Engage your fundraisers with our 8 top tips

Inspiring people to become ambassadors for your charity’s brand isn’t easy. You might have a worthy cause, but keeping people enthusiastic and ready to raise funds for you can seem like a difficult task.

These are the tricks employed by the best charity fundraising drives.

1. Make it easy

Help fundraisers get started and stay in the game by providing them with guidelines and quick-start guides. These could take the form of a printed and bound pack, or even a collection of documents on a landing page of your website.

The best charity fundraiser packs include the following:

• Sponsorship forms
• Real-life examples of successful fundraising
• Examples of people’s donations making a difference
• Information about the charity and its mission
• Fundraising ideas (keep reading for advice)

Whatever you choose to provide to fundraisers, ensure it’s easy to access and packed together in a single, easily accessible location, so they always have all the information they need to hand. This could be on a single webpage or as part of a printed and bound pack.

2. Make it relevant

When something happens on your doorstep, you’re more likely to take notice than if it takes place halfway around the country. People want events to feel relevant to them; this helps you form an emotional connection.

When it comes to fundraisers, if you have multiple locations or events are run and managed by them, show this off on your website. Display visual examples of events happening in their area, and make it feel specific to them. This is much easier nowadays thanks to modern software such as Google Apps – pin it on a map!

3. Make it rewarding

People respond to incentives. Offer people token prizes for raising a certain amount; the results may surprise you, and you can raise much more in additional donations than you would have without an incentive.

This can be something simple and cheap as long as it’s unique to your charity and fundraising event. For example, if fundraisers are able to hit a certain donations target, you could offer them a charity t-shirt for their hard work.

4. Make it social

Fundraising packs are great, but fundraisers aren’t built on packs alone. It’s a good idea to contact people through as many different channels as possible, including email, phone calls, and even face to face if possible.

Social media is a great way to get people involved. Fundraisers should feel proud to contribute to your mission and will share your posts, helping you to reach a greater audience. If you’re not already using social media to promote your brand, you could be missing out!

5. Make it a story

Ask yourself: why do people choose to give time and money towards supporting a charity? The answer is altruism, and studies find that altruistic behaviour is inspired by storytelling.

Stories remind everybody why they’re taking part; they’re crucial to helping fundraisers better understand why your mission is so important. Provide examples of where their fundraising donations will end up and demonstrate the value they’re providing to other people’s lives.

6. Make it fun

Think up novel ideas for fundraising that spark people’s creativity and imagination. Some of the most successful fundraising drives have been based around creative, out-of-the-box ideas.

Consider running a charity auction, colour run, or even something for adrenaline junkies like skydiving or bungee jumping. Just make sure it’s unique to you and try to link it back to your mission aims.

7. Make it annual

Get people to sign up ahead of time for next year’s event. While one-off fundraising drives can be useful, you can save yourself a lot of time and expense by making your fundraiser an annual event.

What’s more, this encourages your fundraisers to become lifelong supporters and advocates of your charity, working year after year to further your mission.

8. Use the right tools for the job

However you want to make your fundraiser, you need the right tools for the job. IRIS Financials’ software suite has been designed to tackle the specific issues faced by the third sector.

If you’re interested in powering your next fundraiser with made-to-purpose charity finance and administrative software, visit our website to find out more.