How to Create a Compelling Fundraising Story Using Images

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image="8880" img_size="full" alignment="center"][vc_column_text] You've heard it a million times: “a picture is worth 1,000 words.” But in reality, it’s worth 60,000. The human brain responds to images and videos 60,000 times faster than plain text. The power of images isn't just how quickly we derive meaning from them, but also the amount of meaning we associate with them. A single image can be emotionally resonant, evoking an instinctive response that trumps language. Many images stand alone as iconic representations of powerful movements or events, like the Tank Man during the Tiananmen Square protests or the photo of the starving…

How to Plan an Annual Calendar of Fundraising Events

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image="9390" img_size="full" alignment="center"][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]The key to successfully executing on an annual strategy is having a well-structured blueprint to follow. For non-profits across the globe, the mission of fundraising involves much more than soliciting donors, including developing a donor journey that cultivates support for years to come. The most efficient way to plan for this type of engagement is to outline the activities and communications involved in your organization's strategy in an annual plan. Institutions rely on these plans, or fundraising calendars, as an internal tool to navigate the team’s approach through the fiscal year. The calendar is built out as a…

Involve Attendees at Your Next Giving Event: 5 Strategies

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image="7979" img_size="full" alignment="center"][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]For some of your attendees, your giving event may be the highlight of their week! Everyone will remember a great event hosted by a worthy organization, but it never hurts to take some extra steps to make sure your attendees get even more involved. This extra effort will go a long way with helping your event resonate with your most important supporters. Engagement is vital to the future of your organization because it creates a great reputation for your hosting abilities, increasing attendance for future events as well. Creating involvement opportunities doesn't need to involve a complete…

How to Convert One-Time Donors to Recurring Givers

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Did you know that monthly donors give 42% more money than any other donor? Creating a base of recurring givers increases a nonprofit's revenues while decreasing the overall cost to operate. Constantly having to reach out to donors is a time consuming and expensive task, which is why recurring givers are crucial to your nonprofit's success. Even if donor retention is at the top of your list, it can be a tricky task. Getting people to donate to a cause or organization is one thing, but creating recurring givers is a wholly different undertaking. To make donor retention even…

How to Boost Donor Retention with an Inspiring Welcome Email Series

Nearly one-third of all annual giving happens in December, so there is no better time to follow-up with supporters than in the new year! Learn how to craft a compelling welcome email to keep your hard-earned donors around. While we still suggest a multi-channel approach to everything you do, including stewardship, email is an easy way to give thanks, introduce your community to your mission and vision, and seed upcoming opportunities to amplify their impact.  Open rates on a welcome email series can average over 50% and if you include a call-to-action, you could experience click-through rates at nearly 15%. That's an extremely…

#GivingTuesday: How to Measure Impact

#GivingTuesday is an annual occurrence that unleashes global giving. Nonprofits gear up every year by creating platforms for success and maintain their work long after their event in order to keep donors invested in the cause. It’s time to use the power of Giving Day to support your initiatives. Learn how to measure impact of your fundraising efforts below. Where do we start? You Can’t Do This Alone  First, assemble the team you believe can plan thoughtfully and collaborate with one another to achieve a common goal of success. This project demands the courage to undertake heightened challenges, storytelling, and…

How to Drive Donor Engagement: 6 Effective Web Design Tips

Engaging your supporters is a no-brainer for nonprofit organizations. Of course, you need to keep them engaged with your organization in order to retain donors. But every nonprofit has a slightly different strategy for how to keep this engagement up-to-date and successful. The best place to start: your nonprofit’s website. We’ve compiled 6 effective tips to include in your engagement strategy to drive donors through your online resources. To drive engagement, your organization should: Create a website that is easy to navigate. Customize your donation page. Keep a comprehensive calendar. Create an omni-channel online approach. Build a strong visual identity.…

