5 Ways to Keep Your Fundraising Strategy Fresh

If you’re looking at your organization’s fundraising strategy and trying to find areas where you can improve it before the year-end rush, you’re in luck! With each new year comes improved technology and plenty of new ways to enhance your fundraising. Whether you’re planning to launch more campaigns or looking for the right software, you should try to sustain your fundraising strategy and successfully engage new and old donors alike.

Spotlight

Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing

The Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) – In 1922 six nurses founded STTI at the Indiana University Training School for Nurses, now the Indiana University School of Nursing, in Indianapolis, Ind., USA. The founders chose the name from the Greek words Storgé, Tharsos and Timé meaning "love,"​ "courage"​ and "honor."​ STTI became incorporated in 1985 as Sigma Theta Tau International Inc., a nonprofit organization with a 501(c)(3) tax status in the United States.

OTHER ARTICLES
Nonprofit Management

What Are the Top Five Lessons for Your Non-Profit This Year?

Article | July 11, 2022

It is crucial to keep a keen eye on what the significant figures imply for NGO’s and how they affect their operations. Learn more in detail in the 5 key lessons! It's alluring to concentrate just on the significant figures that affect the non-profit industry as a whole. However, it's equally crucial to concentrate on what those significant figures imply for certain NGOs and how they may affect your day-to-day operations. The report can be used to learn the following five key lessons. Lesson One: Small-Dollar Donors Are Being Left Behind Around 84.1% of contributors give less than $500 yearly to the organisations they support, and just 19% of new donors are retained over time, according to the most recent Fundraising Effectiveness Project data. This indicates that the great majority of small-dollar donors are leaving non-profit organizations. Lesson Two: There are Winners and Losers by Mission Type Donors change the emphasis they give to certain missions every year. Donors' giving priorities clearly reflect the legacy of COVID-19 as well as the enduring influence of racial and social justice movements. The number of non-profits with missions in the arts, culture, or healthcare increased significantly in 2020. Non-profits with an emphasis on foreign affairs, human services, and education, on the other hand, had slow growth or reductions in 2021. Lesson Three: Corporate Giving is a Distraction It will become more crucial to engage with people instead of concentrating on corporate ties as businesses modify their philanthropic alliances and employees try to support their preferred causes outside of their workplace's giving program. Lesson Four: It’s Time to Modernize Bequest Giving A warning sign that NGOs are not investing in highlighting the opportunities available with legacy gifts is the decline in bequests during 2021. Although any donor can establish a contribution through their estate to a non-profit they are passionate about, there is a frequent misconception that bequests must be customized for significant donors. Lesson Five: Retention and Acquisition Benchmarks Are Critical For its key revenue figures, the Giving USA report heavily depends on IRS 990 information. When examining giving trends throughout the sector, that data is helpful, but it is less helpful when attempting to comprehend the behavior of all donors. It is reassuring to see that when discussing contributors' ongoing support of NGOs, the Fundraising Effectiveness Project's data on acquisition and retention of individual donors was recognised as the primary source. It's crucial to comprehend donor behaviour, and you can achieve this by comparing the donor behaviour of your own organization to benchmarks from the ‘Fundraising Effectiveness Project.’

