10 Online Fundraising Best Practices for Nonprofits

This is the fifth post in a blog and webinar series called 101 Digital Marketing & Fundraising Best Practices for Nonprofits, written and presented by Heather Mansfield. To be alerted of updates to the series, please sign up for Nonprofit Tech for Good’s newsletter. Thank you!

Related Webinar: Online Fundraising Best Practices for Nonprofits
Related Certificate Program: Certificate in Digital Marketing & Fundraising

The first Donate Now button was released in 1999 by a project of the Tides Foundation called Groundspring (acquired by Network for Good in 2005, Network for Good acquired by Bonterra in 2023), and for the next two decades, nonprofit fundraisers have embraced the study of inspiring people to give online to good causes.

Innovation in online fundraising was driven by the release of new technology, such as email marketing services like Constant Contact which launched in 1998, the release of WordPress as a blogging tool in 2003 (now a website content management system used by 58% of nonprofits worldwide), and social networking websites beginning with Myspace in 2005.

Today, nonprofits worldwide have access to online fundraising tools that could not have been imagined at the turn of the millennium, and current best practices are shaped by 20+ years of innovation and experimentation.

1) Implement donation page best practices.

Even though billions of dollars have been raised online since 1999, it’s surprising how many nonprofits make the online giving process more complicated than it should be. As a general rule, donation pages should be simple, optimized for mobile giving, and ask for the minimal amount of information required to make a donation and capture a donor’s contact information.

The fourth post in this series, 10 Donation Page Best Practices for Nonprofits, elaborates on how the first step in being successful in online fundraising is having well-designed donation pages that accept multiple types of payments, enable monthly giving, and provide the option for donors to make a tribute gift. A good example of a one-time donation page is the American Cancer Society.

2) Proactively promote your monthly giving program.

According to the 2024 Monthly Giving Report, monthly donors give an average of $79 per month – or $948 per year. Also, data from the Global Trends in Giving Report reveals that 45% of online donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program. As an ever-growing consistent revenue stream, nonprofits would be wise to proactively and enthusiastically promote their monthly giving program.

To begin, create a page on your website that includes a donation form where monthly giving is the only option that explains why monthly giving is important and the impact of monthly giving. This page should have a URL that can be easily promoted online and in print newsletters and postcard campaigns, such as give.twloha.com/monthly.

Once you have your monthly giving page set up, the success of your monthly giving program depends upon how well you promote it. Here are a few ideas:

Print: Include an ad for your monthly giving program in every edition of your print newsletter that includes the URL of your monthly giving program. It’s also worth sending a postcard campaign to your one-time donors asking them to become monthly donors. Every fundraising appeal sent should also include a pitch to become a monthly donor.
Email: In newsletters, regularly include a pitch for your monthly giving program. Also, when sending email fundraising appeals, make an effort to segment your one-time donors and ask them to upgrade to monthly donors. For detailed best practices on how to use email effectively, see 10 Email Marketing Best Practices for Nonprofits.
Social Media: To effectively promote your monthly giving program on social media, your nonprofit needs to create a series of promo graphics that are properly sized for Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. (2024 Social Media Size Guide). Also, since organic reach is at an all-time low, your nonprofit should consider investing in social media advertising when promoting your monthly giving program.
Your Website: According to NextAfter, a monthly giving pop-up on your one-time donation page can result in a 24% increase in monthly donations, thus experiment with a monthly pop-up on your one-time donation page. Also, if your nonprofit’s website has blank space on its sidebar, add an ad for your monthly giving program. Finally, be sure to list your monthly giving program on your “Ways to Give” page. Please see 10 Website Design Best Practices for Nonprofits for further inspiration.

3) Launch a tribute giving program.

A good fundraising platform will offer the ability to add a tribute gift option (memorial, honor, and special occasion gifts) to a nonprofit’s primary donation page, but as discussed in 10 Donation Page Best Practices for Nonprofits, a good fundraising platform will also allow nonprofits to create donation pages where tribute gifts are the only option. For example, the Nature Conservancy offers both special memorial gifts and special occasion gifts – each with its own donation page.

Memorial Gift Donation Page:

Special Occasion Gift Donation Page:

Both tribute gifts are then featured on their “Other Ways to Give” page:

Launching a tribute giving program is worth the investment of your time. According to the Global Trends in Giving Report, 33% of donors worldwide give tribute gifts. To grow your tribute giving program, ramp up promotion during holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid al-Fitr, etc.) and let your supporters know year-round that tribute gifts make great birthday gifts too.

4) Know the power of email fundraising.

A telltale sign that a nonprofit does not understand the power of email fundraising is visiting its website and not finding a prominently featured email opt-in within five seconds. If a nonprofit is not actively promoting its email list, then there’s a knowledge gap in the organization. Despite the popular myth which asserts that email is dying, the truth is that email use is growing among all age groups.

