Planning your fundraising strategy is the best way to set yourself up for success.

Fundraising with YouHelp is free to use and easy to create but the effort can’t stop there. Campaign creators must reach, engage, and inspire potential donors to give their maximum contribution amount.

A fundraising plan will tell you “what you will be doing & how you will reach your fundraising goal”

A fundraising strategy will be the “action of applying ideas, knowledge, and resources.” In other words, your strategy is a strategic and focused plan.

Here are six strategy plans that have been tested and proven to work.

Before starting, our first piece of advice would be to build a TEAM. Why go at this alone? Reach out to supporters, build a team, and then ATTACK this list.

1) Modern Day Telethon

Let’s face it, “TGIF” cable TV has been replaced by “Netflix and Chill.” Even when a viewer is watching TV it is likely their phone is in their hand scrolling Facebook or Instagram. This new development in entertainment is horrible for cable affiliates but great for you!

Want to host a modern-day fundraising telethon?

Plan of Action:

1. Set a date to go live on Facebook.
2. Schedule featured callers. The more callers the better. Try to invite experts and well-known influential members of the community,
3. Advertise your Facebook Live date. Creating a Facebook Event with the list of the scheduled callers and topics is a great way to advertise. Make sure everyone involved invites their Facebook friends to the event.
4. Set up a Zoom call and communicate directions to your participants.
5. On your scheduled date and time share the Zoom link to Facebook Live. In this post, you will also want to include the link to your YouHelp fundraiser. Make sure that everyone involved shares the live feed. Posting the feed to various pages and groups will also work well. Facebook also has the “Start a Watch Party” feature and this works great for inviting people to tune in.

2) Don’t Forget to Share Your “Fundraiser Pitch”

Reminding people to share your campaign is a great technique for expanding your audience. The more people you reach, the more likely you are to receive more donations.

Don’t forget, the point of a campaign is to raise funding but you are also creating awareness & advertising your cause.

Your fundraiser pitch could sound something like this:

“Raising money for this cause is extremely important to me. Any donation amount will be greatly appreciated and won’t be forgotten. If you are unable to give I understand but sharing is FREE so please click the share button in support.”

Develop this and make it into your own heartfelt statement.

Plan of Action:

1. Finalize your “fundraiser pitch.”
2. Create a text message that includes your fundraiser pitch and the link to your campaign. Copy, paste and send it out to as many people as possible.
3. Create an email that includes your fundraiser pitch and the link to your campaign. BCC or CC all of your contacts and send out your email.
4. Share on all social media accounts. If you don’t have social media accounts you should create accounts and work on building a following.

3) Donation Incentives

Creating donation incentives is a great way to maximize donation amounts. If a donor is planning on giving a certain amount, but then they notice a gift if they give a larger amount, they will be that much more inclined to give more.

Plan of Action:

1. Brainstorm incentive ideas. Try to keep these ideas cost-free. There is also the possibility of making a purchase after donations are received.
2. Add the details about the donation incentives to your campaign details.
3. Advertise the donation incentives with pictures & videos to social media.
4. Take pictures and videos giving the gifts to the donors. If you are not hand-delivering, ask them to take pictures or videos and post them to social media.

Advertising donation incentives is a great way to market your campaign. Here is a great example of a YouHelp fundraiser advertising with donation incentives.

4) Contact Your Local News

You’d be surprised how easy it is to find your local news station’s contact information. They may or may not be interested in your story but it’s definitely worth a shot.

Plan of Action:

1. Search the internet for contact names, emails, and numbers to your local news outlets.
2. Create a press release or email and send it to your contacts. You can find the YouHelp template by logging into your account and visiting the Tips & Templates section.
3. Make follow up phone calls 24-48 hours after the press release is sent.
4. If you receive no response try again the next day.

5) Direct Contact

Who do you know that has always supported you? Family members, friends, and colleagues are going to be your prime candidates to give you that large donation.

Don’t let them just see your share on Facebook. Pick up the phone and give them a call.

Plan of Action:

1. Brainstorm your list of contacts. Candidates to consider when creating this list are people you are close with, people who have money, people who have supported you in the past, and people that will care about your cause because of personal experience.
2. Break this list into text, call, or social media contacts. In other words, you should give your family member a call and maybe send an acquaintance a text.
3. Pick up the phone and make calls. Send everyone the link via social media and text and then make the follow-up calls if there is no donation or response.

6) Selfie Video

Creating an image with the fundraiser link is a great idea but nothing compares to your audience being able to look you in the eyes and hear you speak your story.

This can be done in a professional recorded video setting or phone in hand selfie-style.

1. Outline your speech.
2. Practice what you’re going to say.
3. Set up the right background and use the best camera or camera phone you have access to.
4. Upload the video to all social media outlets. Don’t forget to include the YouHelp campaign link in the post and tag people.
5. Share in social media groups and anywhere else you can post the video.

YouHelp is a free fundraising tool that was created for people, businesses, and organizations to raise money while they apply for grant funding.

Every YouHelp campaign comes with free live support and 30 days of tips and templates. We enjoy speaking with our fundraising campaign creators so pick up the phone and give us a call, 1(888) 240-1494!