Once you’ve written your fundraising plan, you are ready to focus on creating your campaigns.

By considering the various types of campaigns and implementing the steps for a successful campaign as outlined in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to a stronger, more sustainable individual giving program.

Equipped with quantitative and qualitative data about your organization by preparing your fundraising plan, it’s time to move forward with individual campaign planning.

For each campaign, determine your precise financial goal using the SMART formula:

Consider the following questions:

Once the Board and organizational leadership have agreed to a specific dollar amount as a fundraising goal, use it to develop an effective concept, strategy and implementation plan for your campaign.

Obviously, the primary objective of any campaign will always be to increase revenue by ensuring current and new donors contribute.

There are other goals and objectives to consider as well, such as:

While all your campaigns might target unrestricted funds to reach your organizational expenses, it is important to identify different campaigns to reach different goals or outreach to different audiences all year.

Breaking down the fundraising goal for an entire year into different campaigns will help you to focus and to calendar your efforts at different times throughout the year.

For most nonprofit organizations an annual fundraising campaign serves as the primary source of unrestricted cash donations. Annual campaigns are typically the foundation of a comprehensive fundraising strategy, providing revenue for on-going operational expenses and offsetting any deficits in the current operations budget.

While it is an annual campaign, this doesn’t mean that you keep pushing it out all year. The annual campaign is the background campaign that supports all your operating expenses, your general fund, etc. but you will want to identify specific times during the year that you will send appeals or host fundraisers directly tied to this campaign.

Annual campaigns deliver a consistent, compelling message across multiple communications channels to achieve a single fundraising goal. It is not an event, but a process—a well-orchestrated series of activities, conducted every year for a specified duration of time.

An annual campaign should also be a central component to your donor retention strategy. Donor retention and recognition efforts can create a stable constituency or donor base from which prime prospects for major gifts and endowment campaigns can emerge.

Annual campaigns offer an array of options to compel first-time donors and long-time supporters to advance your organization’s mission. Successful annual campaigns should be both donor-centric and data-driven, aligning with and promoting your organization’s comprehensive strategic plan, values, mission, and vision.

Many organizations break down their annual campaign into seasonal campaigns, but you might also consider adding a seasonal campaign to fundraise for a specific program or to rally around the purchase of new equipment. These campaigns work well when there is a specific smaller amount of money to raise within that shorter time frame.

An example might be to host a spring campaign to fund a summer campaign program. Or a late summer campaign to purchase back-to-school supplies for children. The possibilities are endless…

Any seasonal campaign can help reinforce an organization-wide commitment to fundraising while recruiting, maintaining, and expanding your donor base to rally around a specific program, purchase, or cause.

Every seasonal campaign should deliver a consistent, compelling message across multiple channels to support a single fundraising goal. A campaign is a process, not a single appeal. Your campaign should be a well-orchestrated series of activities that happen for a specific amount of time.

A subscription giving campaign is one that focuses on encouraging donors and prospective donors to set up automatic monthly gifts. A subscription giving campaign can be sent to non-donors to invite them to give at a low entry point or to existing donors who give frequently to create a recurring donation, making giving easy.

Most organizations understand the value of recurring revenue and want more of it. The problem is that nonprofits generally take the wrong approach to creating a sustainable revenue stream.

Organizations tend to treat recurring donors the same as one-time donors and overlook the fact that these donors are truly invested in the future of the organization. Even calling it “recurring giving” causes insufficient framing from the start because the “set it and forget it” mentality implies that there is little to no additional stewardship.

Subscription giving builds on the tenants of recurring giving but adds best practices from subscription service programs like streaming channels, food or household items. Every month, value is delivered.

When launching a subscription giving campaign, be certain you’ve identified the value you provide to the donor because they have established a monthly gift to your organization. Share with them how it benefits them and the cause.

A lapsed donor campaign differs from other more general campaigns primarily in the language used to remind the donor how important their support was in the past and to encourage re-engagement.

To launch a successful lapsed donor campaign, it is critical to ensure that your data is accurate so that you don’t erroneously reach out to someone who is not actually a lapsed donor.

When considering a lapsed donor campaign, you’ll also want to review your data to determine how to best allocate your limited time and resources to determine how you will reach out to these donors. Donors who gave a large gift or you gave frequently before lapsing, may be identified for more personal outreach than a direct mail piece or email blast. For one-time donors, smaller gift donors, or donors who lapsed more than three years ago, a more general approach via email or direct mail might be more appropriate.

