Marc A. Pitman's Blog, page 5

8 Essential Crowdfunding KPIs for Measuring Success

Nonprofits have many important goals that a crowdfunding campaign can address—from providing disaster relief aid to launching a new program to serve more community members. Regardless of what your organization is trying to accomplish, you need to find a way to measure your campaign performance to steer your efforts toward success.

By setting and tracking crowdfunding key performance indicators (KPIs), you can keep a close watch on your fundraising progress, donors’ experiences on your campaign page, the effectiveness of your marketing activities, and more. Over time, you’ll be able to reinforce your strengths and identify ways to boost your crowdfunding results in the future.

In this guide, we’ll walk through all the basics you need to know about crowdfunding KPIs, including eight that you should consider monitoring to improve your campaigns.

The Importance of Crowdfunding KPIs

When launching any fundraising initiative, your nonprofit needs a data-driven strategy. How will you communicate your goal to donors? Which channels should you focus your marketing on? Your organization’s data can provide these answers.

By setting KPIs for your crowdfunding campaign, you can learn:

Whether your campaign is on track to meeting its goal.How donors are responding to your campaign messages.Common characteristics of people who donate to your campaign.Which online platforms generate the most engagement.Whether your deadline is too long or short.

Throughout and following your campaign, you can use this information to enhance your marketing approach, allocate your resources more efficiently, and refine your donor engagement methods. All of this adds up to raising more for your nonprofit through crowdfunding.

8 Top Crowdfunding KPIs to Track

While there are many KPIs you can monitor for your campaign, concentrating on a select number ensures that you glean meaningful insights that you can actually act on. Start with these essential crowdfunding KPIs:

Amount of funds raised. Simply note the amount you’ve raised so far and compare it with your goal. This is an easy way to keep an eye on your fundraising progress and determine whether you can expect to generate the funds you need before the deadline.Number of donors. Successful crowdfunding relies on securing small to mid-sized gifts from a large group of people. Pay attention to the number of unique donors contributing to your campaign to decide whether you need to expand your reach. Additionally, consider shared demographic characteristics such as location to better understand your donors and how best to solicit donations from them.Average gift amount. Your nonprofit can calculate its average gift amount by dividing the total amount of funds you’ve raised by the number of gifts you’ve received. Using this KPI, you can add strategic suggested giving amounts to your campaign page to inspire people to give more. For example, if your average gift amount is $15, you might suggest $20 donations on your campaign page.Conversion rate. To calculate your conversion rate, divide your number of donors by the total number of visitors to your crowdfunding page. Then, multiply that number by 100. This KPI reveals whether your campaign messaging and storytelling are resonating with those who come across it.Page traffic source. Are the majority of your donors coming from a specific social media platform, such as Facebook or Instagram? Or are they discovering your campaign through your email outreach? By evaluating your page traffic sources, you can figure out which channels are best to devote your efforts toward. Social media engagement . Social media can significantly increase the visibility of your crowdfunding page by allowing users to share your posts with others in their network. Track the number of comments, likes, and shares that your content receives. Then, adjust your messaging to promote further engagement with your posts and campaign page.Email click-through rate (CTR). To measure the effectiveness of your email messaging, take the number of people who clicked on the link to your crowdfunding page and divide it by the number of people who opened your email. A low CTR might indicate that you need to make your call to action (CTA) more eye-catching and compelling.Time it takes to reach the goal. This KPI refers to the amount of time it takes to reach your crowdfunding goal. For example, you might hit your goal well before your pre-determined deadline or find that you need to extend the cutoff point to secure more gifts. For your next campaign, you can use this information to set more realistic deadlines and expectations.

NPOInfo’s nonprofit data collection guide recommends storing all of these key details in your constituent relationship management (CRM) database. This way, your team can easily access relevant data points whenever you need to reference them for your next crowdfunding campaign.

How to Leverage Crowdfunding KPIs to Improve Results

Once you’re equipped with strategic crowdfunding KPIs to monitor for your campaigns, follow these best practices to make the most of the data you collect:

Practice good data hygiene. As you store more information in your nonprofit database, ensure that it stays valuable by standardizing data input practices. For example, you might establish that team members should enter “Street” in addresses as “St.” Furthermore, you should conduct a database audit at least annually to delete duplicate entries and update outdated details.Choose an effective crowdfunding platform. According to Fundly’s guide to crowdfunding websites, some websites apply a “Keep it All” (KiA) approach to fundraising while others have an “All or Nothing” (AoN) approach. With a KiA fundraiser, you can receive the funds you earn regardless of whether you meet your goal. Many nonprofits prefer this approach since it ensures that you can always reap the rewards of your efforts. With an AoN fundraiser, you can only receive collected donations if you hit the goal.Follow up with your donors. Crowdfunding is a powerful way to unite many people around your nonprofit’s cause or project. When you accomplish your goal, be sure to follow up and share the concrete impact that donors’ gifts have made in your mission. This increases the likelihood that these donors will want to support your next fundraising endeavor.

Set aside time to review your KPIs regularly. If you’re running a shorter crowdfunding campaign, you might meet with your team once a week to discuss how you’re performing. Longer campaigns might call for bi-weekly or monthly KPI review meetings. Based on your KPIs, brainstorm additional ways you can level up your crowdfunding strategy both for your current campaign and the ones yet to come.

Crowdfunding KPIs provide your nonprofit team with the information you need to guide your campaign toward its goal and build a roadmap for future fundraising success. Following each campaign, remember to have a donor recognition plan in place to build and strengthen the connections you’ve made. In doing so, you’ll be able to continue improving your results and expanding the community of support around your mission.

About the Author

Missy Singh

Missy Singh is the Director of Operations, Client Services & Sales at Fundly. She has been working there since 2011 when she started as a Customer Experience and Implementation Manager. As an integrated platform for social impact, Fundly serves as an industry leader in crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising. In 2015 Fundly combined with NonProfitEasy to offer enterprise-level technology that addresses nonprofit needs with features such as a CRM, volunteer management, membership management, and event registration.

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3 Reasons to Register for the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference this week

If you’re a bit like me, registering for a conference is not something you look forward to. I hem and haw. I procrastinate. And I get more and more stressed as the deadline draw closer.

But once I’ve registered, all that stress leaves. Because I’m not longer wondering “if” I’ll go but I start planning for “when” I go.

So let me help you get rid of some stress. Since you’re on this website, you are showing an interest in nonprofit fundraising and marketing. So I wanted to write to you about the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference. I love this conference so much, I risk never getting this email to you because I might keep writing and writing and writing. So I’m limiting myself to three reasons why you should register for the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference this week.

