your fundraising goals, bring your community together, and spread awareness for your projects and initiatives. But are you doing everything you can to secure ongoing support from those who attend?
If you’re not appropriately thanking your attendees for their time and support, the answer is no. Showing appreciation for your supporters’ attendance through thoughtful thank-yous is essential to keeping them engaged with your organization.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 5 ways you can thank attendees to your events. Here’s what we’ll suggest:

1. Prompt email, text, or call 
2. Recognition displays for your highest-impact donors 
3. Thoughtful gifts
4. Another invitation 
5. Handwritten notes 
6. eCards
7. Video

Making sure your supporters feel noticed for their participation—no matter how big or small—will leave the best possible impression and encourage them to keep coming back. That means more engagement, more awareness for your mission, and ultimately, more donations! Let’s dive in. 

1. Prompt email, text, or call

This is the “no-brainer” of event thank-you strategies. Regardless of the exact approach you choose to take to thank your attendees, it should always involve this basic step. 

If one of your supporters won an item at your hybrid auction, donated during your fundraising livestream, or otherwise contributed to your cause while attending your event, they should receive an immediate communication in the form of text or an email confirming their donation. 

Even if they didn’t contribute monetarily to your cause, you should still thank them for attending using this method. Choose one or more of the following: 

• Emails are easy to automate, customizable, and have plenty of room for additional materials, like links to your website and social media accounts. 
• Texts are personal, informal, and most likely to be read quickly. Automated texts are easy to implement and feel more intimate than mass emails. 
• Phone calls are the most personal of the three. If calling every attendee is unrealistic, consider reserving calls for those who made higher-impact donations.  

No matter which method(s) from this list that you choose, make sure the thank-you goes out quickly, preferably the day after your event or, for automated emails, immediately after their donation. This way, you can reinforce their connection to your organization while you’re likely still on their minds. 

A best practice for email, text, or phone call thank-yous is to always include a prompt for further engagement, whether it’s an option to subscribe to your newsletter, a link to your volunteer opportunities page, or a flyer for your next event. (Or, in the case of phone calls, information on how to access these materials online.) For the best results, make sure all of these resources are user-friendly.

Something else to consider including in this type of thank-you is a survey or interview about your event. After all, your attendees may be sitting on valuable feedback about your event that could help you improve your programming going forward. 

2. Recognition displays for your highest-impact donors 

When you’re reviewing how your event performed, keep an eye out for those attendees who had a large impact on the event—specifically, look for supporters who may have contributed significantly to your fundraising goal. 

Identifying the attendees who bought a big-ticket item at your virtual auction or made a large donation is an important first step to thanking them appropriately and securing their support into the future. 

One way to make sure they feel noticed and appreciated is to honor them by including their names on a donor recognition display. 

Donor recognition displays are permanent installations commonly found on walls or in lobbies of buildings that are designed to recognize an organization’s major donors for their contributions.

While recognition displays are commonly associated with large-scale fundraisers and capital campaigns, there are smaller-scale options, too—for example, digital recognition displays are becoming increasingly popular. 

3. Thoughtful gifts

Who doesn’t love receiving gifts in the mail? A surefire way to make your event attendees feel appreciated is with a small token of your gratitude. Here are some fun ideas for possible goodies to help you say “thanks” to your attendees: 

• T-shirts
• Keychains
• Mugs
• Water bottles
• Calendars 
• Tote bags
• Hats
• Umbrellas
• Blankets 

It shouldn’t be too difficult to get some of these items customized with your organization’s name and logo. That way, not only would your gifts make great thank-yous, but also effective marketing tools! 

Consider combining several gifts to make goody bags or gift baskets for your more engaged supporters, or select more luxury items to appropriately recognize higher levels of participation or donation. Some examples of higher-tier gifts could be silk scarves, leather goods, or food baskets. 

It may seem counterintuitive to spend valuable dollars on saying thank you for event attendance, but rest assured: it’s an investment for your organization’s future. You want your supporters to keep participating and spreading awareness about your mission. They’re more likely to stay engaged if they feel appreciated! 

4. Another invitation

An invitation to another of your organization’s events allows you to kill two birds with one stone. 

Your supporters feel appreciated and special, and you get to continue promoting awareness of your cause at another event! 