A Giving Day is a 24-hour fundraising event bringing together donors, volunteers and /or communities around a common cause. It is an opportunity to leverage your team’s efforts by capitalizing on the energy, publicity, and branding of a bigger campaign.

The most popular giving day is Giving Tuesday, which focuses on collective generosity and the power of numbers. Your local community foundation or nonprofit association may host a giving day as well - these tend to focus on giving local. Regardless of the giving day, your messaging should include the content focus of the hosting organization so that it amplifies the purpose of the day.

You might also consider hosting your own giving day – or collaborating with other organizations in your cause area to create a cause-related giving day. These types of giving days are an incredible opportunity to tell your story, to inspire your connected audience of donors and nondonors.

Giving Day campaigns are a great way to acquire new donors. Online donors have higher average incomes: so there is more potential over time!

It's also important to remember that Giving Days are meant to be fun. Talk to any organization that has done one, and they will share with you that, beyond the dollars, the energy, goodwill and sense of accomplishment that results from a Giving Day are one-of-a-kind.

In preparing for a Giving Day, you’ll want to ensure that you’ve spent considerable time preparing much like you would for a special event. Weeks go into the preparation to make the day successful.

The most critical campaign for most nonprofit organizations is the year-end campaign. This is because approximately 30% of all giving happens in December, making the 4th quarter a critical fundraising window.

With the growing popularity of Giving Tuesday, year-end campaigns often run from Giving Tuesday through December 31 - but they can run a bit longer if you are including more than one direct mail piece or additional impact reporting communications during that timeframe.

More than any other campaign, it is critical that the year-end campaign employ a variety of communication channels, like email, direct mail and social media. If you can, add a phone element to the campaign so that everyone is reached out to in more than one way.

To get the most out of your campaign, you’ll want to evaluate the current status of each component vital to your organization and its operations.

The integral relationship between day-to-day budget requirements and operations determines not only the fiscal goals of the annual campaign, but also the tactical prerequisites needed to implement capacity building strategies.

In reviewing the current operations relative to any capacity building objectives, The Board and organizational leadership must consider the current effects of fundraising underperformance or revenue surplus. Comparing the annual strategic plans against the actualized operations should reveal any gaps in performance versus objectives.

There are three key criteria to consider prior to designing a campaign:

Complete analysis of the organization’s fiscal status, operations and comprehensive strategic plan will be the foundations of a well-planned, highly effective donor centric designed campaign.

Your imagination is the only limit to the wide array of campaigns you can design. When it comes to campaign design, what works best for one type of nonprofit could be the wrong approach for another.

To produce the most compelling campaign that will generate the greatest impact for your organization, financial and non-financial, consider your fundraising and ancillary objectives, then answer the following questions:

As specific ideas emerge and evolve, you will need to establish a budget for your appeal.

Many nonprofits already have an amount budgeted for their appeal in their annual budget. If this is the case, verify that it is sufficient to produce the campaign concept that you have devised.

If your organizational budget did not include funds for the campaign, are there resources available? If not, you can seek funding from your Board, gift-in-kind donations, an individual donor or corporate sponsor.

Since there are literally no fixed limits to a campaign, determine where the focus will be to generate the best results.

Some things to consider:

Often the budget and calendar year or fiscal year will dictate the optimum timeframe for your appeal.

Keep in mind that 30% of the projected billions in total annual donations to nonprofit organizations are made in the month of December, and 10% of that is donated during the last 48 hours of the year.

These year-end donors are usually comprised of a mix of long-time donors to your organization and first-time supporters. Giving Tuesday enables organizations to engage new donors while extending the traditional end-of-year/holiday giving season.

Generally, campaigns range from several weeks to several months, significantly shorter in duration than capital or endowment fundraising efforts - and even with the best of planning and intentions, they almost always exceed the designated time period because of the number of solicitors involved, delays in connecting with individual donors, or follow-up required. For the best results, your appeal should not exceed 6-8 weeks in duration.

Now that you’ve defined your campaign objectives, concept, budget, scope, and timeline, you will need to accept or delegate the role of a campaign lead to coordinate the myriad functions necessary to seamlessly launch and implement it.