Actual Results

The first reason I’d recommend registering is that this conference is the only conference I’ve been a part of where participants leave and actually raise money right away. Conferences are usually filled with information. But there’s little actionable information. And conferences usually have information that doesn’t quite fit with your situation. So the information isn’t entirely helpful. And much of the information takes time to see results.

The Nonprofit Storytelling Conference is unlike any I’ve seen. Yes, I help produce the conference, but one of the reasons I stay on the leadership team is that the participants’ nonprofits actually see dramatic fundraising results. This is the first conference I’ve been a part of that participants are energized enough to leave and immediately act on what they’ve learned. They completely rewrite their entire year-end appeal on the airplane ride home. And see two and three times more in donations than the previous year.

Or they immediately contact donors with a fundraising ask. At a recent conference, leaders from a nonprofit took one phrase from one of my talks and, within 48 hours, had raised one of the largest gifts in their nonprofit’s history. They went to a donor to ask him about being part of their $15,000 matching fund. But because of the phrasing they learned, he ended up saying yes to the entire $15,000!

Or they leave this conference transform their nonprofit marketing, making it both more equitable and more effective. They empower communities. Engage more volunteers. And make real changes in their area of work.

We have run this conference for 10 years now and each year we see these results. From small nonprofits to multinational nonprofits. From board members to seasoned nonprofit staff. From North American nonprofits to NGOs from around the world.

So one reason you should consider registering this week is that the experiences and sessions at the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference produce results for organizations just like yours.

The Guests (what other conferences call “Attendees”)

The sessions are great, but so are the guests who attend the conference. The people that come to the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference are passionate individuals seeking to get better at their work. And that energy permeates the experience. And it’s not that the guests are all extroverts. I’ve never seen a more active introvert group! Each year the introverts unite and support each other in making sure they care for themselves.

Whether seasoned executive directors, volunteer board members, or first-time employees, the guests come to learn and to share. There is no spirit of competition at all. Everyone comes with an attitude of helping everyone else.

The best part is that we see these relationships grow after the conference. Being in nonprofit fundraising or marketing can be lonely. But the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference helps people connect with colleagues who support each other, sometimes for years.

There’s something special about seeing those relationships in-person at the conference. Last year, I remember talking to guests who’d not attended the conference for a few years. They felt supported enough by the alumni group we run. But they were shocked with how powerful it was being back in-person at the conference. They told me, “I’d forgotten how energizing this conference is. There’s an atmosphere of possibility and growth. This energy is something I’ve missed.”

So a second reason for registering for the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference this week is that you’ll be choosing to come in November to soak in an atmosphere of growth and possibility for three days.

This will sell out

The third reason you should register to join us this November 11-13 is that this conference will sell out. For the first time ever, the conference has secured an entire hotel. We’ll be in Santa Ana Pueblo at the Tamaya Resort. (The picture above is a sunrise from Tamaya.) So all the guests in the hotel for those days will be your colleagues. All the discussions and experiences and hallway conversations will be around helping you and your cause.

Since this will sell out, why not register this week? Especially when you can save money?

Glad I limited myself to three things!

I’m glad I limited myself to just three things. Why should you register for the Nonprofit Storytelling Conference this week?

guests see actual results from what they learnguest get revived and re-energizedand the conference will sell out so why not get in and enjoy the discount that ends this week?

Hope you take advantage of this week’s savings!

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3 Ways to Enhance Donor Experiences With Online Fundraising

Strong donor relationships help your nonprofit build robust supporter networks, make donors happy to support your mission, and foster lasting support. Whether you’re setting up a gratitude system or meeting with donors one-on-one, it’s essential to make these connections and show your appreciation for their contributions.

One frequently missed step in this process is optimizing the donor experience. Donors should walk away from any interaction with your organization feeling connected to and excited about your mission. These interactions can be anything from attending a fundraising event to donating online.

In this guide, we’ll explore three ways your nonprofit can inspire these positive feelings among donors through online fundraising. Let’s get started with the most important part of the conversation: choosing effective technology.

Leverage the right tools and technology.

Technology helps nonprofits reach their full fundraising potential while giving donors the best experiences possible. Not only does technology enable online giving, but it also automates repetitive tasks like sending thank-you messages and donation receipts.

To gain these benefits (and more!), start by investing in the following tools:

Fundraising Software

Fundraising software includes all of the tools your nonprofit needs to plan, manage, and measure its fundraising campaigns. Your fundraising solution should help you overcome fundraising challenges like limited donor engagement or inaccurate data while making operations more efficient.

Each nonprofit’s needs are different, so you’ll need to look for software that aligns with your budget, goals, and donor management practices. Allegiance Group’s guide to fundraising tools recommends prioritizing the following features in your search:

Donation forms: These provide a streamlined, secure way for donors to give to your nonprofit online. Design the forms so they are quick and easy to complete, and consider adding elements to maximize donations, such as an automatic recurring giving option.Peer-to-peer fundraising tools: Peer-to-peer fundraising allows supporters to campaign on your behalf by collecting donations from their friends and families. This can expand your nonprofit’s reach, create a sense of community among your supporters, and make them feel like part of your team. Text-to-donate features : This feature allows donors to contribute via text, making it the perfect option for busy donors who are constantly on the go. Additionally, it’s a great way to quickly reach donors and make urgent appeals.Analytics dashboards: Data analysis tools make it easy to track and visualize donor behaviors, preferences, and trends. Use these to gain a 360-degree view of your donors and give them more tailored experiences in the future.

Overall, these features make donating to your cause more convenient and flexible so donors can quickly contribute no matter where they are. When donors can answer your fundraising appeal with a donation in 60 seconds or less, you’re much more likely to get them on board.

Marketing Tools

Marketing tools allow you to effectively communicate and engage with your supporters, meaning they’re integral to developing strong donor relationships. Email marketing tools, social media management software, and content management systems help you keep your campaigns and donor interactions consistent and organized.

Here are some ways you can leverage these tools to enhance donor experiences:

Send targeted communications. Use marketing tools to segment your online donors based on shared characteristics (e.g., special interests in a particular project) and send them tailored messages. Make sure to send these messages through donors’ preferred communication channels. Donors will appreciate messages that resonate with their unique interests more than generic fundraising appeals.Take an omnichannel approach. Aim to reach donors through several communication channels at once to give them a more cohesive, consistent experience. To establish a variety of touch points with your supporters, pair your online efforts with traditional tactics like direct mail fundraising. For example, add a QR code to mail that links to your newsletter sign-up form.Automate communication efforts. Marketing tools allow you to provide personalization at scale through the power of automation. Automate processes like welcome emails, donation acknowledgments, and birthday greetings to make donors feel recognized. For example, a support donating for the first time could trigger your email marketing tool to send them a welcome series to thank them and provide more information and updates.