Whether you’re planning a silent auction, livestream fundraiser, or in-person gala (sometime in the future!), your previous event attendees are a precious group to market to. Plus, while you’re still on their minds right after your last event is an ideal time to tell them about your next plans! 

You could also consider offering exclusive appreciation events for your attendees, like luncheons, dinners, or unique experiences. For example:

• An animal rescue shelter might offer an invitation to a “puppy play day” to thank its supporters. 
• An aquarium might give a behind-the-scenes tour.
• A nonprofit in the education sector might host a Q&A session with a well-known scholar. 

One-of-a-kind perks like these add value to your supporters’ lives and provide them with a tangible return on their investment—even if they just invested their time. Even casual virtual happy hours and community discussions with organization leaders can be meaningful ways to show attendees that you value their engagement. Get creative to come up with the perfect appreciation event for your unique audience and mission.

5. Handwritten notes

Writing thank-you notes by hand shows your supporters you value them enough to sit down with pen and paper and thank them the old-fashioned way. Because this option is more personal and intimate than other methods of communication, it will feel more meaningful to your attendees. If they perceive that you’re investing time and effort in honor of them, they’ll feel more inclined to help your cause in the future. 

Still, this level of personalization comes with a cost. Handwritten notes can be extremely time-consuming, even more so than phone calls. If you’re committed to using this option, start early and consider soliciting help from volunteers. You could even bring your volunteers together for a note-writing session with food and music (or a virtual-friendly alternative) to make the task more appealing. And then be sure to thank your volunteers in turn! 

If a handwritten note for every attendee is unrealistic even with help from volunteers, consider reserving this option for more engaged supporters, i.e. those who purchased or donated during your event. If that still represents too large a group, limit it to a manageable number of top-tier givers. 

6. eCards

Get creative with your donor appreciation efforts by sending custom eCards. As opposed to regular emails, eCards are more interactive, customizable, and eye-catching to donors.

The possibilities for creating a donor thank-you eCard are endless. Start by designing different templates that match your organization’s purpose. For example, animal shelters may add cats and dogs to their eCards for an emotional touch. Be sure to include your nonprofit’s logo and branding as well.

You can also get even more specific by creating event-specific eCards. That way, if you have a recurring event, you can always go back to that template for next year’s donors.

Once you create your designs, assemble your attendee list and start sending! Work with an eCard software provider to make the process easier.

7. Video

Videos are a great way to bring your post-event donor recognition to life. When you take the time to create a video dedicated to thanking your donors, you show how much you truly care.

Assure donors of how amazing the event turned out and how their presence brought your team’s vision to life. Include any pictures or videos you have from the event itself to remind donors of the great time they had and encourage them to attend your future events.

Then, point to the specific impact that donors made. For example, if your fundraising event was aimed at supporting pet adoptions, reveal exactly how many pet adoptions were made possible thanks to donors.

Feature staff thanking donors for their support. Go the extra mile by including beneficiary testimonials with their permission. Continuing with our animal shelter example, you could include pictures of recently adopted animals with a short statement from their new families.

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With these options, you can more strategically thank your supporters for attending one of your events, virtual and in-person alike. While it may be tempting to reserve recognition for those who contribute monetarily to your cause, showing appreciation for all of your supporters whenever possible is a wise investment. Event attendees who feel appreciated for their time are more likely to have a positive impression of your organization, which means they’re more likely to continue participating. 

Regardless of which strategies you end up using, don’t forget to continue to follow up, even after your official thank-you. Although it can be difficult to figure out what type of messaging to send your supporters and when, establishing an effective rhythm for supporter communications is essential to holding their interest, solidifying their support, and growing their engagement over time. 

Thanking your event attendees for their time and commitment to your cause shows your appreciation, strengthens your relationship with them, and makes it more likely they’ll continue contributing to your mission. Be sure not to neglect this important area of supporter retention! 

An effective board of directors plays a critical role in helping your nonprofit strive toward its mission. They provide much-needed guidance and insight for strategic planning and fundraising that helps to keep your team on the right track. But all too often, nonprofit boards underperform—even those that are strong-willed and have a passion for your mission. While mistakes are only human nature, there are some situations that can be detrimental to your mission.