Depending on the size of your organization, Board and staff, it may be necessary to recruit volunteers as well, particularly if certain tasks require specialized skills or your solicitation process requires a high volume of hours and labor to effectively execute and follow-up.

Once a campaign lead or team has been designated, clearly and enthusiastically communicate all of the annual campaign details. Make sure that they have all of the necessary resources, which may possibly include special training, available. Now is the time to assign responsibilities, clarify expectations and communicate standards of accountability.

In choosing a theme, the focal motivation or inspiration of your call to action for prospective donors, you must be as people-centric as possible.

You and your prospective donors realize a campaign is about fundraising, yet communicating your organization’s financial needs will not succeed in attracting donors or dollars. Most likely it will have the exact opposite effect, as people are less likely to contribute to an organization that is perceived to be stressed beyond its abilities either because of an overwhelming cause, mission or financial sustainability.

When selecting a focus or theme for your campaign, keep in mind that potential donors are much more likely to donate to make dreams happen than to solve problems. Your theme must be compelling and inspiring enough to capture their hearts if you hope to attract their dollars.

Create a theme that spurs an emotional as well as intellectual response - it’s all about storytelling. You want to perfect your theme with a captivating narrative, whether it’s about your organization’s recent achievement or a program participant’s rise against all odds.

Relating a narrative to a single incident or individual person is more likely to resonate on the emotional level than hurling heartbreaking statistics at your prospective donors. People give to people!

Since a campaign is such an incredible opportunity to connect and engage with your donors, it’s tempting to share everything that is wonderful about your organization. Don’t.

Even if the content is so well-done people actually read every single word of your never-ending saga about the previous or upcoming year, the urgency of your call to action will have faded by the time reach they reach the end of your litany.

Use imagery to capture the essence of your narrative. Imagery can be powerful in driving home your message, especially if it is a clear photo of one person or one animal piercing the camera straight on.

Content, messaging and copy paired with imagery that delivers impact will also distinguish your campaign from others. This is particularly important for end-of-year and holiday campaigns which have a lot of competing communications from other nonprofit organizations.

Your selected theme can be portrayed by a photo, video, slogan or dynamic content. Avoid overwhelming people with a crisis and empower them with options to make a real difference.

Segmentation of your donor lists is the key to highly effective engagement with your donor base and prospects. Segmentation will also be key to any successful campaign.

An easy-to-use donor management system will enable you to quickly identify and target your donors and prospects with an effective, personalized message. A clearly delineated, well-segmented database will also empower your post-campaign assessment.

Basic segmentation should be done by giving date – or divided into current donor, lapsed donor, and non-donor (prospect). To personalize your appeals, you will need the following:

You can optimize your campaign by tailoring your message and personalizing follow-up and thank you letters to individual segments. Since two-thirds of your recurring donors are likely to respond and contribute to other campaigns, especially year-end, you may want to engage them first.

Segmenting your list of potential engagements for your campaign will enable you to target the individuals most likely to support this campaign and your organization in the most effective method. It will also enable you to receive their maximum donation.

New organizations may be challenged in contacting enough prospective donors for their first few campaigns because of a limited or small donor base. You can obtain qualified lists that provide potential donors based on your organization’s existing donor base demographics, geographical location, and/or giving history – although be aware that the return on this type of investment can be quite low, depending on your cause area.

Another alternative to expanding your reach is to incorporate a peer-to-peer campaign, which allows your current donors to reach out to their networks and fundraise on your behalf.

The next step is to identify and select the people most likely to support your organization and this campaign. Researching and analyzing your existing donor base is essential to successfully attract new donors or increase donor sights.

Segmentation allows you to decide on your key audience before designing materials and launching your campaign.

Identifying your target audience will optimize both your overall fundraising results and the ROI of each campaign.

Your campaign materials need to explicitly state recommended donations. Your recurring donors may be familiar with and supportive of your organization but may not know what is expected or needed to sustain it. New prospects may be inspired to contribute, but they have no idea what an appropriate donation would be.

There are a number of ways you can guide your potential donors while increasing the likelihood of achieving your fundraising goals without alienating any donor because of the amount they have available to give. Failing to provide specific gift amounts is the single biggest detriment to a successful campaign and the most common mistake organizations make when conducting a campaign, particularly newer, smaller or grassroots organizations.

Always list various donation amounts on your response or pledge card, whether it is part of a direct mail piece or part of your online donation page. And always, always, always include a blank donation amount that will enable donors to participate without feeling discounted because their donation falls below or above the amounts you have listed.

