Pre-Launch Community Building

A key ingredient in a successful nonprofit crowdfunding campaign is the pre-launch community-building hype that precedes it.

The pre-launch period is so important because it gives you the space to create a relationship with donors without the added pressure of an expectation to give. The donor can have the freedom to explore your cause and develop loyalty so that when you do launch, not only will they be on board, they can also help spread the word right from the beginning.

Cast a Wide Net

Start with a solid content marketing strategy or other promotional tactic. The key here is to find your community. Think about channels where your community might be found. Some good places to start promoting your content:

• Twitter, sorting by hashtags, lists, and the followers of those similar to you
• Readers of blogs and communities with similar concerns or goals. See if you can get guest posts (here’s a great article on how to do this, with steps that I’ve used to successfully land guest posts).
• Your partners, other nonprofits that do either the same thing or something very similar. You don’t want to step on their toes, but if you are slightly off-angled, or your fundraising occurs at a different time of year, you can coordinate efforts and share audience.

Have a System to Cultivate Your Audience

Even before you start asking for funds, you should have a system in place to begin developing the trust that is needed to ask for that donation down the road. Collecting email addresses and sending out a weekly or monthly update newsletter is a great place to start. Begin sharing impact stories or motivational stories that show the impact donors can have.

• Share stories of past successes
• Share impact stories
• Share motivational stories

Basically, you want to start sending out the message that you can effect positive change. Get the convincing out of the way early, when you’re not asking for much (if anything) so that you don’t have to do it when you’re asking for donations and people will automatically be more skeptical. Get them to start believing in the effectiveness of your nonprofit and their own agency in helping make things happen. This process should start 3-6 months out.

Build Hype, Make them Feel Special

About 1-3 months out, start building hype for your nonprofit crowdfunding launch. Make the big announcement to your list and ask them to start spreading the word. It’s really helpful to make them feel special by emphasizing that you are really counting on them as the first cadre of donors. Remind them that they will have a powerful impact by being the first to start sharing the message. You can do this through your email communication, or through your blog. It doesn’t really matter.

Start Asking

About 1 month or less from your launch, you want to basically start asking for the commitment to donate. You want to make the sale before the launch date hits so that your donors are already waiting to give your campaign a powerful kick start. Start asking your audience to introduce the cause to their friends as well at this point.

If you’ve done your job right, your main audience’s enthusiasm will be at its highest point, so they will be in their best position to convince their friends. Urgency is also a key ingredient at this point.

If you are going through all the trouble of a prelaunch promotional strategy, you can benefit from a shorter-term campaign with more early activity and intensity. Remind your donors that this is a short-term opportunity to make an impact and watch the donations come in.

Grand Opening!

Send out reminder emails and blogs right before the launch so that all your donors are ready to go. At this point, you shouldn’t have to do much more than a quick reminder. Taking the time to build up a powerful, eager community before you actually launch can go a long way to ensuring the success of a nonprofit crowdfunding campaign. It’s often that early push that makes the biggest difference in the overall success.