Set Your Goals and Objectives Before selecting a conference, you should first determine your organization's goals and objectives. What specific skills, knowledge, or connections do you want to gain from the conference? Identifying these goals and objectives will help you evaluate potential conferences and ensure that the conference aligns with your organization's mission and priorities.

Asking for money can be intimidating for even experienced fundraisers, but it's obviously THE essential part of fundraising, so it's time to do our homework! Before approaching potential donors, it's crucial to research their interests, giving history, and capacity to give.

If you've been following PRIDE for any amount of time, you probably know we don't love fundraising events as a primary fundraising strategy. The data suggest they are simply not as effective as other methods, BUT that doesn't mean we should not try to optimize them as best we can.

Corporate partnerships can be a game-changer for nonprofit organizations looking to fundraise. These partnerships can bring a wide range of benefits, from financial support to increased visibility and access to resources. In this blog, we'll explore some of the key advantages that corporate partnerships can offer to nonprofit organizations.

One of the biggest advantages of using AI for fundraising is its ability to help organizations to better understand their donor base. By analyzing data on donor behavior and giving patterns, AI can help non-profits to identify which donors are most likely to give, and how much they are likely to give.

1. Increased Focus on Digital Fundraising

In recent years, we've seen a significant shift towards digital fundraising, and this trend is set to continue in 2023. With more people turning to the internet for communication and commerce, nonprofits must have a strong online presence and utilize digital channels to reach potential donors.

This is a question every nonprofit staff and board has at one time or another, and in this helpful guide, we will walk you through how to determine a goal that is challenging enough to grab the attention of your community, but not so large that it is unachievable.

Focus Your Efforts on a Campaign – Rather than spending time on many small and scattered fundraising efforts, a campaign helps rally more people behind a meaningful cause and creates a deadline to inspire action. Multi-year projects will always yield bigger results through the ability to ask for larger gifts, thus securing more and larger multi-year pledge commitments.

Chances are if you’re a non-profit fundraiser, you’re overworked, overwhelmed, and looking for a light at the end of a tunnel filled with annual appeals, donor demands, and operational needs. Is a fundraising consultant the light at the end of the tunnel? Quite possibly!

Look at the calendar and map out a timeline for your year-end activities remembering that most electronic messages can be scheduled in advance. Don’t plan so much that you can’t execute it well if you’re just starting now, but pick 4 activities, integrate them into one theme and do them well! Do something that will result in revenue coming in the door every week during the month of December.

There are a few basic boxes to check before you make your ask, and they’re sure to give you the confidence you need to be bold in asking for the support needed to further your organization’s mission.

We are huge proponents for saying thank you to our donors, and have written at length about why demonstrating gift impact is important and how to retain your donors by saying "thank you" effectively. Thanking your donors and interacting with them continuously throughout the year is paramount if you want to continue to give to your nonprofit, but we want to distinguish the difference between stewardship and recognition.

A nonprofit culture of philanthropy is your organization's collective perception and participation in advancing the fundraising efforts of the entire charity. It's less about your actual designated fundraising team/department and more about total knowledge and buy-in from everyone in the organization family.

Prospect research in philanthropy is the practice of identifying, qualifying, and gathering information on prospective donors to prepare an ask for a charitable contribution. Professional fundraisers use this technique to find donors who have three specific things when determining if a person, business, or foundation is a good candidate for giving a gift to their charity.

Start with seeking to recapture your lapsed donors. Look at lists of those who have given in the last 5-10 years but not this or last year, and conduct a targeted giving drive or targeted mailing/email blast to this group. When you reach out, be sure to acknowledge their support in the past, and offer for them to join your new campaign/giving club while you introduce new perks that weren’t offered before…

In this blog, we will be covering our favorite options out of the ones our team of fundraising professionals have actually tried, plus listing the pros and cons, so that you can make the best decision for your organization and specific needs, desired features, and pricing.

Board members join your organization as a way of demonstrating they would like to help with your mission, but what if they need help? Not everyone who joins a board for the first time is a seasoned nonprofit professional. They may not know what they don't know, or they may be unwilling to ask for help, training, and support.

How they give: They give big - They give in the now, and they plan their gifts through legacy and planned gifts. Arguably the most popular philanthropist right now is Mackenzie Scott, who has been in the news recently for gifts to the Girl Scouts, siting “REASON”. Her monumental and transformational giving shows powerful belief in missions.

We suggest blocking out time on your calendar each week for specific areas of your role. If this is difficult, start with one hour for each. That’s five hours total of the minimum forty hours a week you’re dedicating to your mission. Doable, right? Especially if you start seeing the fruits of your labor in measurable ways.

For many non-profits, the fundraising role is lumped in with multiple other job duties, equating to less than one full time equivalent staff member dedicated to this important role. It isn’t enough to say that fundraising is a priority, in order to find success in this realm, you’ve got to dedicate time and resources to move the needle.