As nonprofit fundraisers, it’s easy for us to see the advantages of being big. There are some things large, established organizations simply have an easier time doing, like launching a national awareness campaign, or attracting major gifts and grants.
Still, there are some fundraising techniques that are ideal when you’re a small nonprofit. Going online, making personal connections with your donors, and joining larger nonprofit movements can make a big difference for small nonprofits.
Let’s take a deeper look at what opportunities small nonprofits can tap into!
When you concentrate on fundraising, it’s natural to focus on need. After all, we spend a lot of time explaining the needs our causes address, and the way we solve them. We also devote a lot of attention to our organizational needs—what we need to get the work done.
These needs are probably familiar to you; we all need more time, more volunteer support, and, of course, more money for our causes.
Here at CauseVox, we believe (and have seen it proven by hundreds of organizations that have raised millions on our platform) small nonprofits have a lot going for them. Here are just a few:
Each of these small nonprofit fundraising ideas relies on making personal connections within your network of supporters—what we call people-to-people fundraising.
For small organizations, peer-to-peer fundraising is absolutely essential—you may not have the resources for direct mail campaign, and you may not qualify for a $100,000 grant, but you have people who support you. At CauseVox, we know this and have made launching a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign easy and you can get started for free (handy, when you’re on a tight budget).
Peer-to-peer fundraising has many benefits for small nonprofits, including:
The simplest way to have the broadest possible reach is to use the Internet. Online fundraising removes the barriers of geography, opening up your campaign to any interested person anywhere. It gives people who may be unable to participate in an event a tangible way to offer their support.
Online fundraising is supremely sharable–which is just what you want when you approach fundraising with a peer-to-peer strategy. Supporters can spread the word to their networks on social media channels, or by emailing a link to interested friends. Sharing is what expands your network.
Small organizations can have a big impact online. She’s the First, nonprofit that raises funds to send girls in low-income countries to secondary school, began their first campaign with a grand total of three full-time staff members. By engaging their network of supporters, they exponentially increased their reach—106 individuals created personal fundraising pages for the campaign, which brought in $42,106.
Similarly, The Adventure Project, a nonprofit that has raised thousands on CauseVox, used a strategy that could only work online—they enlisted bloggers to spread the word about their campaign to raise funds for a water well mechanics program in India. Their TypeTap campaign raised more than $10,000 online within 24 hours on World Water Day in 2011.
An online peer-to-peer campaign relies on the personal relationships between your supporters and their networks, but you need to invest in your personal relationships with your donors, old and new. Support your online campaign by looking for ways to connect with your donors personally offline, like:
Supplementing your online fundraising with offline action adds another layer to your donors’ impression of you, deepens your connection, and sets you apart from the crowd.
You don’t have to invent everything. If something big is happening in the nonprofit community—jump on it! For example #GivingTuesday is already established as Global Day of Giving. There are toolkits, advice, and trainings already waiting for you to use.
A global conversation in favor of charitable giving benefits nonprofits, regardless of their size. Nonprofits large and small are hopping on board and with each participating organization, the conversation gets louder. #GivingTuesday can be a megaphone for small nonprofitss.
There are people who want to support your work, and by activating your network through online fundraising (easily done through CauseVox), personal connection, and tapping into the larger nonprofit conversation, you’ll start to find them.
We know small organizations can get big results–we help our clients do it all the time. Using CauseVox resources and your own small-but-mighty moxie, you can start to fundraise in a big way.
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