7 Things to Change About Your Online Fundraising in 2013

Forget personal New Year’s resolutions – those are rarely kept. This year, adopt organizational resolutions. (You’ll definitely keep those. They’re legally binding!)

As you start out in 2013, here are seven things you can do to turbocharge your online fundraising.

1. Create your own branded donation page

Having your own branded donation page or online fundraising platform gets you 7x as many donations as generic page, according to onlinegivingstudy.org! At that rate, the cost of web development should pay for itself quite quickly.

2. Use a strong, bright color for your donate button

Sounds silly, right? Well, it has an impact. DonorDigital has found that red, blue, green, and orange perform better than pale colors like grey and yellow. If you’ve got a drab or ambiguous button, it’s time to take out the trash and put a bright beacon in its place.

3. Send “Thank You” letters to every donor

They helped you when it counted, and now its time to say “Thanks.” Thank you letters pull in your community and remind them that their contributions are helpful and appreciated, providing a natural springboard into your next campaign.

If you don’t communicate with them in between requests for support, they might begin to feel like cash registers, rather than supportive community members, and you don’t want that.

4. Invite donors to join your online community

If you aren’t already sending supporters to your social media pages, you’re missing out on the quickest, most robust way to keep your lines of communication open. And if you’re after younger supporters, this is must-do item. At events, in your newsletters, or on your main website, commit to finding creative ways to incentivize supporters to connect with you on social media. Which reminds us …

5. Run a social fundraising campaign

It’s a super-efficient way to get supporters to spread the word and click “Donate.” You don’t have to have to be a large organizations with a huge support base. Whether you’re just starting out as a group of friends or startup nonprofit scaling their impact, you can see strong results from social fundraising.

6. Create a video

If you’re camera-shy and scared to make a video, 2013 is the year you face your fear. Videos are excellent online fundraising tools (as we learned from the Jubilee Project guys in #5), and the sooner you get started, the sooner you can get really good at it. Put it on the agenda for your next meeting and make it happen. Here, we’ll make it easy for you. Just cut and paste this into your working agenda: “It’s high time we made a damned video.”

7. Design options for supporters

You’ve got a snazzy “Donate” button now, but what about those who don’t want to send money? Consider creating other options for supporters who would rather volunteer time at events, become an online evangelist, or even those who might want to barter services. The more ways there are to get involved, the bigger your community gets.

Got other New Year’s resolutions for online fundraisers? Let us know below!