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Nonprofit Management

How Donor Data Can Inform Better Donor Experiences

Article | July 20, 2022

Although we recommend talking directly with your donors to learn what matters to them, one-on-one conversations aren’t the only way to gain valuable information about your donors. Through analysis of the donor data in your fundraising software, you can obtain insights that will help you create a better experience for your donors, and motivate them to give more over time. Here’s what you can learn from the numbers and how you can apply this knowledge to improve your donor experience. Biographic and Demographic Information: This particular donor data isn’t snazzy, but it provides you with important tools to use in donor communications. Here’s what you can do with it. Preferred Name: Even something as simple as addressing your donors by their preferred names or nicknames will go a long way toward building a meaningful relationship. Employment: Improve the timing of your emails by sending to full-time individuals when they’re at work. Age: Millennials are more likely to check social media or text messages for communications, while Baby Boomers are more likely to use email or even snail mail. A multi-channel communication strategy, however, is the best thing to help you reach your donors where they’re at. Educational Background: While someone’s education level may provide insights about their capacity to give, consider looking at what your contacts were involved in while in school. Did they join clubs that provide a clue about their interests? Did they hold certain leadership positions that tell you what they’re committed to? What community service projects were they active in? This information can help you customize your communications more meaningfully. Involvement History: Monetary giving isn’t the only indicator of a donor’s interest in your organization. When you’re putting together your campaign lists, don’t forget to look at other historical indicators as well. Note: If you’re already using Network for Good’s simple, smart fundraising software, demographic details, like the ones above, need to be individually added as “Custom Fields” to a constituent’s record. Involvement in Advocacy Work: If an individual advocates for charities or causes, he or she is usually serious about making a difference and seeks to do so in other ways. Corporate Sponsorships: If someone has organized a corporate sponsorship for her or his place of employment, the individual has demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile foryour organization. Showing Up at Events: If you have regulars who appear at your events, they’re prime candidates to get more involved. An events platform that integrates directly with your fundraising software can be a key tool here in making sure you’re following up with the right people. Network of Connections: Prospective donors will always be more willing to respond if a friend or business connection has introduced your organization to them. If you think an individual would be willing to contribute to your nonprofit, look at who in your donor database is connected to that person and ask for an introduction. This strategy can also be used for raising corporate sponsorships. Hobbies: Hobbies and interests will tell you who’s most likely to participate in your events. They’ll also give you ideas about what types of events will be most popular with your contacts. Here are a few ideas: Games: Trivia night, bingo, or board games. Outdoors: Run/Walk, golf or fishing tournament, or softball. Food & Drink: Wine tasting, celebrity chef or bartender, or profit share at a restaurant. Music: Benefit concert, talent show, or Battle of the Bands Arts & Culture: Group night at the theatre, charity poetry reading, or author meet-and-greet. Timing of Gifts: When do individuals give? If someone tends to make donations at a certain time of year, your request will probably be welcomed (and successful!) if you ask at that time. Using tools such as the “Giving” filters to conduct donor analysis can help determine if there are trends around a particular time of year for one (or multiple) donors – and knowing the timing of gifts will also help you spend your marketing dollars more wisely. If someone has given within a year-long time period, that person is much more likely to give again than someone who gave two years ago. You can allocate your marketing resources more intelligently if you know who is more likely to donate. These are just a few ideas on how to use your data to not only build a stronger donor experience but also increase your fundraising revenue. Learn why the donor experience is vital to a successful organization and how to implement an effective donor experience program by downloading “A Better Donor Experience: Is it the Cornerstone of Donor Loyalty?”

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Nonprofit Management

What Does the Health of Your Nonprofit Website Mean and How Can You Improve It?

Article | July 12, 2022

Poor website health may be impacting your non-profit organization's business. Without a question, the basis of your digital presence is a high-performing website. However, it is easy to let other concerns take precedence over website health, especially if it is not your area of expertise. Healthy websites guarantee long-term success, increased reach, and more engagement. This is critical for organizations in terms of community involvement and giving. Healthy sites are also optimized for all users and free of flaws that might degrade the user experience. Poor website health, on the other hand, might result in a loss of visitors and search engine ranks. When it comes to search engine optimization, website health is equally vital (SEO). Sites that load quicker and have fewer difficulties will rank higher in search. How to Improve Website Health? Speed up your site pages: Visitors will not wait for a sluggish site to load in this day of immediate gratification. If your pages do not load immediately, you will make a poor first impression. Fix 404 errors and reduce redirects: Broken links are ones that produce the error message "404 Page Not Found." Error pages might disrupt the crawling of your website, lowering your search ranks. This informs search engines that you are not giving a decent user experience, which will lower your search rankings. Decrease image file sizes: Image files are huge and consume a lot of storage space. Large files might cause your site to slow down and take a long time to load. Reduce file sizes and compress all photos to enhance website health. Optimize for mobile: Google has stated that mobile speed is taken into account by the ranking algorithm. Your website should ideally operate on all devices. Create grammar-free, relevant content: Content is important in all marketing activities, so it's no surprise that it affects website health. Great content is the key to success since search rankings, engagement, and conversions are all dependent on it. Optimize for search: SEO is the process of improving your website's ranking on search engines. This is one of the most crucial aspects of maintaining a good website. A good SEO strategy brings traffic to your website without costing any money.