The power of email is detailed in 10 Email Marketing Best Practices for Nonprofits, but it is worth mentioning again: according to the Global Trends in Giv ing Report, 26% of online donors say that email is the tool that most inspires them to give (social media 25%, 17% website, 13% print) and that 63% of donors worldwide say that regular email communication about the impact of their donation is what inspires them most often to give again.

Finally, according to the Nonprofit Email Report, nonprofits raise an average of $1.11 per email contact via email fundraising appeals – thus more the email contacts your nonprofit has, the more your nonprofit will raise in revenue.

5) Prioritize donor retention.

Using email marketing and social media for fundraising may produce more immediate results than launching and maintaining a donor retention strategy, but over time prioritizing donor retention will raise more revenue.

According to the Fundraising Effectiveness Report, the current donor retention rate is an abysmal 37%. For every 100 donors a nonprofit had in 2023, 63 of them are likely not to give again in 2024. It’s also important to note that giving fell across donors of all sizes and that supersize donors experienced the largest decrease.

Concerns over the economy and a predictable decline in giving after the record-high giving during the pandemic account for some of the decline in donors, but nonprofits also need to do a better job of engaging their current donors and communicating effectively the positive impact that their donations are making. Some ideas to improve donor retention include:

Create a new donor welcome email series and use a tool like ThankView to easily send personalized “Thank you” videos.
Send annual donation summaries in January or February for tax purposes.
Attempt to upgrade one-time donors to monthly donors.
Publish quarterly or bi-annual Impact Reports in addition to your annual report.
Conduct a donor survey to get feedback and engage your donors.
Communicate often about how donors can get more involved with your nonprofit: online and in-person events, become a volunteer or social media ambassador, etc.

Our Certificate in Digital Marketing & Fundraising program covers the fundamentals of website design, email marketing, online fundraising, and social media for nonprofits.

The program requires the completion of three webinars and costs a total of $100 USD. To earn the certificate, you can attend the webinars live or view the recordings – or a combination of both. Learn more & register!

6) Prioritize a matching gifts strategy.

Communicating to donors that their online gift will be matched by a major donor, small business, or corporation can increase revenue by as much as 19%. If your nonprofit is not currently integrating matching gifts into your fundraising strategy, then you’re missing an opportunity to raise more online with relatively little effort.

Odds are you already have a major donor in your network willing to allocate their donation to a matching gift campaign. Corporations can be solicited to match up to the first $10,000 in donations made (or more) in exchange for mentioning their company in your email campaigns, on your website, and on social media. If your nonprofit is small and localized, you can work to secure five local small business sponsors that will give $2,000 each to create a $10,000 matching gift campaign.

The Audubon Society uses a matching gift strategy to grow its monthly donor program. They regularly send matching gift fundraising appeals via email alerting new monthly donors that their first three monthly gifts will be doubled.

Another type of matching gift strategy is using a service like Double the Donation which allows online donors to search for their employer directly on a donation form to see if their company matches their donation. Double the Donation is only open to U.S. nonprofits and performs best for large national organizations, such as the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, or for organizations located in cities where large corporations are headquartered.

7) Experiment with crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising.

Crowdfunding is when a nonprofit creates an online fundraising campaign to fund a specific project or program. The nonprofit promotes the campaign to its supporters and donors in hopes of achieving a fundraising goal to fund and implement the project. A good example is a recent crowdfunding campaign email from Partners In Health asking donors to collectively give $56,935 to fund a new 4-wheel drive ambulance.

Crowdfunding empowers donors to come together to fund a project or program that is important to them. Today’s top crowdfunding platforms for nonprofits encourage donors to leave comments on the campaign page and share the campaign with their networks on social media. To increase engagement, nonprofits can also post updates to the campaign page.

If your nonprofit is new to crowdfunding, start with a $5-25,000 fundraising goal, promote the campaign via email and on social media, and learn and improve as the campaign develops. Setting a deadline to fund the campaign will also help your nonprofit reach its goal. If your nonprofit doesn’t initially reach its goal, then extend the deadline and start a new round of promotion.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is when a nonprofit asks its supporters and donors to create their own fundraising pages to help fundraise for the nonprofit. Fundraisers ask their friends and family to donate to their fundraising pages and all funds go to support the nonprofit. A good visual from Classy.org shows the difference between crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is especially powerful for endurance events (walk, run, etc.) and birthday campaigns, such as Facebook Fundraisers. First-time fundraisers raise an average of $222 while return fundraisers raise an average of $501.

Nonprofits have many peer-to-peer fundraising platforms to choose from that allow branded campaign pages and a suite of features. Or, if you use a premium fundraising platform, such as Neon One and Qgiv, peer-to-peer fundraising is often included in your suite of fundraising tools.

8) Sign up for Meta Fundraising Tools.

People have donated over $6 billion through Meta’s Facebook & Instagram Fundraising Tools and according to the Global Trends in Giving Report, of those who have donated through Facebook, 89% said they would do so again. Of those who have donated through Instagram, 92% said they would do so again. Donors have communicated clearly that they do appreciate the ability to give through Facebook and Instagram.

