To attract more donors, set a measurable campaign goal, focus on a specific audience, explain your mission clearly, and make giving easy. Then follow up with gratitude and useful updates: a first gift matters most when it begins a lasting relationship.
Build a campaign around a clear goal
1. Choose one outcome
Decide what this campaign is meant to do: bring in first-time donors, reconnect with lapsed supporters, or invite one-time donors to give monthly. Set a target and deadline—for example, a number of new gifts by a particular date—so you can tell whether the campaign worked. Avoid mixing several goals into one message; each may need a different audience and ask.
2. Define the audience before choosing a channel
Start with a group you can describe, such as recent event attendees, past volunteers, or one-time donors. Review the giving history and feedback you already have to understand what they may care about. A focused audience makes it easier to choose relevant examples, language, and next steps.
3. Ask supporters why they care
Use short interviews, surveys, social comments, or reviews to hear supporters’ reasons in their own words. Look for the concerns and motivations that recur, then use them to make outreach more relevant. Treat responses as insight into those people—not proof that every potential donor thinks the same way.
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Make the case for giving clear and credible
4. Explain the mission in plain language
Describe the problem your organization addresses and what it does about it. Avoid internal terminology that a new supporter may not understand. A reader should be able to grasp why the work matters without needing to decode your organization’s structure or programs.
5. Tell a real story with permission and care
A personal or community story can make the work more tangible. Get appropriate permission, protect people’s dignity and privacy, and avoid presenting anyone as a prop for fundraising. Connect the story to the organization’s work and, where possible, to what that work achieved. Captions should explain the relevance of an image rather than leave the reader to guess.
6. Pair stories with accurate evidence
Use reliable impact information alongside human stories, and explain financial details in language supporters can follow. An individual experience can illustrate the work, but it does not establish that the same outcome is typical or that the organization caused a broader change. Keep claims within what your evidence supports.
7. Focus each message
Give each appeal one understandable, mission-centered point and tailor it to the audience. A message that tries to explain every program and make several asks at once can obscure what matters most. Keep the supporting detail relevant to the action you want the reader to take.
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Tell readers exactly what to do—such as make a gift, attend an event, or sign up for updates—and link directly to the appropriate destination. Make sure the destination matches the ask; a donation appeal should not send people searching through the site for the giving form.
Make the giving experience easy
9. Make donation options easy to find
Your website should explain the mission, provide visible calls to action, and make it straightforward to donate or contact the organization. Check that a new visitor can find the giving route without knowing your site’s layout in advance.
10. Check mobile access and accessibility
Before promoting an appeal, follow the giving path on common phones and computers. Check that text is readable, links and controls are usable, and the process does not depend on one device or interaction method. Accessibility and mobile usability are part of whether a potential donor can complete the action—not finishing touches to defer until later.
Choose channels that fit the audience and ask
11. Select channels deliberately
Email, social media, a website, direct mail, and events can serve different purposes. Compare each option against the audience’s behavior, how well it can carry the story, the effort a small team can sustain, accessibility, and whether it leads naturally to the intended action. Do not choose a channel simply because it is familiar or popular.
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Email can support personalized messages, scheduled communications, and direct links to donation pages. Use it to send a focused appeal to an appropriate audience, then track whether recipients take the action. A scheduled message should still feel relevant and timely rather than like an automatic reminder detached from the reader’s relationship with the organization.
Support trust beyond the first gift
13. Keep your voice and financial information trustworthy
Use a consistent voice across campaign materials, and make information about how funds are used easy to locate. Clear financial explanations help people assess the organization and understand the context of an appeal. Do not promise a particular result from a gift unless you can substantiate it.
14. Thank people and keep communicating
Thank donors promptly and share useful updates, opportunities to get involved, and appreciation beyond the next fundraising request. Donor marketing is not only solicitation: ongoing communication helps supporters understand the work and decide whether they want to stay involved.
Acquisition, retention, and upgrading existing support are distinct parts of donor engagement. Feathr’s 2024 report says 73.4% of its respondents prioritized donor acquisition and 44% prioritized donor retention. Those are survey-context figures, not estimates of all nonprofits, but they illustrate why a campaign for first gifts should sit alongside a plan for keeping supporters engaged.
Measure what happened and improve the next campaign
15. Compare results with the goal
After the deadline, compare the outcome with the target you set. Review which channels and messages led to the intended action, and use the results to adjust the next campaign. Track more than first gifts when appropriate: follow-up engagement can show whether acquisition is developing into an ongoing relationship. Salesforce frames nonprofit marketing as a repeatable cycle of setting goals, understanding the audience, creating and sharing a message, learning from results, and refining the next effort.
Choose tools around actual needs
If you consider donor or email software, start with the work your team needs to do: maintain donor records, segment audiences, automate messages, process donations, report results, and support accessible giving. Compare support and total cost as well as features. The sources cited here discuss these functional considerations but do not establish that any particular vendor is the right choice.
Quick Recap
Sources and context
- Salesforce, “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide”, on planning, channel selection, donation paths, accessibility, and measurement.
- Salesforce, “The Nonprofit Donor Engagement Guide”, on donor relationships, segmentation, transparency, and communication beyond asks.
- HubSpot, “5 Keys to Building Your Nonprofit Marketing Plan,” updated April 18, 2024, on nonprofit marketing and planning.
- Feathr, “The State of Nonprofit Marketing: 2024 Edition”, on respondents’ reported marketing priorities.
- The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Attracting Monthly Donors and Keeping Them,” June 4, 2025, on monthly giving and donor retention. Its report of a sustainer-retention comparison is secondary reporting of a study, not a universal benchmark.
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