Best Fundraising Tools Help You Raise Money

Posted on August 11, 2021

Nonprofits help the community through charitable activities. Charitable activities require funds that come in the form of donations from philanthropists. Donations are raised through fundraising activities that involve donors. Several fundraising tools help nonprofits generate funds easily.

Let us First Understand how Nonprofit Functions:

A nonprofit associates itself with various charitable ventures. Ideally a nonprofit selects charities that are aligned to its vision and mission.

Need to establish their brand in the market and raise awareness for nonprofits. This is usually done by creating a digital presence in addition to its physical presence with the help of a website. The website is promoted using digital marketing techniques like search engine optimization, social media marketing, etc. These help the nonprofit spread the word about itself and what it stands for. These techniques help attract an audience to the brand.

The nonprofit needs funds to support the charities it is associated with. Hence, it organizes fundraising events to generate money.

Let’s now break down the all-important question, “how fundraising events raise money?”

Traditionally fundraising events were held physically and had donors participate in them and donate directly. For instance, fundraising events like auctions would be organized that would have donors bidding for items on auction. Funds would be generated by giving away the item to the highest bidder and the funds collected through bidding, registration, and ticketing would be utilized for charity. Or it could be fundraising events like marathons, etc. that would have several participants. The purpose for organizing the event would be indicated to the participants so that they could donate. Again, most of such events would require participants to purchase tickets that would contribute to the funds raised. Such events could have sponsors supporting them and donating for the event.

However, the pandemic has completely changed how nonprofit fundraising events are organized. Now, most nonprofit events are held online. And, this is where various fundraising tools have a vital role to play.

Why Fundraising Tools are Required?

Fundraising tools are software and apps that simplify the process of hosting fundraising events and raising funds.

Fundraising tools not only help organize fundraising events seamlessly but also offer multiple benefits.

Benefits of Fundraising Tools:

1. They help Reach New Donors:

Fundraising platforms have social media marketing integrated into them facilitating promotion to reach a wide audience.

They help Nonprofits Retain Old Donors: Nonprofits can retain old donors by engaging with them with the help of techniques like email marketing or adding fresh content to the site.

Nonprofit platforms support different types of marketing techniques.

2. Promote Campaigns:

When you organize a nonprofit fundraising event, you will need to promote your campaigns. Fundraising platforms for nonprofits offer the means to market your campaigns to reach a wide audience.

3. Hosting Fundraising Events:

Fundraising platforms help you host events by providing end-to-end event management tools. Nonprofits can use fundraising platforms for ticketing and registration, organizing events through webinars, zoom meetings, live streaming, and more. These platforms also facilitate collecting feedback from the audience. Fundraising platforms are designed to support specific types of nonprofit fundraising such as peer-to-peer funding or online auctions, etc.

4. Offer Seamless Collaboration:

These platforms offer a single point for connecting various stakeholders. This enables taking quick decisions and better planning.

5. Make Donating Easier:

These platforms make it easier for donors to contribute funds by providing features like text-to-donate, donation buttons on the website, etc.

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular fundraising tools:

1. Fundraising Platform

A fundraising platform is one of the basic tools that any nonprofit requires for supporting different functions. There are different types of fundraising platforms in the market, each offering different types of features. It is recommended that you compare the features offered by these platforms and choose the one that best meets the needs of your nonprofit.

2. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

A customer relationship management system streamlines all aspects of client management. It facilitates track your donors, identifies donor personas, communicates effectively with them, etc. It helps in tracking relationships over time, integrating various systems, etc. Make sure that you select a CRM that integrates with the fundraising platform you have chosen.

3. Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing is one of the most important marketing strategies used by nonprofits because it helps establish a channel for direct communication with donors. Several email marketing tools are available to organize your email marketing.

4. Social Media Marketing Tools

Social Media Marketing tools help bring all profiles to a single platform from where you can update all of them. Social media marketing tools help in scheduling posts, tracking engagement, click rates, etc.

Besides these several other tools support different types of nonprofit fundraising strategies:

Peer to Peer Fundraising:

These refer to tools that enable support of different aspects of peer-to-peer fundraising. In other words, when peer-to-peer fundraising is done, this tool takes care of spreading the word about your fundraiser to your peers who can work with you in achieving your goals.

Auction Tools:

Online auctions are a popular choice of nonprofits for fundraising. Auction tools help in setting up and hosting online auctions seamlessly. These tools establish a system to help donors participate in the auction by sending their bids online. They facilitate comparison and finding out the winning bid, etc.

Donation Page:

Donation pages are set up by nonprofits on their websites to facilitate easy donations. Nonprofits must ensure that the donation pages are mobile-friendly to make it easy for more donors to contribute. Also, donation pages must be easy to navigate with clear instructions.

Text Giving:

Text to give is one of the easiest ways to donate. The donor sends a text message to a particular number associated with the nonprofit. He is then directed to the payment page where he can donate the amount he wishes to. This method has become extremely popular among donors because of the ease of use and the rising number of mobile users globally. A nonprofit will require a platform to set up a text-to-give system.

As we have seen, fundraising platforms help organize nonprofit events seamlessly. It is recommended that you compare different fundraising platforms before selecting one.

What are the Best Fundraising Platforms?

Different platforms offer varying features that can be used for fundraising by nonprofits.

Here’s a list of some of the most popular fundraising platforms:

1. Qgiv:

This platform offers a host of features that are beneficial for nonprofits such as online giving tools, event registration, peer-to-peer fundraising, tracking tools, auction tools, and more. It includes a myriad of options for small, mid-size, and large nonprofits to support different types of fundraising events.

2. Bloomerang:

This platform focuses on building the loyalty and commitment of donors. It offers features that facilitate building effective fundraising strategies.

3. Match Maker:

The focus of Match Maker is managing donor relationships.

4. Neon CRM:

It is a cloud-based CRM that helps nonprofits generate funds easily. It also enables nonprofits to track donor data easily which helps build effective strategies.

So, we see that the focus area of each platform is different. Hence the features in the platform are built according to its focus area. You can choose a platform that best meets the needs of your nonprofit.

Conclusion

iConnectX is a nonprofit fundraising platform that supports fundraising options such as:

• Online auctions
• Donation pages
• Ticketed events
• Text-to-give fundraising
• Mobile giving

iConnectX is well-suited to the needs of most nonprofits and offers a reliable support system through a team of experts to support fundraising strategies of nonprofits.