Donations made through Facebook and Instagram are processed by the PayPal Giving Fund and donation fees range from 1.4% to 1.99%. Learn more about eligibility, the countries where the tools are available, and how to apply.

Once approved, you’ll be given access to four Facebook Fundraising Tools:

A “Donate” button for your page and posts
Supporter Fundraisers
Nonprofit Page Fundraisers
Live “Donate” button

Then, if your nonprofit is located in a country where Instagram Fundraising Tools are available, you may also sign up for Instagram Fundraising Tools by:

1. Switching to an Instagram Business Account if you haven’t already.
2. Linking your nonprofit’s Instagram Business Account with your nonprofit’s Facebook Page that has been approved to use Facebook Fundraising Tools.

Once approved, you’ll be given access to three Instagram Fundraising Tools:

“Support” buttons on profiles (only visible in the mobile app)
Supporter fundraisers in photo posts, reels, and live videos (only visible in the mobile app)
Nonprofit fundraisers in photo posts, reels, and live videos (only visible in the mobile app)

Finally, take note that the PayPal Giving Fund does not provide the mailing addresses of Facebook and Instagram donors to nonprofits – only the email address if the donor opts in. That’s a deal-breaker for many nonprofits, but with the recent shifts in online privacy trends that increasingly protect the contact information of donors, nonprofits that embrace multiple channels for giving (even if they do not provide the contact email address and or mailing address of donors) will raise the most in the coming years.

For more information and tips on how to use Facebook and Instagram for fundraising, see 10 Facebook Best Practices for Nonprofits and 10 Instagram Best Practices for Nonprofits.

9) Embrace cause awareness and giving days.

Nonprofits of all sizes can tap into the power of cause awareness and giving days. Your nonprofit can create your own cause awareness day or giving day campaign, or build one around those that already exist, such as Earth Day (#EarthDay), International Youth Day (#YouthDay), and Giving Tuesday.

For the campaign to be successful, your nonprofit needs at least six weeks to effectively create and implement a digital strategy for your campaign. To begin:

Create a campaign landing page on your website (or a microsite, such as World Ocean Day) that prominently features the date and hashtag of the cause awareness or giving day and describes why the cause is important. Your landing page should also list at least three actions that your donors and supporters can take on the awareness day, such as making a donation, signing a petition, or becoming a social media ambassador. Your landing page should also prominently feature a donate button, an email opt-in, and social media icons.
Design a set of website, email, and social media promo graphics using a tool such as Canva in order to maximize interest in your campaign.
One month before, send out an email announcing your campaign and 1) ask your subscribers to follow you on social media so they can help promote your campaign to their social networks; and 2) let them know that they can make an early donation, especially in the case of Giving Tuesday. #GivingTuesday has become so popular that supporters and donors are now inundated with emails and social media posts on the day of Giving Tuesday and it’s very difficult to stand out on Giving Tuesday.
Next, send an email reminder weekly or every other week before the cause awareness or giving day. Don’t be shy about asking supporters and donors to make an early donation. It’s your best chance of achieving your fundraising goal.
In the weeks and days before the cause awareness or giving day, send out countdown posts on social media. Always include the campaign’s hashtag and a link to your landing page.
On the morning of the cause awareness or giving day, your first email subject line and your first posts on social media should announce that today is the day. For example, “It’s #WorldWaterDay! Help us provide clean water to the 780 million people worldwide who go without.” These are consistently the most opened emails and the most popular posts on social media. On social media, post this announcement at least twice more throughout the day for those in different time zones.
On the day of your campaign, post a wide variety of content with your campaign hashtag at least every other hour and link to your landing page. Spending on social advertising is a wise investment due to record low organic reach on social media.
In the days after the campaign, update your landing page by summarizing the success of your campaign and thank donors and supporters for their participation. In addition to fundraising totals, you could also list the number of page views, social media engagements, and the number of new supporters and social media ambassadors. You should also announce the date of next year’s campaign if known.

10) Invest in a customer relationship management (CRM) platform.

A CRM is a database that captures and automates information about your donors, members, and volunteers and enables your nonprofit to track donations, create fundraising reports, and analyze and compare fundraising campaigns. Today’s most effective CRMs allow for easy management and remote access and integrate with commonly used third-party tools, such as Constant Contact, Eventbrite, and Double the Donation.

If your nonprofit is spending a lot of staff hours and financial resources maintaining an out-of-date CRM, then it may be time to research and select a new CRM that is better suited to modern fundraising trends. To get started, view this list of top-reviewed CRMs on Capterra, and when comparing CRMs, Nonprofit Tech for Good is a fan of Keela, Funraise, and Givebutter.

Post Updated: May 15, 2024

Our Certificate in Digital Marketing & Fundraising program covers the fundamentals of website design, email marketing, online fundraising, and social media for nonprofits.