Nonprofits commonly experience several governance mistakes made by their boards but aren’t quite sure how to avoid them. From failing to understand basic responsibilities to poor documentation that opens the organization up to legal issues, there are major missteps to avoid. Otherwise, you’ll spend time rectifying these problems that could be spent on making progress with your mission.

On the other hand, when governance is done right from the beginning, your board’s performance can be drastically enhanced by ensuring they’re efficient and well-informed. Making sure they’re backed by sufficient resources and knowledge can convey that you value their experience and this consideration can motivate them to make informed decisions, putting them (and your organization) on the path to success.

To help you identify these challenges within your own organization, we’ll review four leading governance issues and uncover suggestions for resolving them:

1. Selecting board members without sufficient care
2. Neglecting to educate and inform directors
3. Failing to embrace board diversity
4. Poor documentation of decisions and actions

Understanding these challenges upfront can help you create a plan for avoiding them in the first place, rather than rectifying them after they’ve occurred. Let’s dive in.

Mistake #1: Selecting Board Members without Sufficient Care

Good governance starts with selecting board members who are passionate about your mission and possess admirable qualities, such as knowledge about your community backed by a strong desire for service. Often, we select friends, relatives, and business associates, because we believe they’ll share our same vision, support our views, and make meetings bearable (maybe even enjoyable). And sometimes it’s just because we can’t find anyone else to fill the position.

Other times, we select board members who are wealthy and influential, because we believe they’ll contribute substantial amounts to our mission and connect us to other influential and wealthy people. While this may seem like a good idea, you’ll want to be certain that your board of directors is composed of individuals who are going to attend meetings, provide real oversight, and govern using their own independent and well-informed judgment.

The board recruitment process is a heavy but necessary process. After all, these individuals are responsible for putting your nonprofit on the right path, so taking care in selecting the right board members is crucial. You’ll want to look for individuals who possess the following qualities:

• Proactivity: The greatest board members readily react to challenges and aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions. They proactively strive toward positive change and stay on task to see it through.
• Passion: Board members must possess a passion for your cause in order to be true change agents and to fuel your work. 
• Knowledge: Board members must be well-acquainted with your organization and mission. Look for those who have previously served on a similar board or who have been employed at a similar organization.
• Time-Oriented: Board members should have sufficient time to fulfill the role’s duties. Ambitious individuals have the tendency to overcommit, and the best intentions won’t go very far if they simply don’t have the time to contribute.

Just as understanding your potential donors and ambassadors helps to strengthen your fundraising strategies, defining your ideal board member will help locate and appeal to the right individuals for the job. 

Keeping the pipeline full of exceptional candidates is a never-ending job. So long as you remain persistent and specific with your preferred qualifications, you’ll locate passionate leaders who possess sufficient qualities for putting your nonprofit on the path to success.

Mistake #2: Neglecting to Educate and Inform Directors

Nonprofits often run into the issue of board members not fully understanding their responsibilities. Directors who regularly fail to meet their legal duties of care and responsibility can hinder progress and prevent the organization from reaching its goals.

It’s up to the president, chair, executive director, and really each individual board member to hold one another accountable and correct this lack of understanding. While education and accountability are ongoing commitments, there are a few practices you can implement in your existing processes:

• Set up an orientation process. When bringing aboard new directors, consider hosting an orientation meeting where you walk through each role’s responsibilities and open the floor for questions. You might also choose to disperse a binder full of information they need like board agreements, organization bylaws, contact information, past budgets, previous meeting minutes, and a list of committees. This will allow new members to get acclimated quickly.
  
• Delegate tasks in a clear manner. Have a system in place for assigning tasks as soon as they’re delegated. That way, everyone knows who should be doing what and by when. Ensure your board software allows you to create, assign, and manage action items during and between meetings. Individual board members and administrators should be able to track the status of various tasks and projects to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks.
  
• Keep in regular contact with the board. Productivity should occur outside of the boardroom to make steady progress as an organization. Your board portal will aid greatly in the communication process, keeping you in direct contact with board members and helping to steward strong, collaborative relationships. This way, you can keep them fully informed and quickly solicit feedback and direction to resolve any issues that arise.

