Once you’ve set up your fundraising campaign, you’ll naturally want it to reach as many people as possible, but you can only do so much on your own. The trick is to recruit your own fundraising army; donors and supporters that will share it with their own networks.
How do you achieve this holy grail of nonprofit marketing? Here are 5 tips to help you recruit donors to take action
1. Ask
The most important thing is to simply ask your donors and supporters. This is often overlooked as fundraisers get so caught up in hooking the donor and landing a donation that they forget to ask for a reference.
Remember, your donors are helping because they believe in your cause. They want to help. And if there are ways for them to help without spending more money, they will most likely appreciate a gentle reminder.
Even if someone has not made a monetary donation, remind them that they can help out by sharing your nonprofit crowdfunding link with their friends and families. If you never ask, nobody will know what you want.
2. Recruit Donors by Giving them Content to Share
People want to share with their friends (especially on social media), so make it easy for them by giving them shareable content.
Shareable is a bit of a buzzword these days, but what does it really mean? Think about the things you have shared with your networks. They usually fall into one of the following categories:
- Entertaining/Funny
- Expresses a message you believe in
- Teaches something useful
- Unique approach
You are not making cat videos, but that doesn’t mean your pitch can’t be interesting and entertaining. Quality videography, good storytelling, and a compelling presentation can make a fundraising pitch more than just a glorified fundraising appeal.
In general, shareability is determined by the value it brings to the viewer. People love to be entertained, but they also want to feel inspired and uplifted. If you can do that in a short timeframe, you’ve got something that will automatically recruit donors in helping you spread the word.
Coschedule, a social media sharing tool for WordPress, recently ran an analysis on their most shared headlines and found that human topics are the most shared.
Check out their tips for making your content as shareable as possible.
A word of caution: based on psychology and donor burnout, a powerful message is not necessarily doom-and-gloom. Give your supporters a sense of hope that their involvement can have an impact to recruit donors more easily.
3. Capture Donors
Tracking and following up with donors can help you recruit them over time. CauseVox allows you to capture donor info so you can engage with them down the road. Also, consider offering special fundraising events for those who have already supported you.
Remind them how valuable they are to recruit donors:
- Make a point of recognizing them for their help in the past
- Reach out to them before publicly launching your next fundraising campaign
- Ask for their advice
- Get them involved early so that they feel ownership and will want to help your latest launch breaks records
4. Make it Social
Certain fundraising events are more social than others. If you are working in a local community, you can organize events that are naturally social. This alone will recruit donors to bring their friends instead of showing up by themselves.
Events that will recruit donors to bring their friends:
- Screenings make a good option for date nights
- Group workouts like those put on by Neverthirst and Iron Tribe Fitness encourage people to bring partners
- Trash pickup picnics encourage people to bring their families
- Charity runs or walks are good social activities because people bring friends to encourage them and cheer them on
Make sure to remind people that bringing a friend will not only help the cause but make the event more fun.
5. Recruit Donors with an Audience
Consider reaching out to some of your favorite bloggers and writers. If they have the trust of their audience, they are influencers.
Their readers will easily be persuaded to join in any cause that they support. They don’t have to be mega-celebrities to have pull, and many want to give back, but they lack the time or energy to do much more than blogging.
If you are already a loyal reader, you should have no trouble simply sending an email and presenting your cause. If not, start building a relationship:
- Comment early on as many new posts as you can
- Contribute thoughtful comments. Don’t just blindly agree with everything, but add something new
- Share their articles on your networks, making sure to give credit. This also gets their attention, since Twitter and Facebook send notifications of mentions
- Offer to guest post if you have expertise in the topic they blog about. Don’t pitch your project here unless invited.
Once you have created a relationship, explain that you’d love their help in spreading the word. They may suggest a guest post with a mention of your project in the author bio, or they might jump on board and send out notices to their email list.
You can’t know until you ask.
Since you only have so much energy and 24 hours in the day, the key to expanding your reach is to recruit donors to spread the word. Give them a powerful incentive to share your campaign and to get involved, and they will do the work for you.