Don’t neglect one of your most powerful marketing tools: your website. Make sure your website is a reliable hub of information about your online fundraisers, and direct donors to your donation forms by adding donate buttons to your homepage and navigation bars.

To ensure that all of your supporters can reach and engage with the website, check that it follows web accessibility guidelines like offering both mouse and keyboard navigation, providing sufficient contrast between text and background colors, and adding alternative text to images.

Work with experts.

Once you’ve built out your online fundraising toolkit, it’s time to develop strategies. However, running a successful online fundraiser has a lot of moving parts and can be complicated. Working with a team of experts can help you fill in any gaps in your fundraising and marketing strategies, ensuring that you reach and engage donors.

Consider leaning on the experience and expertise of:

A marketing agency: Agencies specialize in developing and executing strategic campaigns tailored to your nonprofit and its supporters. They’ll be able to implement tactics that resonate with your donors and handle content creation, social media posts, email campaigns, and more. Look for agencies with extensive experience in digital marketing and fundraising.A fundraising consultant or fundraising coach: These professionals specialize in fundraising strategy development, donor cultivation, and campaign planning. They’ll help you achieve your nonprofit’s funding goals and work toward other objectives, like developing deeper donor relationships. When it comes to enhancing donor experiences, consultants can provide detailed guidance on donor stewardship practices and fundraising practices that will maximize engagement.

Both marketing agencies and fundraising consultants can help you capture your supporters’ attention and inspire them to donate. Because these professionals have likely worked on dozens of other fundraising campaigns, they’ll be able to suggest the best ways to streamline donors’ experiences with your campaign.

Maintain transparency.

For-profit businesses have to convince their customers to purchase their products or services by showing them what kind of value it will add to their lives. For your nonprofit, the goal is a little different. You need to show supporters that their contribution will aid the work you do, further your mission, and directly benefit the beneficiaries that they care about. 

During the fundraiser, show donors the impact of their contributions. Many nonprofits break down the power of certain donation amounts on their donation page. For example, Feeding America’s donation page highlights that a donation of only $1 will provide 10 meals. This makes donors feel more fulfilled after giving. After all, even a small gift of $5 provides 50 meals.

It’s also important to prioritize donor experiences and relationships after your online fundraiser. Thank donors for their contributions to show your gratitude. eCardWidget recommends personalizing thank-you messages with specific details, mentioning the donors’ gifts, and emphasizing their individual impact. Additionally, share more comprehensive impact reports each year that break down each project and initiative your nonprofit accomplished, the number of beneficiaries you served, and any other organization-specific metrics.

Positive donor experiences make your supporters feel good about supporting your organization and the work it does. Technology allows you to provide personalized experiences during your online fundraisers, even on a large scale. And when donors can give from any device, at any time, in just a few seconds, you’ll be able to raise more while strengthening supporter relationships.

About the Author

Kim Richardson

Kim joined Pursuant, a fundraising and marketing agency, exclusively serving the nonprofit sector in 2012. In her role, Kim leads cross-channel fundraising strategy and program execution across multiple clients in the Faith, General Non-Profit, and Higher Education verticals. Kim has consistently met and exceeded client expectations—leading several of her clients in double-digit, year-over-year increases. Before joining Pursuant, Kim provided marketing and fundraising consulting services to nonprofits and small businesses and worked for more than 15 years in corporate marketing and sales with four of America’s beloved consumer brands.

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So You’ve Been Asked to Apply for a Grant — What Now?

Learning grant writing is a rite of passage for many nonprofit professionals. Many of us first dive into grant writing with minimal (or even no) prior experience.

Writing a grant proposal might seem like a big, scary task. After all, you’re presenting your organization for judgment with real money and support on the line during a time when many nonprofits are seeing drops in their donation numbers.

While this is all true, it’s important to remember that grant writing is really just a series of steps, not a mysterious process that results in money for some lucky nonprofits and rejections for others.

Successful grant writing comes down to organization, careful decision-making, and experience. The more you try, the more lessons you pick up and the better you become (which is why many organizations rely on grant writing freelancers who focus solely on the craft).

But let’s say you’re working in-house and just got handed your first grant writing assignment—what next? We break it down into an approachable 10-step process.

Step 1: Understand the Grant Landscape and Process.

First, you’ll need some context to make more informed decisions. Spend some time learning more about these key areas of the grant landscape:

Funders. Private foundations, public foundations (technically referred to as public charities), government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels, and corporations are the primary types of organizations that provide grants to nonprofits.Funding structures. Grants come in a few different shapes and sizes. Funding can be restricted to the specific project laid out in your proposal or unrestricted for general use. Payouts might be given all at once or provided in installments. The total value might be a flat amount of money or matched, meaning the grant provides a certain portion of your project’s total costs (often 50%). Each of these categories can bring different reporting considerations that you’ll need to understand ahead of time, as well.The  stages of the grant lifecycle . There’s more to grant seeking than writing a proposal and winning funding, most notably the post-award steps of grant management and reporting. Closely following your funder’s reporting guidelines not only ensures compliance and smooth payouts but also sets you up well for future partnerships.The parts of a grant proposal. If you’re brand new to grant seeking, you’ll need to understand the different sections and documents that make up a typical proposal. The exact requirements and order will vary from grant to grant, but you can generally expect to see these sections:

Check out Learn Grant Writing’s introductory guide for a breakdown of these common components and documents.

Step 2: Review Your Nonprofit’s Project.

What are you seeking funding for? The vast majority of grants are restricted, meaning they’re intended to fund specific projects, programs, or initiatives.

Ideally, your nonprofit already knows the new projects that need funding as part of its broader strategic plan and calendar.

Do not put the cart before the horse—only apply for grant opportunities that align with your mission and what you already want to accomplish. Do not come up with new projects and programs solely for the sake of applying for a grant. This is a recipe for mission drift, disorganization, and ultimately, a less focused and effective nonprofit.

Step 3: Research Grant Opportunities.

Start looking for your first (or next) grant to apply for.

There are many helpful sources to check out. For government grants, rely on the official grants.gov website. Candid and The National Council of Nonprofits provide helpful directories for a wide variety of foundation grants, as well.

Memberships and paid platforms are also available and provide additional features that can help you build a consistent grant funding pipeline. Instrumentl and GrantStation are both popular choices in this category.

Start your research by finding opportunities that align with your mission, intended project, value, and timeframe. Don’t be afraid to put together a long list at this stage.

Step 4: Prioritize Your Options.

