Most social media fundraisers follow a familiar pattern: a burst of posts, a little spike in gifts, and then crickets. But social doesn't have to be a one-night stand. The best nonprofit fundraising campaigns treat it as the front door to a longer relationship with donors. So let's talk about how to build a campaign…
Nonprofit marketing automation isn't about swapping real relationships for robotic messages. It's about building systems that quietly respond to what your supporters actually do, so a small team can stay consistent without running itself into the ground. Think of it less like a set-it-and-forget-it machine and more like a few smart trip wires: a thank-you…
If you're the only person handling marketing, comms, and half your org's donor relationships, "social media strategy" probably sounds like something other, better-staffed nonprofits get to have. Here's the thing though: you don't need a content team or a fancy dashboard to make social media actually work for you. You just need a rhythm you…
Ever handed a gala program to a guest, watched them flip through it once during the appetizer course, then never see it again? Yeah, we've all been there. Turns out, a gala program isn't really about the printed booklet at all. It's the roadmap for how your donors spend their attention over a two or…
You don't need a camera crew or a fancy $3,000 rig to make a video that actually moves people. Turns out, a smartphone, a loose story plan, and five well-chosen shots are plenty for a small nonprofit team to show who's affected, what your org does about it, and what the viewer can do next.…
Processing a donation? That's honestly the easy part. What happens after that gift lands is where things get tricky, and it's where a lot of nonprofits quietly lose ground. So if you're shopping around for donation software, don't just ask "can it accept payments?" The better question is: can it help you actually build a…
Silent auction rules don't have to read like something a lawyer drafted at 2am. When your rules are short, friendly, and easy to skim, guests actually get how bidding works, and that little bit of confidence? It turns into higher bids. Funny how that works. So here's what we're covering: a guest-tested silent auction rules…
Donor stewardship gets talked about a lot, but here's what it actually means: the ongoing work of thanking, updating, and recognizing your donors in between the moments you're asking them for money. Do it well, and a single gift turns into an actual relationship, one that doesn't need a massive development team behind it to…
If your event marketing plan currently lives in a mix of sticky notes, group texts, and hope, well, you're definitely not alone. Small nonprofit teams get asked to run events like there's a whole marketing department behind them, when really it's one or two people wearing five different hats (and maybe wondering where hat number…
Volunteers hand your nonprofit something money can't buy: their time. And here's the thing, how you say thank you often decides whether they come back next season or just fade off your roster without a word. Nobody wants that. So below, you'll find a practical rundown plus 25 ready-to-use lines for email, text, and social…
Bloomerang is a strong donor database. If you are the one running campaigns, here are the alternatives that let you market without exporting a CSV every week.
We ranked nonprofit event ticketing platforms on the thing marketers care about: how much each one helps you actually sell the tickets, not just process them.
Giving Tuesday inboxes turn into a straight-up battlefield every year. Your supporters are scrolling past dozens of nearly identical asks in the same afternoon, all fighting for a half-second of attention before getting swiped away. So what actually stops the thumb? Your subject line. That's it. That tiny line of text is the only thing…
If you're the only person running communications at your nonprofit, you know the drill. Too many audiences, not enough hours, and that ever-growing list of "we should probably post about that" moments haunting your to-do list. A traditional communications plan with dozens of pages isn't going to save you here. What actually helps is a…
A nonprofit website isn't just a digital brochure. It's the difference between someone landing on your homepage and immediately getting it (or not), and between a first-time donor sticking around or clicking away for good. We've poked around a bunch of nonprofit sites, and honestly, the good ones share a few sneaky-simple copy moves that…
Some fundraisers need a whole marketing team just to explain what's happening. Others explain themselves the second your executive director gets nailed with a pie. That's the beauty of funny fundraising ideas: the activity is the content. No overthinking captions, no staring at a blank Canva template wondering what to say. The joke's the hook,…
Here's a pattern we see on nonprofit websites all the time: they talk about themselves. A lot. "Our mission," "our programs," "our impact." And look, we get it, you're proud of the work. But there's a framework that flips this on its head, and it comes from Donald Miller's StoryBrand playbook. The idea is simple:…
If you're the sole person wrangling email newsletters, social calendars, and text campaigns for your nonprofit, here's a truth you probably already know deep down: the problem isn't that you don't have enough tools. It's that you've got too many, and none of them are talking to each other. So what's the fix? Not a…
A great gala theme does more than give you something pretty for the step-and-repeat. It hands your donors a story to walk into, makes it obvious why they showed up in the first place, and honestly? It makes the ask feel a lot less awkward when it finally comes. If you've been staring at a…
If you've ever hit "send" on a big appeal and then watched your open rates nosedive, you know that particular flavor of dread. Did the email even land anywhere real, or is it sitting in a spam folder next to a Nigerian prince and a "you've won a cruise" scam? For nonprofits that rely on…