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Nonprofit Management

Top 5 Trends for Non-Profits in 2022

Article | July 11, 2022

Non-profits can lead with a data-driven strategy that seamlessly connects staff and volunteers and engages donors if they have the right tools. In the coming year, non-profits will continue to correct course in a still chaotic environment, providing opportunities to rethink strategy with data gathered since transitioning to a digital-first environment. With Dreamforce in the rear-view mirror and the new year fast approaching, our non-profit experts are here to share the top five trends for non-profits in 2022. Non-profits continue to adapt and shift strategies: 89% of non-profit marketers have updated their digital engagement strategy and the ability to pivot to digital-first options. For example, remote fundraising; these are the times when organizations adapt to change and priorities to win the hearts of constituents. Connection and collaboration from anywhere: Getting together, meeting new people, and gathering has changed drastically and will continue to evolve. Hence making remote connections is a key trend for non-profits in 2022. Data-informed decisions: Establishing transparency around your non-profit gives you insights into how your funds are spent. The best way to showcase it is through data-informed decisions. Invest in people: Non-profits use digital platforms and can depend on that data to create meaningful conversations with donors and volunteers to build relationships and also with the staff to ensure what are their needs that requires attention. After two years of going digital, every non-profit’s new year's resolution should be to put data to use. Using data through foundational technology is the best way to connect with constituents while also remaining agile in order to adapt and ensure that teams are working effectively to power your mission. Non-profits must continue to adapt to new ways of fundraising in a hybrid work environment in order to survive and thrive. Furthermore, there is a greater emphasis on finding new ways to connect with donors in an entirely digital environment.

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Spotlight

Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing

The Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) – In 1922 six nurses founded STTI at the Indiana University Training School for Nurses, now the Indiana University School of Nursing, in Indianapolis, Ind., USA. The founders chose the name from the Greek words Storgé, Tharsos and Timé meaning "love,"​ "courage"​ and "honor."​ STTI became incorporated in 1985 as Sigma Theta Tau International Inc., a nonprofit organization with a 501(c)(3) tax status in the United States.