Knowing your overall fundraising goal and the number of targeted prospects you will be contacting directly, basic math will provide some guidance in selecting the gift ranges.

Don’t just ask your donors to “renew” their annual gifts, either. This approach fails for a number of reasons, when considering donors:

A simple way to identify giving levels is to review the giving levels from your donor base to determine whether there are set points, i.e., $100, $250 or $500, which your current donors usually contribute. Compute these amounts, multiplied by the number of prospects your campaign intends to reach and engage, then compare that amount to your fundraising goals to formulate giving levels for an effective campaign strategy.

Use the campaign opportunity to not only increase the size of your donor base and donors’ contributions, but also to advance these vital relationships with a progressive giving level and participation level.

Attributing names or titles to the various levels can make this even more effective, such as bronze, silver, gold and platinum or friend, associate, sustainer, leader. Be creative with the titles of your giving levels, tying them to the organization or its mission whenever possible to emphasize the importance of each gift while reflecting the value of your organization and appropriately recognizing donors.

If the demographics of your donor base and prospects warrant, you can maximize revenue generation by creating distinct, elite categories such as Benefactors League, Founders Society, and President’s Circle, which would be recognized in your annual report, and possibly your website and marketing materials as well.

Again, taking a donor-centric perspective that relates directly to your organization, its Mission and strategic plan will create optimal results through the use of giving amounts and levels.

Gifts or benefits related to the various giving levels may not only spur donations but provide for ancillary promotion, branding and marketing opportunity. Using tote bags, t-shirts, season tickets or other accessories that include your organization’s name and logo expands your presence and reach long after the campaign.

This option will be based on the organizational products you have on hand and/or your campaign budget; they will also require more time and energy to fulfill post campaign.

Keep in mind that donors will contribute primarily because of the value and relevance of your organization, not the baubles you offer in exchange for their donations.

Unless it is a very prestigious gift, then keep gifts and perks simple but mindful. Make sure your campaign is a fundraising drive and not a marketing fulfillment operation.

Campaigns are typically comprised of a series of activities to deliver your inspiring message to as many targeted prospective donors as possible using the full spectrum of media and communication channels.

Which channels you choose to use will depend in part on the resources – time, talent, and money – available for the campaign. The review and analysis of your donor base segments should have revealed their preferred method of being engaged and donating.

There are benefits and disadvantages to each communication method. Your choice of delivery or integration of multiple delivery methods will always be secondary to presenting a compelling, cohesive message to generate a unified fundraising goal.

Email, social media and peer-to-peer campaigns are the fastest growing area for nonprofit organizations because they provide instantaneous response and donation capabilities as well analytics in real time.

To maximize your online gifts, it’s important to have a donation page that makes it easy for donors to give. Ensure that your online donation methods are both simple to use and secure. A giving experience that evokes your campaign theme and offers suggested giving amounts will help you convert more donors and see higher average gifts.

Monitor the following statistics and calculations:

Direct mail can be costly in dollars and time, requiring materials to be printed and postage, but it may deliver the largest response, particularly if your targeted market is an older demographic; primarily recurring donors; or your giving levels are larger gifts.

Materials used for direct mail campaigns should reflect the value of your organization and quality without being so lavish it would indicate poor stewardship.

Direct mail appeals usually consist of the following pieces:

The greatest challenge with direct mail, especially for attracting new donors, is to get people to open it.

Here are some common options:

As with social media and online appeals, you will want to gauge the results of your direct mail campaigns.

Prior to sending it out, set up a system to measure:

Phone solicitations can be used as the primary method of engaging donors or as a follow-up action plan subsequent to emailing or sending a direct mail piece out. The clear advantage is that a phone solicitation is very personal, enabling authentic engagement with your donor base and prospective donors.

Although they should never sound like it, phone solicitations should always be scripted, providing responses to any possible objections and a list of organizational contacts that can directly address more complex conversations or concerns.

Even if your team or volunteers have experience with phone solicitation, provide a training session outlining the fundraising and ancillary objectives of this particular campaign. Empower your team with simple but effective techniques to deliver the message enthusiastically, professionally engage donors and prospects, and consistently close the call with a donation.

If the phone solicitation is a follow-up to direct mail and/or online appeals, make sure that the solicitors are very familiar with the materials that were sent out, ideally having copies available as they make calls.