30+ Ideas to Rock This Giving Season

One of the perks of working with a wide array of groups is the exposure we have to the wonderfully creative, successful, impactful ideas that come out of our community every giving season. Groups large and small are putting together incredible strategies to engage their communities before, during, and after their big giving days/weeks. Whether you’re thinking about piloting your first giving day or you’re a seasoned veteran, the ideas below will inspire and challenge you. Without further ado... Content Every giving opportunity should be told from the perspective of a person impacted, be it someone who will receive a…

How to Promote Your Next Giving Day During Your Event

What’s a giving day? A giving day is a 24-hour giving event that occurs once a year. It focuses on one simple thing: reaching as many supporters and raising as much money as possible in one day. Over the years, giving days have produced many success stories and have raised millions of dollars across industries. But don't be fooled: just because a giving day only spans a short time frame does not mean it’s a “set it and forget it” type of event. One important factor in making a giving day successful is promotion, and that includes promotion during the…

Measuring Fundraising Campaign Success

How should you measure fundraising campaign success? In the world of fundraising, our efforts can often times feel like trial and error. That’s why the most critical element of success is learning from the past. Optimizing your efforts will increase results and efficiency overall. This means analyzing your tactics after each campaign to determine what produced results and how you can duplicate that effort. Or, similarly, pinpointing actions that didn’t work or need to be tweaked so you can avoid or refine those strategies on your next go-round. Measuring success can be especially useful when looking at two successive campaigns…

Fundraising Relationships & Storytelling: The PERMA Model

What do relationships have to do with storytelling? As many of you know, we’re in the process of developing the next iteration of our platform. Each month, our entire team comes together for two days of collaboration around a specific element of the overall process (story curation, donating, sharing, competing, engaging, etc.). We bring in guests, including clients and industry experts, to articulate overall challenges and what features would make their day-to-day lives easier. We’ve invited leadership from disruptive companies to join us on-site to challenge us to look at an opportunity through myriad lenses. We’ve also been fortunate enough…

5 Online Fundraising Trends for 2019 You Should Jump On Now

A New Generation of Donors The next generation of donors is coming. Sure, Millennials have been a hot topic for fundraisers for years but the older members of Gen Z have recently begun entering college and the workforce. Gen Z now makes up 27% of the population and 30% have already donated to an organization. This number is expected to increase exponentially in the next few years. The difference in outreach strategies between millennials and Gen Z-ers might not be clear at first, but there are two major differences.  First, mobile-friendly content is more important than ever. While millennials have increased…

Katie Haystead

Katie Haystead

Senior Vice President, Partnerships

With over a decade of experience working with K12 schools and higher education institutions’ fundraising efforts, Katie Haystead now oversees the partnerships team at Community Funded. Her passion for partner success and satisfaction aligns with Community Funded’s priorities and Katie’s unique background is well suited to manage the day to day operations of our partnerships team as well as new market acquisition.

Prior to joining the team at Community Funded, Katie served many roles within the Fundraising Division at Ruffalo Noel Levitz. Her experience ranges from working onsite and remotely with clients executing phonathon programs, developing annual giving strategies, onsite consultations and also developing multichannel strategies allowing for strong synergy between annual giving channels and creating strong major and planned gift pipelines.

Katie is based in Metro Detroit and is a graduate of Central Michigan University, where she worked for the phonathon for 3 years while working towards her History Major.

×
Kim Jennings

Kim Jennings

Senior Generosity Strategist, Generis

Kim Jennings, CFRE is a skilled fundraising leader who believes in the power of Christian education to raise up thoughtful, strong, committed leaders who can make our world a better place for all.

×
Kim Jennings

Todd Turner

Director of Digital Strategies, Generis

In addition to his 11 years overseeing Chuck Swindoll’s Insight Living Ministries communications department, Todd Turner has worked as a digital strategist for faith based organizations across the globe..

×
Kim Jennings

Jennifer Perrow

Senior Generosity Strategist, Generis

Jennifer is a skilled fundraising and communications professional who helps ministries articulate vision, communicate mission, and raise abundant funds to advance Kingdom priorities.

×