Related News

Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology

Blackbaud Unveils New TeamRaiser Activity-Tracking Feature Good Move

Prnewswire | March 31, 2023

Blackbaud, the world's leading provider of software for powering social impact, has announced the general availability of a new expansive feature for Blackbaud TeamRaiser® in the U.S. and Canada. Good Move™ is designed to help charitable organizations energize their constituents and raise more with a mobile-first gamified activity-tracking and peer-to-peer fundraising experience. This new feature leverages Kilter acquired by Blackbaud in late 2022. "Blackbaud is proud to launch this new opportunity for more powerful engagement and fundraising among our customers and their communities," said Graeme Port, senior director of product management for Peer-To-Peer at Blackbaud. "Offering new ways to attract participants and donors will expand the reach and mission of fueling social impact." TeamRaiser is a leading peer-to-peer fundraising event software for nonprofits, and with the addition of Good Move, will deliver easy-to-use fundraising experiences with the ability to track fundraising and activity goals on real-time leaderboards. Featuring a variety of activity-tracking capabilities (syncing fitness devices, checking into gyms/studios, manual entry tiles) and customizable event types (mindful minutes, read-a-thons, traditional walk/runs, pickleball tournaments, hiking challenges, etc.), TeamRaiser customers can take their fundraisers to the next level and build events that truly resonate with their supporter base for greater returns. "We are grateful for Blackbaud being a valuable partner since 2013 as we've grown together to further our missions," said Stephen Holley, co-founder, president and CEO of Carry The Load and Veteran U.S. Navy SEAL. "Core to our mission at Carry The Load, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have walked millions of miles to honor and remember military service members and first responders who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Launching the Good Move application will expand our reach as a nonprofit and ultimately make a greater impact for those we serve." The Good Move application is now available to all TeamRaiser customers at no additional cost and can be added to any existing campaign or used to create an entirely new one to further engage constituents. About Blackbaud Blackbaud is the leading software provider exclusively dedicated to powering social impact. Serving the nonprofit and education sectors, companies committed to social responsibility and individual change makers, Blackbaud's essential software is built to accelerate impact in fundraising, nonprofit financial management, digital giving, grantmaking, corporate social responsibility and education management. With millions of users and $100 billion donated, granted, and invested through its platforms every year, Blackbaud's solutions are unleashing the potential of the people and organizations who change the world. Blackbaud has been named to Newsweek's list of America's Most Responsible Companies, Quartz's list of Best Companies for Remote Workers, and Forbes' list of America's Best Employers. A remote-first company, Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries.

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Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology

iWave Introduces Interactive Dashboards for Donor Insights and Trends

iWave | March 10, 2023

On March 09, 2023, iWave, the leading fundraising intelligence solution in the industry, announced the release of its new interactive dashboards and visual analytics for healthcare, education, and nonprofit organizations. The robust suite of dashboards provided by iWave enables organizations to make strategic and operational decisions at a glance, as well as swiftly identify opportunities and trends among their donors and prospects. Examining vast amounts of data and gleaning insights can be challenging and time-consuming using conventional methods due to the growing volume of donor information. The addition of interactive visual analytics empowers fundraising professionals to explore vast amounts of data and efficiently communicate vital insights to their teams. The latest addition to iWave encompasses the following dashboards: Operations: Real-time tracking of in-app activities to help organizations improve platform usage. Major Giving: AI-powered analytics for wealth and philanthropic data visualizations for donors and prospects. Executive Summary: A customized donor portfolio summary includes philanthropic, wealth, and biographic information to share with leadership members. Planned Giving: Planned Giving: Wealth, age, and cause data analytics for donors likely to give a legacy gift. Maps: An interactive geographic map of prospects and donors to choose event locations, plan donor visits, and determine staffing needs depending on geographic distribution. iWave's interactive dashboards are powered by Tableau, enabling organizations to explore, evaluate, and illustrate fundraising data for quicker, data-driven decision-making. These compelling visualizations facilitate the transformation of data into actionable insights. About iWave iWave is a leading software solutions developer based in Charlottetown, Canada, specializing in providing comprehensive and user-friendly fundraising intelligence platforms to nonprofit organizations. Its 30 years of experience in aggregating wealth, philanthropic, and biographic data allows it to empower fundraising teams with actionable intelligence that helps them learn more about their donors, raise more money, and maximize their impact. With its outstanding support team and industry tips on our blog, the company helps nonprofits fundraise with confidence.

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Fundraising,Nonprofit Technology,Financial Management