Again, be certain that systems are in place to monitor the effectiveness of phone solicitations in terms of fundraising and ancillary objectives, measuring results against attempted calls, call times, and individual solicitors.

It is rare but not unheard of that in-person presentations are employed as part of a campaign. If there are special donors or prospects who warrant an in-person meeting, then do so in a way that is consistent with the fundraising goal and ancillary objectives of the campaign, using the direct mail pieces along with a laptop to accept their donation.

The most crucial aspect of the communication method or methods you incorporate into your campaign is that the messaging be consistent, even if the verbiage varies for various target demographics. When using multiple methods always make certain the different modalities are in sync, a cohesive message focused on a unified fundraising goal, so an email can produce a donation submitted by mail or a direct mail piece can just as easily yield an online donation via your organization’s website.

Our Multi-Channel Donor Engagement Templates offers cadence and language that can help you get started in sending consistent appeals across your relevant communication channels.

Regardless of the communication channel(s) used, the design of your appeal is the heart and soul of your fall campaign. Its impact and effectiveness will directly determine your fundraising results.

Your appeal must have:

Equally important is what NOT to do when designing your appeal:

One of the most successful presentation methods to use is the "engage and invite" technique. Begin by telling your compelling story, informing the prospective donor of the mission in a personalized, relatable way. Then, engage them by asking rhetorical questions - and finally, invite them to be part of the organization, part of the solution, by making a donation or otherwise respond to your call to action.

Every activity and product related to a donor-centric campaign automatically becomes a part of its branding and marketing. You can garner an even greater public profile by creating a marketing strategy exclusively to promote your campaign featuring donors and your mission.

Campaigns provide wonderful opportunities to issue press releases, social media announcements, and blog updates. Effective marketing can be done at key points throughout your campaign, including:

Giving Tuesday is also a powerful, built-in national day of giving that can be used to kick off or reinvigorate your campaign marketing activities.

Maximizing the marketing of your campaign serves as a foundation to cultivate donors for future capital, major gifts or endowment drives.

Successful launch of your campaign will require the coordinated implementation of staff and volunteer functions; online and social media presence; strategic and prompt follow-up mechanisms; marketing activities; and robust delivery systems, all with strong, active support from Board Members and organizational leadership.

The extensive planning conducted prior to the launch of your campaign will enable the campaign to advance the messaging and marketing, which will in turn amplify the campaign itself. Leverage this momentum to increase giving levels, encourage donors to connect their personal and professional contacts with the campaign, and offer future opportunities to engage current and new donors.

As with all strategic fundraising, the post-launch activities and follow-up to your campaign should focus 80% of your energy and resources on the 20% of donors who are going to champion your cause and give larger amounts.

These donors and prospective donors should have been identified while segmenting your donor database and lists, and then again as target prospects were selected.

The range of follow-up is unlimited so it is best to be guided by the most popular contact methods categorized by your segmentation process. Here are some effective follow-up options to accelerate your annual campaign:

No matter what communication channels are used, always send a personalized thank you message to donors as soon as absolutely possible.

The thank you message should simply and clearly express gratitude, recognizing the impact of the donation. Whenever possible, explain exactly how their gift will be used to address the cause.

Although you can welcome and recognize donors as a vital part of your organization, do not include their donation history or any additional appeals as part of the thank you message.

A prompt personalized thank you is an integral part of the relationship building process. Recurring gifts or monthly sustainers need to receive steady but unique acknowledgment and thank you messages for their ongoing commitment to your organization and its Mission.

Designating campaign donors should be part of your organization’s overall recognition program or strategy, using press releases, websites or other organizational materials to reflect their generous support. Larger donors can and should be recognized with certificates, wall plaques or major PR appropriate to their donation.

From the launch of the campaign, you will want to track the results for each target segment and communication method so the data can be analyzed to update your donor base as well as garner the best results and then repeat them.

Once all the data on the results of the campaign has been collected, conduct a SWOT analysis to develop your fundraising strategy and develop your team, building on effectiveness and implementing continuous process improvements accordingly.

After Board and organizational leadership have reviewed and analyzed the final results of the campaign, all staff, volunteers and program participants impacted by a successful campaign should also be de-briefed as soon as possible. Lavish praise for successes and provide empowering training and resources for deficits.