Next, begin narrowing down your list of grant opportunities to those that will offer you the highest chance of success. Several criteria can help you prioritize your opportunities, including:

Mission alignment between your nonprofit and the funderProject alignment with the grant’s stated purpose and goalsAny existing connections you might have with the funderApplicant success rate, or the number of awardees over the total number of applicants for past grants provided by the funderThe prominence of the funder or the niche-ness of the grant (as proxy measures of competitiveness)The cost of pursuing the grant or the trade-off of time spent applying for and managing it versus its actual value or impact on your project

There’s no one perfect way to measure competitiveness, and your comfort zone will vary depending on the specific circumstances. One helpful rule of thumb we recommend is to prioritize grants with applicant success rates of 20% or greater.

Remember, too, that you can (and should) reach out directly to funders to learn more if you can’t find relevant information online or through any databases you use.

Work through your list multiple times, narrowing it down to a handful of the best opportunities. When you’ve settled on your #1, it’s time to start applying.

Step 5: Dive Deep into the Grant’s Guidelines.

Your chosen grant’s guidelines and requirements will be the foundation of everything that comes next. Take your time to read, read, and reread them.

Actively seek clarification from the funder and experienced team members as needed. Better to invest the time in understanding the guidelines now than struggle through the application process later and realize you’re off-target!

Step 6: Prepare a Narrative Skeleton.

Begin by giving yourself a solid structure to build on, one that’s built directly from the stated requirements of the grant. This will keep you on track, save time, and result in a more effective proposal.

We call it the “narrative skeleton.” Work your way through the grant’s guidelines and requirements and compile them into an outline.

Use the exact language from the guidelines as the section headings—this will immediately convey relevance to your funder. Begin brainstorming talking points and types of data to include in each section as you think of them, but don’t worry about filling in the details and drafting complete sentences yet. The goal is simply to lay the groundwork with an easy-to-use template that you’ll later fill in and polish into a finished product.

Step 7: Kick Off the Project and Collect the Necessary Info

Grant proposals contain information gathered from across an organization, so they usually require input from multiple team members and departments. Before you begin drafting your proposal, it’s a good idea to sync up with the individuals who’ll help you along the way.

While preparing your narrative skeleton, you identified information that you’ll need for your proposal, like impact data about past programs or projections for your proposed project. Prepare an agenda and invite the individuals who can help you gather this information to a grant kickoff meeting.

During your meeting, review the following essentials:

The grant, the funder, and the guidelinesYour timeline and intended submission dateThe data you need, from whom, and by whenHow to share information and documents with the grant teamAnecdotes and constituent feedback that would be helpful to gather

This is also the time to discuss some important logistics. Your organization should finalize the budget for your proposed project as soon as possible (especially for matching grants) so that you can include it in your proposal. Discuss any additional documentation required by the grant, and get the ball rolling on securing it soon. For some organizations, it can take quite a while to secure official board resolutions, for instance.

Answer questions, thank everyone for their time, and follow up as needed. The key is to be organized—no one wants to be roped into a project where they don’t understand what’s needed of them or when.

Step 8: Write Your Grant Narrative.

After your meeting, and as data and input begin rolling in, start drafting your main grant proposal. Consider these best practices to help make this process as smooth and effective as possible:

Start from the end and work backward. Most grants end with the meatier and more complex sections, like sustainability plans and budgets. Try to tackle these first to both get them out of the way and to keep their important details fresh in your mind as you draft the earlier, more narrative-driven sections.Follow  storytelling best practices . Active language, use of the first person, illustrative details, real people and places, and a dynamic, positive tone all help your readers better envision their own roles in your story and those of your community. Try to strike the right balance of subtle but emotionally compelling storytelling.Balance your narrative with hard numbers. Funders are moved by stories, but they have to use numbers to make decisions. Make sure that your proposal makes a balanced case that’s defensible from both the qualitative and quantitative angles. Use data to illustrate the problem you’re solving, your progress so far, and how much further your new project will push you toward success.Stay focused and impact-forward. Write from a position of strength rather than scarcity; that is, while you should clearly illustrate the problems at hand, keep the focus on how you’re moving forward urgently and intentionally. Tie your main talking points back to measurable impact whenever possible and illustrate them with tangible examples and details.

We recommend tackling this step fast and furiously.

If you’ve planned out your timeline well, you’ll have plenty of time to review your proposal, get feedback, and make revisions, but for now, you want energy and momentum. For most grants, you should aim to complete a full first draft in four days or fewer.

Step 9: Prepare the Complete Application.

With a complete draft in hand that you’ve combed through and tightened up, it’s time to compile all the additional documentation you need to provide the funder. These most commonly include budgets, resolutions, and letters of support. Remember, it’s never a bad idea to closely review your grant guidelines one last time to make sure you’re not missing anything.

At this stage, you’ll also likely want to create a cover sheet for your proposal that outlines the contents and supplemental materials.

Step 10: Review, Submit, and Take a Breather.

Finally, ask a teammate to carefully review your complete proposal and compare it against the grant’s guidelines. Have them look for any big-picture issues, missing details, and clunky language.

Then, make your final revisions and submit the grant according to the funder’s instructions (ideally at least a day or two before the official deadline).

Once it’s out of your hands, take a breath, let everyone know, thank them for their help, and shake off all the nervous energy. We recommend taking a walk, bike ride, or just taking an early afternoon to meet up with a friend. Whatever works for you!

This 10-step process has served us and our grant writing students well, and it should serve as a helpful framework for your first forays into the world of grant writing, too. Follow its core recommendations and stay extremely organized. If you want to make your new skills official, try exploring online grant writing courses that offer recognized certification!

Bonus points if you go the extra mile for your organization—remember the list of prioritized list of grant opportunities you developed in Steps 3 and 4?

Revisit them to create a coherent Grant Funding Strategy, a yearlong roadmap of grant opportunities that will sustain your current and upcoming projects. This simple exercise can go a very long way to streamline your future grant writing efforts and set your nonprofit up for long-term success. Best of luck!

About the Author Meredith Noble

Meredith Noble is the co-founder of Learn Grant Writing, an online membership for those building their careers in grant writing. Her book, How to Write a Grant: Become a Grant Writing Unicorn, is a bestseller for nonprofit fundraising and grants. Her expertise has been featured in NASDAQ, Forbes, Fast Company, Business Insider, and other top publications. She has secured over $45 million in grant funding, and her students have secured over $627 million – a number that grows daily.  If Meredith’s not biking or skiing in Alaska, she can be found curled around a steaming cup of green-tea and a good book.