Armanino Leverages Predictive Analytics to Help Nonprofits for Fund Planning

Armanino | January 20, 2023

The national accounting and consulting firm Armanino LLP recently announced the launch of its Strategic Development Outsourcing (SDO) service, giving nonprofit organizations the only resource in the accounting and consulting fields. SDO, the new service, brings a purposeful development approach powered by analytics and data to help organizations to focus on internal resources to obtain maximum performance. The three-phase approach is used by Armanino's Strategic Development Outsourcing service to drive the results for the nonprofit's funding. The first phase of three is to provide an in-depth analysis of the organization's present fundraising performance compared to the benchmarks of other nonprofit organizations. The second phase identifies potential funding gaps and builds a three-year development model using predictive analytics. Finally, the third phase is to provide expertise to support bridging the funding gap and design a strategy for the nonprofit's funding. Armanino provides ongoing support for custom report creation with donor analytics, maintaining a donor database, assisting with significant gift planning, donor segmentation, planned to give, detailed fundraising analysis, and compliance functions. The company's SDO service evaluates organizations' current donor base using many industry-leading strategies, to help them source new prospects and gauge individual, corporate and institutional funding. The service has the power to provide access to previously inaccessible solutions and data tools, allowing the organizations to take complete advantage of the collective resources and expertise provided by Armanino's state-of-the-art consulting practice offers. About Armanino Founded in 1969 as an accounting and business consultancy, Armanino LLP is one of the top 25 Certified Public Accountants in the nation. The company provides business management, an integrated set of audit, tax, and technology solutions and consulting regionally and nationally. It offers services to companies in every stage of the business. Armanino focuses on intelligent technology and is one of the leaders in the cloud revolution of financial, operational, sales, and compliance tools that are changing the way companies do business. The company is an independent member firm of Moore North America Inc. (MNA), a regional member of Moore Global Network Limited (MGNL), one of the leading accounting and consulting membership organizations.

Read More

Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology

Blackbaud Unveils New TeamRaiser Activity-Tracking Feature Good Move

Prnewswire | March 31, 2023

Blackbaud, the world's leading provider of software for powering social impact, has announced the general availability of a new expansive feature for Blackbaud TeamRaiser® in the U.S. and Canada. Good Move™ is designed to help charitable organizations energize their constituents and raise more with a mobile-first gamified activity-tracking and peer-to-peer fundraising experience. This new feature leverages Kilter acquired by Blackbaud in late 2022. "Blackbaud is proud to launch this new opportunity for more powerful engagement and fundraising among our customers and their communities," said Graeme Port, senior director of product management for Peer-To-Peer at Blackbaud. "Offering new ways to attract participants and donors will expand the reach and mission of fueling social impact." TeamRaiser is a leading peer-to-peer fundraising event software for nonprofits, and with the addition of Good Move, will deliver easy-to-use fundraising experiences with the ability to track fundraising and activity goals on real-time leaderboards. Featuring a variety of activity-tracking capabilities (syncing fitness devices, checking into gyms/studios, manual entry tiles) and customizable event types (mindful minutes, read-a-thons, traditional walk/runs, pickleball tournaments, hiking challenges, etc.), TeamRaiser customers can take their fundraisers to the next level and build events that truly resonate with their supporter base for greater returns. "We are grateful for Blackbaud being a valuable partner since 2013 as we've grown together to further our missions," said Stephen Holley, co-founder, president and CEO of Carry The Load and Veteran U.S. Navy SEAL. "Core to our mission at Carry The Load, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have walked millions of miles to honor and remember military service members and first responders who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Launching the Good Move application will expand our reach as a nonprofit and ultimately make a greater impact for those we serve." The Good Move application is now available to all TeamRaiser customers at no additional cost and can be added to any existing campaign or used to create an entirely new one to further engage constituents. About Blackbaud Blackbaud is the leading software provider exclusively dedicated to powering social impact. Serving the nonprofit and education sectors, companies committed to social responsibility and individual change makers, Blackbaud's essential software is built to accelerate impact in fundraising, nonprofit financial management, digital giving, grantmaking, corporate social responsibility and education management. With millions of users and $100 billion donated, granted, and invested through its platforms every year, Blackbaud's solutions are unleashing the potential of the people and organizations who change the world. Blackbaud has been named to Newsweek's list of America's Most Responsible Companies, Quartz's list of Best Companies for Remote Workers, and Forbes' list of America's Best Employers. A remote-first company, Blackbaud has operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom, supporting users in 100+ countries.