Ineffective directors can pose major problems for nonprofits. Rectifying the situation as quickly as possible allows the board to fill knowledge gaps and make more informed decisions. If you’re unsure of where your board currently stands, have the board conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. This will help identify those gaps and create an action plan for moving forward.

Mistake #3: Failing to Embrace Board Diversity

Typically, an organization’s initial board is made up of friends and trusted advisors of the nonprofit’s founder. Over time, these individuals may reach out to their networks to fill vacancies as they arise. While this is certainly a smart move for brand new nonprofits, it becomes a problem when your board consists solely of people who went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, and live in the same neighborhoods.

Think of it this way: if your board is chock-full of CFO-level executives, your finances may be in order, but other operational areas may fall by the wayside, like marketing and volunteer management. Instead, you need a group of individuals who possess varying skills to cover each area of your organization.

Boards greatly benefit from a diverse mix of leadership. A variety of valuable perspectives and experiences in the boardroom can help your team think outside the box and arrive at conclusions they might not otherwise reach.

Here are a few facets of board diversity to consider:

• Race, ethnicity, and religion
• Gender and sexual orientation
• Geographic location
• Professional skills and experience
• Education level
• Socioeconomic status
• Physical and cognitive abilities

A diverse board is a thriving board! If all board members come from similar backgrounds, it’s time to diversify your pool of participants. Keep your eyes peeled for varying skills, experiences, and backgrounds that would add valuable perspectives to the board.

While law, accounting, and fundraising skills are obvious necessities, mission-related skills are also important. For instance, a domestic violence shelter may recruit a social worker or a policy expert, whereas an educational organization might recruit a retired school administrator or teacher.

Mistake #4: Poor Documentation of Decisions and Actions

In its meetings, your board has highly-focused conversations where it makes decisions that impact the health and vitality of your organization. Accurately documenting these discussions and actions in your meeting minutes is crucial—especially since your board has legal liability.

Some organizations adopt minutes that are complete and lengthy virtual transcriptions of their meetings. Conversely, some organizations only document actions without any mention of the process or deliberations, or worse, they don’t document anything. Instead of going with one of these extremes, work to find a more appropriate balance.

Documenting every discussion verbatim could create even greater exposure for liability and can make it very unlikely that anyone on your team will take the time to review the minutes for inaccuracies. On the other hand, only documenting actions (or nothing at all) can leave individuals confused later as to why certain decisions were made. 

When developing your approach to minute-taking, we suggest the following best practices:

• Use a template. By creating an outline in advance, taking minutes becomes incredibly straightforward and ensures notes are taken on every discussion item. The easiest strategy is to use your board meeting agenda as a template.
  
• Designate a minute-taker. Usually part of the secretary’s duties, the same person should take minutes at every meeting. This allows them to familiarize themselves with the process and produce stronger, clearer minutes over time.
  
• Write objectively. Especially with controversial issues or contentious votes, your minutes-taker should summarize debates and stick to the facts. To reinforce this, ask a third-party who isn’t privy to any confidential information (like a staff member) to read the minutes.
  
• Include pertinent information. Your minutes should be detailed enough that someone can decipher key decisions a few months down the line. When recording these decisions, be sure to include who attended and when the meeting took place. Plus, make note of any important discussions regarding the decision and a record of motions, seconds, and whether or not the motion passed.
  
• Proofread and share. Once you’ve wrapped up your meeting and put the final touches on your minutes, take one last pass at it and review for any errors. Once ready, use your board software to disperse them so that board members can quickly reference them and follow up appropriately.

Remember, your minutes serve as an official record of your meetings. Both overly-detailed and scant board minutes can open up the board to liability issues. 

According to this resource, you should “aim to create board meeting minutes that are specific enough to capture the board’s focus and decisions, but not so sparse that you can’t decipher what actually occurred during the meeting a few months down the line.” In turn, you’ll develop engaging minutes with the right amount of detail.

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Quality governance can truly accelerate your team’s impact on the community. Keep your eyes peeled for these common mistakes and pitfalls within your own organization. Otherwise, failing to address these governance issues early on can prevent major issues later. 

It all starts with selecting the right board members and continues through effective communication and documentation. By setting the groundwork early, every task your board takes on will be more efficient and well-informed. Your nonprofit and community will see and experience the benefits of your healthy nonprofit board governance practices. Good luck!