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Your leadership style is impacting your fundraising

In our most recent nonprofit leadership study, we looked at how different leadership styles affected a nonprofit’s culture of philanthropy. We chose four styles that had a large body of academic research behind them:

servant leadership,transformational leadership,charismatic leadership, andtransactional leadership.Servant Leaders Most Consistently Associated with Growing Philanthropy

The researchers defined a culture of philanthropy as one in which both the CEO/Executive Director and others in the organization, like the board and staff, participated in fundraising. In the report, the researchers go into more depth defining each leadership style.

Here, we’ll just hit the high points.

Servant Leadership

Servant leaders showed the strongest link having a solid culture of philanthropy at their nonprofit. The research defines servant leaders as those who tend to measure success in serving those they work with. It may be that this looking out for the needs of others helps them see their role in the organization. Including their role in fundraising.

Transformational Leadership

The next style most likely to have a strong culture of philanthropy were leaders exhibiting the transformational leadership style. Transformational leaders rally people by centering them around a common mission and a comon vision. This style was found at times to produce a culture where both the CEO/Executive Director and others like the board participate in fundraising.

Why “at times”? When the researchers dug deeper into the data, they made a fascinating discovery. With this leadership style, a successful culture of philanthropy seems to hinge on the leaders own confidence. As the researchers state:

“Where leaders have a high level of confidence in their abilities, an enhanced degree of intellectual stimulation (i.e. encouraging non- traditional thinking and alternative perspectives) has a positive impact on philanthropic culture. Where that confidence is lacking, the effect is negative.”

This finding about confidence is particularly important because only about 1 in 5 nonprofit CEOs surveyed said they had a high level of confidence in their leadership abilities. Only 1 in 5. This indicates that helping these style leaders grow more confident in their role may have a positive impact on fundraising.

Charismatic Leadership

Charismatic leadership is defined as a style centering on the personality of the leader. In a nonprofit, this might be seen when a boards say, “We don’t fully understand our CEOs decisions, but she rocks! As far as we’re concerned, she can do whatever she wants because she’s amazing.” In our research, charismatic leaders seemed to do the fundraising themselves. But they struggled getting others to help with fundraising.

Transactional Leadership

The fourth style of leadership in the study was transactional leadership. This style tends to focus more practically on goals and rewards. Some see this in a leader who has a “Do your work and you get a paycheck” attitude. Interestingly, the researchers weren’t able to tie this style of leadership to a culture of philanthropy. But they did find that those identifying more as a transactional leadership style also were most likely to say their nonprofit was experiencing a shrinking budget.

Since a study like this is more like a “snapshot,” we don’t know if transactional leadership causes less money to be raised or if less money being raised causes a more transactional style of leadership behaviors. But there is a link between transactional leadership and declining revenue.

Leadership Can Be Learned

It’s clear from the study that leadership styles significantly impact nonprofit fundraising. In my sharing these results, leaders seem amazed to realize they can choose to exercise a different style. The good news? Leadership behaviors can be learned.

So if you’re not seeing the fundraising results you want, or are frustrated with doing all the fundraising yourself, take a look at your leadership style. It might just hold keys to turning your culture of philanthropy around.

What’s Your Leadership Style?

The even better news? We have a quick, 5-question assessment to help you identify the leadership style you consider “right” or “natural.”

To find yours, take our free, 2-3 minute leadership style assessment at https://fundraisingcoach.com/style.

Then download a free copy of “The Wake Up Call,” to see how your style correlates with fundraising. Get it at: https://concordleadershipgroup.com/report/

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From Idea & Start-Up to Strong & Sustainable

This guest post is from Rebecca Rogriquez, an expert in helping nonprofit startups. She’s even written the book for nonprofit startups “The Nonprofit Workbook.” You can find out more about Rebecca on her website at: www.forthephilanthropist.com. She also runs the Nonprofit Academy training called “From Start Up to Strong – Setting Expectations for Newly Formed Entities Serving the Greater Common Good.”

From Idea & Start-Up to Strong & Sustainableby Rebecca Rodgriquez

According to Giving USA, in 2022, Americans gave $499.33 billion to charity, signifying a 3.4% decrease from 2021, when charitable giving was $516.65 billion. This coupled with 1.54 million charitable organizations registered in our country alone is a testament to the collective commitment and effort towards positive social impact.

Yet, within this staggering number of organizations, the majority struggle to raise substantial funds—over a million organizations annually have operating budgets of less than $50,000. What does this data mean? Maybe starting an organization for the greater common good is a hobby for most people and they don’t intend to or care to grow it or effect positive change.

One might conclude that this information underscores the necessity for a structured approach in cultivating a sustainable nonprofit model, if in fact we want positive change. It also might be telling us that better expectations need to be set at the idea stage before one is even allowed to register the entity with a Secretary of State.

How would you interpret this data?

Consultants’ responsibility to the social sectorWhen the nonprofit is still an idea

As mission driven professionals working in the social sector, especially as consultants, I believe that we have a responsibility to lay aside anything holding us back to speak truth and share the knowledge we have to do our utmost for people who are in the idea or start-up stage of an organization. For those who want to be founders of a 501c organization in the exploration phase pre registering their organization, that may mean challenging them to do a feasibility study or better yet contracting your services to execute one. That could also look like encouraging them to volunteer on a regular basis for organizations similar to one they hope to start to get a first hand view of what is involved.

How many of us have come across a new founder who has absolutely no experience working or volunteering in the social sector? How many times have you been contacted by a new founder/ ED who needs help fundraising and you default to the thought – “oh no, not another one and turn them away?”

For nonprofits that have started up

How do you handle or engage those who ask for help who are in the start-up stage who have already plunged into the deep end, possibly undercapitalized, clueless about logic models or fundraising?

What if in 2024 all or the majority of the 124,000 fundraisers here in the United States were to commit to do whatever they can or at least one thing to start chipping away that number over 1 million to best prepare the want to be founders in that idea stage or those leaders of start-up organizations that just can’t seem to hit that $50k ceiling and give them some tips, setting them up for success?

Strong and stable nonprofits

All organizations demand attention and excellence to the many moving parts to become sustainable, mature, profitable. Nonprofit organizations are not exempt from any of this. In an upcoming session through the Nonprofit Academy, I am going to briefly present a metaphor of four legs on a table signifying

leadership,financial sustainability,program effectiveness, andsystem and processes.

Whatever lifecycle stage an organization finds itself in – this metaphor can serve as a compass, a north star. As professionals who are committed to our sector and to make our world a better place, let’s do something for leaders to best prepare them for their journey ahead. Understanding and fortifying these four pillars form a cornerstone of building strong and hopefully sustainable organizations.

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Retaining Donors: Create a System for Expressing Gratitude

It’s well-known in the nonprofit world that the second gift, sometimes even referred to as “the golden gift,” is when donor retention rates start to rise. So why do donors continue to give to your nonprofit after their first gift? Or conversely, why do so many first-time donors not give again?