Read More

Fundraising, Nonprofit Technology

iWave Introduces Interactive Dashboards for Donor Insights and Trends

iWave | March 10, 2023

On March 09, 2023, iWave, the leading fundraising intelligence solution in the industry, announced the release of its new interactive dashboards and visual analytics for healthcare, education, and nonprofit organizations. The robust suite of dashboards provided by iWave enables organizations to make strategic and operational decisions at a glance, as well as swiftly identify opportunities and trends among their donors and prospects. Examining vast amounts of data and gleaning insights can be challenging and time-consuming using conventional methods due to the growing volume of donor information. The addition of interactive visual analytics empowers fundraising professionals to explore vast amounts of data and efficiently communicate vital insights to their teams. The latest addition to iWave encompasses the following dashboards: Operations: Real-time tracking of in-app activities to help organizations improve platform usage. Major Giving: AI-powered analytics for wealth and philanthropic data visualizations for donors and prospects. Executive Summary: A customized donor portfolio summary includes philanthropic, wealth, and biographic information to share with leadership members. Planned Giving: Planned Giving: Wealth, age, and cause data analytics for donors likely to give a legacy gift. Maps: An interactive geographic map of prospects and donors to choose event locations, plan donor visits, and determine staffing needs depending on geographic distribution. iWave's interactive dashboards are powered by Tableau, enabling organizations to explore, evaluate, and illustrate fundraising data for quicker, data-driven decision-making. These compelling visualizations facilitate the transformation of data into actionable insights. About iWave iWave is a leading software solutions developer based in Charlottetown, Canada, specializing in providing comprehensive and user-friendly fundraising intelligence platforms to nonprofit organizations. Its 30 years of experience in aggregating wealth, philanthropic, and biographic data allows it to empower fundraising teams with actionable intelligence that helps them learn more about their donors, raise more money, and maximize their impact. With its outstanding support team and industry tips on our blog, the company helps nonprofits fundraise with confidence.

Read More

Fundraising,Nonprofit Technology,Financial Management

Armanino Leverages Predictive Analytics to Help Nonprofits for Fund Planning

Armanino | January 20, 2023

The national accounting and consulting firm Armanino LLP recently announced the launch of its Strategic Development Outsourcing (SDO) service, giving nonprofit organizations the only resource in the accounting and consulting fields. SDO, the new service, brings a purposeful development approach powered by analytics and data to help organizations to focus on internal resources to obtain maximum performance. The three-phase approach is used by Armanino's Strategic Development Outsourcing service to drive the results for the nonprofit's funding. The first phase of three is to provide an in-depth analysis of the organization's present fundraising performance compared to the benchmarks of other nonprofit organizations. The second phase identifies potential funding gaps and builds a three-year development model using predictive analytics. Finally, the third phase is to provide expertise to support bridging the funding gap and design a strategy for the nonprofit's funding. Armanino provides ongoing support for custom report creation with donor analytics, maintaining a donor database, assisting with significant gift planning, donor segmentation, planned to give, detailed fundraising analysis, and compliance functions. The company's SDO service evaluates organizations' current donor base using many industry-leading strategies, to help them source new prospects and gauge individual, corporate and institutional funding. The service has the power to provide access to previously inaccessible solutions and data tools, allowing the organizations to take complete advantage of the collective resources and expertise provided by Armanino's state-of-the-art consulting practice offers. About Armanino Founded in 1969 as an accounting and business consultancy, Armanino LLP is one of the top 25 Certified Public Accountants in the nation. The company provides business management, an integrated set of audit, tax, and technology solutions and consulting regionally and nationally. It offers services to companies in every stage of the business. Armanino focuses on intelligent technology and is one of the leaders in the cloud revolution of financial, operational, sales, and compliance tools that are changing the way companies do business. The company is an independent member firm of Moore North America Inc. (MNA), a regional member of Moore Global Network Limited (MGNL), one of the leading accounting and consulting membership organizations.

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Events