Non-dues revenue plays a big role in ensuring your association’s ability to grow and thrive. It supplements membership dues revenue and allows you to continue providing superior member value.
Fundraising can be a highly effective way to drive more non-dues revenue. But as an association professional, you might find yourself shying away from asking members to donate – concerned that donors might feel as if they’re always being asked for money.
While you may hesitate to ask members for donations, when you leverage smart fundraising strategies, you can secure vital funds without alienating your members. Let’s take a look at how fundraising can help your organization and what you can do to raise funds effectively.
How fundraising helps your organization
Association fundraising brings in added revenue. That’s a given. But, take a deeper look, and you’ll see how it helps your entire organization achieve its mission for years to come.
For example, fundraising can help your organization:
- Continue to provide great member benefits
Providing great, ongoing member value is the key to attracting new members and keeping members around long term. Fundraising helps to ensure you have the funds to continue providing member value through activities such as conducting industry research and providing student scholarships – even if membership revenue decreases for a bit. - Make members feel more connected
With the right approach, your fundraising can help members feel more connected to your association and your mission. By incorporating messages about what your organization does to help your industry, and how critical revenue (in addition to membership dues) is to achieving your mission, you can give your members the opportunity to be a bigger part of supporting your industry. This approach can ultimately make members feel a closer connection to your organization.
Tips for more effective fundraising for your association
Once you’ve made the commitment to fundraising for your association, it’s important to follow best practices and put the right technology in place to support your fundraising activities. Here are some tips to make fundraising easier and more effective for your organization:
1. Offer a clear value proposition
Remember that asking members to donate is much different from asking someone to join your organization or asking a member to renew their membership. Be sure that your fundraising messages are clear and specific about how donations will be used to benefit your association and your industry
2. Manage your donor data
Be sure to have a donor profile in place for each of your members. This profile should show you if a member has donated in the past (and if so, how much and when) and what fundraising communications and campaigns they’ve received from your organization. This information is the foundation for your fundraising efforts.
3. Send targeted, personalized fundraising asks
Your members are more likely to give if you send them personalized, versus generic, communications. Segment your member lists and target each segment with messages that align with their interests and giving history. When you message your members in fundraising campaigns, leverage AI to offer specific donation amounts your members might give based on previous giving history.
4. Automate
Make the most of your staff’s time for fundraising by automating manual tasks. For example, start by setting up fundraising email communications and automate the “send” for each email so your staff doesn’t need to send them manually. Take it a step further by setting up a personalized “thank you” email that’s triggered automatically when a member donates.
5. Set up a donation microsite
While it’s important to have a donation landing page for your fundraising campaigns (with a donation form where members can give online), take things to the next level with a donation microsite. A donation microsite is a small, self-contained website that focuses on your fundraising campaign.
For example, you can set one up for a fundraising event. It allows you to focus on specific campaign messages and give your members a chance to dig deeper for more details. You can also launch the site and take it down as needed – separately from your association’s website.
6. Deliver a streamlined giving experience
When your members are ready to donate, be sure you make it easy for them to give online. Here are three ways to provide a modern online donation experience and make online giving easier:
- Offer a stored payment option
Let donors pay without needing to enter their credit card information every time they donate. - Offer an installment payments option
Allow donors to pay for their donation in budget-friendly installments. For example, you might ask for $1,000, and then allow them to pay $83.33 per month for one year. - Provide an express payment option
Generate a unique payment URL for any order with a balance due: donations, event registration, membership, etc. Then, create a bill paying page for easy payment by the member, their assistant, accounting department, or anyone making the payment on their behalf. - Keep accounts updated
Automatically update the expiration date for stored payment methods. This way, members won’t be rejected as they’re making a donation just because their credit card date expired.
7. Have the right dashboards and reports in place.
Be sure to set up at-a-glance dashboards and more detailed reports to help you track how you’re progressing toward your fundraising goals. For example, set up a dashboard to give you a daily view of key metrics for fundraising campaign results, such as email click-through rates, donation rates, number of donations, and total funds raised.
This will help you keep a close eye on how each campaign is progressing and see if you need to modify your campaign for better results.
By implementing these effective fundraising strategies, your association can successfully boost non-dues revenue while strengthening member engagement. Clear communication, personalized outreach, and streamlined giving experiences are key to building trust and encouraging donations. With the right approach and tools in place, your organization can secure vital funds to enhance member benefits, support your mission, and achieve long-term success.