The answer could be as simple as not making a follow-up request in a timely manner. Or maybe some donors always intended to just give the one time. While reasons vary, one question nonprofits should always ask themselves after a donation is: Did we thank them?

A simple thank you can go a long way toward persuading donors to come back. After all, it’s discouraging to donate your hard-earned money to what you feel is a worthwhile cause and never hear anything back. Donors are left wondering how their gifts were used or if the nonprofit even received or needed them at all.

Avoid this scenario and avoid overcomplicating the thank-you process by creating systems for expressing gratitude. Using a system allows you to decide how you’ll thank donors upfront, rather than making a separate decision for every donation that comes to your organization.

How do systems of expressing gratitude work and why do they matter for retaining donors? Let’s find out.

Why does retaining donors matter?

If your nonprofit is continuously attracting new donors, does it really matter if you retain them after their initial gift? Yes! Attracting new donors costs time and resources even if you’re using low-cost or free nonprofit marketing tools. It’s far cheaper to pay that cost once and have a donor make multiple gifts than to pay it over and over again for each gift.

Retaining donors may be more cost-effective, but how cost-effective is it to thank every donor? Put plainly, if your organization relies in any part on donors, you should share your gratitude with them. You couldn’t do what you do without their support!

As basic as that is, some organizations still look at each gift and wonder if they should thank the donor. When creating a system of gratitude, it’s normal to have questions like:

Is this gift large enough to warrant a thank you?Are we spending more mailing a thank-you note than we’re getting from the donation?Who is the right person to thank?

Ask these questions when first crafting your system of gratitude, not every time a supporter donates. Establishing guidelines and following them removes the time and energy spent remaking these decisions, allowing you to appreciate donors faster.

Bonus: Send your thank-you messages in addition to donation receipts. Gift acknowledgments are important communication, but they should be separate from thank-you messages.

Components of a System of Gratitude

Systems of expressing gratitude are valuable, but what actually goes into them? Primarily, these systems have two components: donor appreciation tiers and donor appreciation methods.

Donor Appreciation Tiers

You should thank all of your donors. Whether they’re giving $100 or $10, they made an effort to support your nonprofit, and while small gifts may not change the trajectory of your mission, those donations were still likely meaningful for the people who made them.

That being said, some donors do require going the extra mile when it comes to showing your appreciation. How you divide donor tiers depends on which supporter groups you’re targeting and your nonprofit’s average donation amount. However, many nonprofits will find it worthwhile to create a system of expressing gratitude with tiers similar to these:

New donors. Your appreciation for new donors will greatly influence their first impression of your nonprofit. Make it a positive one by expressing gratitude with a prompt and engaging message. While you might vary your strategy based on how much a new donor gave, such as calling rather than emailing donors who give over $100, have special messages ready that thank donors, provide information about your nonprofit, and welcome them to your community.Mid-level donors. Mid-level recurring donors provide reliable support month to month. For these donors, thank-you messages should be about maintaining and building the relationship to slowly get them to increase their support.Major donors. Major donors need far more than a heartfelt email for them to continue giving to your nonprofit. When a major donor makes a contribution, be prepared to go all out. This might involve sending a letter, calling them on the phone, and arranging a time to meet to thank them in person.Volunteers. Volunteers are not donors—though some of them can easily become donors with the right strategy—but they still deserve a thank you all the same. Fundraising Letter’s guide to volunteer appreciation points out that many donor retention strategies also apply to volunteer retention. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for your volunteer appreciation strategy, so reuse your system for expressing gratitude to donors for your volunteers and make a few tweaks where necessary.

While sorting donors into tiers will help you approach supporters as groups, be conscious of individual preferences. For example, take donor communication preferences into account so you avoid texting thank-you messages to donors who only want to hear from you via email.

Donor Appreciation Methods

How will you express gratitude to the donors in each of the groups you just created? Donor appreciation methods vary widely, and here are five to consider in order of how strongly they are likely to come across:

Automatic thank-you messages. Automatic thank-you emails require no input from your team after their initial setup. They are the fastest way to let donors know their gift was received and how much you appreciate it.eCards. Elevate your email thank you’s with eCards. eCards are essentially greeting cards sent through email, text, or social media, complete with fun visuals and a message from your nonprofit. The only major differences are they’re digital and much faster than snail mail. eCardWidget’s guide on how to thank donors shows off excellent examples of eCards:Phone calls. Have a quick one-on-one conversation by giving your donors a call. Prepare a script and be ready to answer common questions donors may have.

Donor events. Invite your donors to get together to celebrate a successful campaign, year of fundraising, or anything else. These events can be virtual, small lunch get-togethers, or entire formal galas.Donor walls. Immortalize your donors’ contributions by constructing a donor wall that lists the names of your top funders. These monuments are traditionally physical structures, but interactive, digital donor walls have been gaining popularity.

While some of these methods may seem like a lot of work, think of expressing gratitude as just another step in your donor retention process. After all, following up is how you essentially close the loop on a donor journey and encourage them to work their way toward making a second gift.

Retaining donors is about building relationships with supporters so they continue to support you year-over-year. Make your marketing stand out by expressing genuine appreciation and avoid getting stuck in decision paralysis by implementing a system of gratitude.

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Coffee, Calendars, and Sticky Notes: These are a few of my favorite things!

One Leader’s Approach to Annual Team Planning“Coffee, Calendars, and Sticky Notes: These are a few of my favorite things!”by Amy Lazoff, Director of Philanthropy & Community Relations, Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo

There is one thing I love about this time of year that not everyone quite understands – and that is the sheer joy I experience when picking out a planner for next year. Yes, even though my daily schedule is electronic, I still LOVE a good paper planner!

When I open the cover of my new planner each year and see the empty pages, my brain fills with ideas of all I’d like to accomplish. I love the idea of planning the work and working the plan. As the leader of a small but mighty team of fundraising professionals, who end up wearing a lot of hats throughout the year, my paper planner is also used as a leadership tool.

Everybody gets to pick out a new planner

One of the tasks I give to my entire team is to pick out a planner that works for them. Some like monthly only, some want monthly/weekly or daily, and I just want them to use whatever will be the most beneficial to how they work. Then we pick a day near the end of the year to fill them out. We call it our “Calendar Planning Day” and the first year I took my team through the exercise it was a little overwhelming. Now, they look forward to it and come prepared with all their notes! This day is filled with a lot of coffee, our calendars, and sticky notes of every color.

