Handy Tips for Planning Your Online Fundraising Campaign

Undoubtedly, online fundraising can be very beneficial for businesses. This is repeatedly proven during the annual GiveIndia Fundraising Challenge, the largest event of its kind held in the country. The Business Standard estimates that GiveIndia’s events alone see a 60% increase in money raised yearly, helping nonprofits across India start their year right.

Yet organizations that aren’t nonprofits can reap benefits from online fundraising too. It can improve employee morale and productivity, enhance brand equity, engage audiences, and encourage the formation of loyal communities.

With so many advantages to be had, you can be sure that online fundraising will be a great tool to use when you need it. But how do you create the perfect online fundraising campaign? Below are some handy tips to help you get started.

Planning Your budget

Setting a budget will help you create a successful campaign while staying within your means. AskMoney explains that budgets should be established based on your current financial standing and financial goals. Other goals you should keep in mind involve marketing. An example being if your goal is to garner financial support from younger audiences, budget for social media ads rather than email campaigns. However, we add in ‘How To Start Planning An Online Campaign Budget’ that marketing should only make up between 7-15% of your budget. Allocate the rest of your funds to other things, like organizing main fundraising events and compensating staff.

Setting your timeline

When you’ve decided on the cause you’re fundraising for and the budget with which to do it, move on to the manner with which you want to accomplish it. Will your efforts culminate in a single fundraising event, or will you accept donations for a certain amount of time? What online channels will you use to reach your target audience? What kind of media and other materials will you use? Who will accomplish certain tasks, and what methods will they use to do so? In answering these questions, the most important thing is to set a timeline with deadlines for each task. This way, staying on track will be a piece of cake.

Engaging Your Audience

This should be your primary concern, as engagement is what will draw supporters to your cause. To motivate donors, you can try tying a definite impact to various donation sizes. For example, education campaigns can say that a donation of ₹400 will help buy school supplies, while ₹800 will go toward building better schools. You can also consider using short-form videos to further engage and inform people about your cause, as Financial Express reveals this is a popular form of media in India. Above all, strive to maintain a human connection with donors. Fundraising professional Sumeet Sandhu says this is fundraising’s fundamental aspect, as it helps form communities to support a cause in strength.

Thanking Your Supporters

It’s vital that this aforementioned human connection should be maintained throughout your campaign. Notify supporters when you reach milestones toward fundraising goals. Continue updating them on the impact of their donations even after your campaign’s ended. This will help foster that sense of community — and encourage donors to support any future campaigns you may organize. A loyal audience of recurring donors can be more valuable to your organization than one-time donors, as they’re usually motivated to take additional actions like volunteering. This is something you can rely on to help you out in both your current campaign and future ones.

Online fundraising is a great way to supplement on-the-ground campaigns — and they can be even better on their own. Hopefully, these tips help you pull off your own campaigns successfully.