Mapping out the year

Once we’re done, we’ve mapped out our entire year. It helps my entire team know what is happening with who and when. It helps spot any conflicts early on and make sure nothing big is missing. This is invaluable information to have when sometimes your job, as a leader, is to move on to plan b or pivot when unexpected events threaten to derail your plans. It is also a valuable tool to have as a co-worker, to know when someone has a big deadline coming up so you can lend a helping hand. It also prevents us from attempting to do too many big or new things all at the same time. After all, there are only so many hours in a day!

For my team it is also a way to take our annual fundraising and stewardship plans and lay them out in a different way, focusing on the tasks that must be done to achieve our goals. We also layer in board meetings, conferences, planned vacations, major grant deadlines, planned donor engagement activities, direct mail, special events, etc. as well as all the bigger tasks associated with keeping those things on track. Those tasks range from donor reports, to appeal drafts, to print deadlines, linen and food orders, volunteer training nights, when letters need updated, and more. It isn’t every task we do – far from it, but it lays out the structure for our year. Our planners help us easily talk about our upcoming projects, needs, and recap of the hits and misses as a team each week, and it also helps me prepare for one-on-one meetings with each of my team members.

This tactic may not work for every team, but if you’re looking for a better way to plan your work, and work your plan (or coordinate the chaos), give it a try – what do you have to lose?

Amy Lazoff is Director of Philanthropy & Community Relations at Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo and a certified Quadrant 3 Leadership Coach. She leads a Nonprofit Academy training on planning called “Plan the Work; Work the Plan.”

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Web Accessibility: A Nonprofit Website Design Must-Have

Your nonprofit’s website has the potential to help you get the word out about your mission, showcase the impact your organization is making, secure donations, encourage volunteering, promote events, and more.

However, your nonprofit’s website will only be as effective as its reach. And you could be unintentionally isolating part of your target audience with one big mistake: Not making your website accessible to everyone.

Web accessibility is essential for ensuring people of all abilities can visit your website and interact with your content and resources. But from a broader perspective, accessibility helps your nonprofit promote equal access to information, avoid discrimination, and even comply with legal requirements.

In short, the most effective nonprofit websites prioritize accessibility not just because it helps get more results for their causes but also because it’s the right thing to do.

In this quick guide, we’ll walk you through what you need to know about web accessibility and how you can design or optimize your own website with accessibility best practices in mind. Let’s begin.

What is Web Accessibility?

Web accessibility refers to the degree to which a website is usable and available to as many people as possible. Of course, this accounts for people with permanent disabilities, but also people experiencing temporary impairments. Here are some examples of both permanent disabilities and temporary impairments:

Visual impairments, whether from blindness, color blindness, or even losing a pair of glassesMotor impairments, which could be due to a stroke, cerebral palsy, or exhaustionHearing impairments, like deafness, hyperacusis, or being in a quiet room and wanting to watch a short videoCognitive impairments, which could be ASD, developmental disabilities, or distractions in the room

You won’t be able to predict the needs of every single person who visits your nonprofit’s website, so it’s important to anticipate all possible accessibility needs by following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The WCAG provides an extensive breakdown of everything that goes into web accessibility. But these are the overarching guidelines to keep in mind:

Perceivable: Your content should be easy for users to see and hear, and should also be understandable when presented in different ways, like through assistive technologies.Operable: Your website should be easy to navigate and use, and all functionality should be available to people using just keyboards to navigate through.Understandable: Text should be easy to read, instructions should be clear, and mistakes (such as misspelling a word on a donation form) should be avoidable and correctable.Robust: Your website should be compatible with current and future user tools, meaning you should practice accessibility best practices now and continue to do so as you maintain your site down the line.

All of these guidelines translate into practical design best practices that can help your website be as accessible to everyone as possible (more on these below!).

In addition to remaining mindful of the WCAG, your nonprofit should understand that having an accessible website is becoming increasingly important as courts have begun to recognize websites as public accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This means that in addition to opening up your site to more people, web accessibility can also help protect your organization from legal liability.

As you adopt web accessibility best practices into your website design and maintenance efforts, communicate the importance of accessibility to your employees so that everyone is on the same page and can do their part to ensure everyone can benefit from your nonprofit’s online hub.

10 Tips for Making Your Website More Accessible

As you come to understand why web accessibility matters, you’ll want to take the necessary steps to ensure that your website is up to par so that everyone who uses it can learn your nonprofit’s story and be inspired to take action.

Here are ten tips to get you started:

Ensure your website has a responsive design. This means your website should be easy to use and read on different-sized screens. Ensure that your load speed is low and that text and images resize properly on different devices.Add  alternative text (alt text)  to all images. Alt text is a short sentence added to an image’s HTML code. It allows individuals with visual impairments to understand images on a web page. Keep your alt text descriptive and short (125 characters or less is best practice), and make sure not to include additional details that a visual audience would not see, such as the photographer credit (that belongs in the caption).Maintain logical organization of your content. According to Cornershop Creative’s roundup of nonprofit web design best practices, this means you should use headings to illustrate the hierarchy of information on each page. For instance, this means having one H1 at the top of a page, followed by subsections labeled with H2s and smaller subsections labeled with H3s. You should also organize your web pages logically on your navigation menu.Ensure your website is navigable by keyboard. Not everyone will be able to use a mouse when using your website. Ensure keyboard accessibility by testing it yourself!When adding links, ensure your anchor text is descriptive. Anchor text is the visible and clickable text in a hyperlink. Make your anchor text clear so that when people click on your links, they have a good idea of where the link will be taking them. For example, instead of using generic anchor text like, “Click Here,” go for something like, “Send One Of Our eCards.”Add transcripts and captions to multimedia elements. Maybe your nonprofit likes to share videos or podcast episodes on its website. But how accessible are those multimedia elements? Ensure that all videos have accompanying captioning and a transcript, and provide a transcript for any podcast episodes.Make sure your text and visuals have a strong contrast ratio. Remember that all of your content should be perceivable and understandable. The colors you use on your website should contrast enough that they’re easy to understand. This means foregoing a neon yellow background and bright pink text for something like a light blue background and black text. The font size and style used will also affect contrast. Aim for sans serif fonts and a font size of at least 16px.Optimize your forms for accessibility. If you want to boost online donations, event registrations, or volunteer program sign-ups, you’ll need accessible forms. Ensure that your forms are short and simple to use and the instruction text on your forms stays visible even after a user starts typing.Offer an accessibility widget or tool on your website. Some website builders will allow you to include an accessibility or widget tool on your website that lets visitors take their user experience into their own hands. These tools empower people to adjust text size, change the color scheme to grayscale, and more.Seek feedback from your audience. Once you’ve implemented accessibility best practices on your website, seek feedback on your efforts. Start by asking your staff members to test out the site, and then consider surveying supporters you have a strong relationship with to get their thoughts. Keep making improvements based on their insights.

To take your website’s accessibility to the next level, consider working with a nonprofit web design company. According to Cornershop Creative, the right company can help you design the structure and informational architecture of your website and help you maintain it over time—all while keeping your accessibility goals in mind. This can save your team a lot of time and headspace and ensure that your website offers a first-rate user experience to everyone who comes across it.

Having a fully accessible nonprofit website isn’t something that will happen overnight, just like how your organization can’t cram for fundraising results.

However, as you do your best to understand the WCAG guidelines and take the necessary steps to make your website more accessible over time (working with web design professionals if necessary), you’ll see that you’re making a difference in opening up your website to a larger swath of your community. Consequently, you’ll see more results for your mission and gain a reputation as an organization that cares about the people who support it. You can do this!

About the Author

Sarah Fargusson

Self-described as a “non-profit junkie,” Sarah has dedicated her career to serving the needs of the non-profit sector. Her project management experience spans a variety of non-profit management disciplines including strategic planning, community engagement, capacity building, fundraising and research. She has worked both in and for the non-profit sector at the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, and the consulting firms The Lee Institute and The Curtis Group. With her ever expanding non-profit tool belt, Sarah joined Cornershop Creative to tap into her techie, creative side, while developing meaningful partnerships with her clients to help them more effectively achieve their goals.

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Google Ad Grants Management: 4 Benefits for Nonprofits

From drafting email newsletters to curating social media posts and promoting your website, marketing requires much of your nonprofit’s manpower. Resources like the Google Ad Grant offer additional ways to boost your nonprofit’s online presence, but each marketing tool you add to your strategy requires time and energy.

Professional grant management allows your nonprofit to unlock the power of the Google Ad Grant while saving your team’s time for other marketing endeavors. But outsourcing does more than save time—there are numerous reasons your nonprofit should invest in professional Google Ad Grants management, including:

Timely SetupCampaign MaintenanceExpert ComplianceClear Reporting

Delegation is critical to any leadership role, but especially for nonprofits that are tasked with making a big impact using limited resources. With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at how you can make the most of Google’s Ad Grant from the very beginning of the process.

1. Timely Setup

Google Ad Grant agencies do much more than manage the grant. These experts can help your nonprofit from the very beginning of the process, starting with acquiring the grant.

According to Getting Attention’s Google Grant application guide, the application process is meant to prove you’re a trustworthy nonprofit with valuable content to promote to internet users. This thorough vetting results in a lengthy application process, which is why it can be helpful for an agency to handle:

Checking eligibilityRegistering with TechSoupCreating a Google for Nonprofits accountPreparing your websiteCompleting the eligibility form

The application’s pre-qualifying steps can take weeks to complete, especially if you aren’t familiar with the requirements. Delegating the application to a professional can speed up the process and increase the likelihood you’ll be approved on your first try since an agency will have the experience to ensure nothing is left out.

2. Campaign Maintenance

Once you’re approved for the grant, the real work begins. You’ll need to maintain your website, create ads, and research what content prospective donors want to see. That’s where the expertise of a Google Ad Grant agency is vital.

Grant experts have the insight needed to create, maintain, and adjust campaigns as needed. You’ll likely have 3-5 campaigns going at once, and a professional’s insight can help you:

Track campaigns: As a nonprofit leader, you have several other marketing channels to keep an eye on. Meanwhile, the professionals at a Google Ad Grant agency specialize in watching over your ad campaigns. This consistent tracking can ensure you’re doing everything possible to promote your cause on Google.Evaluate performance: A grant expert will keep an eye on your campaigns’ performance. This is especially beneficial for nonprofits with little understanding of search engine marketing or Google Ads since they likely won’t know what metrics to track or how to improve them.Adjust online content: For example, do you want users to read your nonprofit’s mission statement or purchase a donation eCard from your website? A grant manager can help you choose the right landing pages and optimize them to drive conversions.

Whether you need to share your nonprofit’s story or promote giving opportunities, you likely know the core messages you need to communicate to drive conversions for your cause. However, Google’s Ad Grant program introduces even more complexity when considering how potential donors use the internet and their behavior on your website. That’s why an expert’s supervision of your campaign performance is especially beneficial.

3. Expert Compliance

Effective campaign creation doesn’t just mean targeting keywords or landing pages. You’ll also need to monitor your compliance with Google’s rules to remain eligible for the program and make the most of the grant money. Some of these rules include:

Account activity: You must log into your account at least once a month and update it every 90 days. This signals to Google that you’re still using the funding and need your ad credits renewed each month.Keyword relevance: You must target keywords that prospective donors are searching for your Google Ads to be shown. Google requires nonprofits to optimize their keywords for the best results, which also helps you create relevant content that ensures users don’t ignore your marketing efforts.A 5% click-through rate (CTR): Not only must you actively target optimized keywords, but Google requires that nonprofits maintain a 5% CTR starting after the first 90 days post-approval. This means you can’t just try for relevant keywords, but you also must successfully convince people to click on your ads and explore your website.

These guidelines benefit both nonprofits and their target audiences. Overall, they help nonprofits achieve meaningful marketing objectives and ensure that users can find useful information. A grant expert’s familiarity with these rules allows them to create effective nonprofit ads that will ultimately increase your chances of converting prospects into donors.

4. Clear Reporting

When it comes to narrowing down the right agency to help with your Google Ad Grants management, Double the Donation’s agency guide recommends looking for partners that offer services for the specific areas you need help with. So, let’s say you want complete transparency about your campaigns’ performance. In that case, find an agency that provides comprehensive reports to your team.

These reports may include:

Data to help you understand each ad campaign’s performance.Insights to explain what the data means.Improvements based on the conclusions drawn from your data.

Whether you know the basics of Google Ad Grants or nothing about the program, you’ll likely have too much on your plate to also be in charge of analyzing and reporting on the performance of your ads. Entrusting this task with a professional can save you time and help you draw more meaningful conclusions from your reports.

Remember, there’s a huge learning curve to overcome when you start marketing on Google for the first time. A Google Ad Grants agency can guide you through this process and ensure everything goes smoothly. And, if something happens to compromise your eligibility for the program, these experts can also help you reactivate your account and quickly get back to creating ads that drive traffic to your website.

About the Author

Jessica King

Jessica helps nonprofits acquire and manage the Google Ad Grant to expand their impact. Prior to her work at Getting Attention, Jessica worked in nonprofit and higher education organizations focusing on communication and digital marketing, and most recently in search engine optimization in the mission-driven sector. Jessica holds a master’s degree in communication from Virginia Tech. In her free time, you can find her reading, building furniture, and hanging out with her cats, Benny and Olive.

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