Setting up Fundraisers for Success
Lesson 3
Watch and listen to a recording with slides, or read the full text below. NOTE: Some pieces of the video content may be outdated. Rely on the text below for the most up-to-date content.
Spend plenty of time supporting your team of fundraisers! Make it a personal experience for them to reach out and tell their stories.
Sammie Ablaza Wills
APIENC, Leaderboard Winner
Once you’ve done the hard work of recruiting fundraisers for your campaign, it’s critical you support your fundraisers by providing the resources, reminders, and motivation to keep up their important work. Here’s how you can support fundraisers easily and effectively.
Fundraiser Templates
When someone goes to create a fundraiser for your organization, they’re met with a blank page where they must describe why their networks should contribute to their campaign. But the page doesn’t have to be blank to start! To create a fundraiser template that would replace this blank page, on your dashboard under “Fundraising Tools,” select “Fundraiser Templates” and "Create."
In this template, every field of which is optional, you have the opportunity to guide your fundraisers toward creating the most effective fundraising pages by suggesting a fundraiser title, goal, image, and more. Use the following template for creating your own fundraiser template.
Template: Fundraiser Template
Fundraiser Title: [Mark’s] Give OUT Day Fundraiser for [LGBTQ Organization]
Funding Goal: $300
Fundraiser Image: 770 x 570
Duration: Campaign End Date: May 30 (Give OUT Day)
Short Story: Helping [LGBTQ Organization] [to provide hotline calls for LGBTQ youth] for Give OUT Day
Story:
I’m raising money for [LGBTQ Organization], an organization [that runs a crisis hotline for LGBTQ youth]. [LGBTQ Organization is trying to raise $5,000 to fund 1,000 calls with local youth seeking support.]
It would mean a lot to me if you made a donation, because [I myself have benefitted from their hotline. It made a big impact on me when I needed support].
I’m doing this as part of Give OUT Day, a month-long fundraising campaign culminating on May 30, the only national day of giving for the LGBTQ community. Give OUT Day is May 30, and donations during the month of May count toward my goal. [LGBTQ Organization] could earn thousands in additional prize money if they get the most donors!
Thank you so much for your support!
Fundraiser Toolkit
When someone creates a fundraising page for your organization, ideally using the template you’ve created, they are taking the first step in their peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. Now, the fundraiser must reach out to their networks and ask them to make contributions to their page, which can be a daunting task.
That’s why we’ve created a toolkit that you can share with your fundraisers that outlines the steps of a successful fundraiser, including outreach templates and tips. We’ve created this file as Word documents, so that you can easily edit it and adapt it to your organization’s campaign.
It is a good time to share the toolkit when you're recruiting fundraisers, because the toolkit may ease their concerns about participating as a fundraiser: Much of the work is already done for them!
Download: Fundraiser Toolkit
Fundraiser Communication
Equipped with a fundraising page and a toolkit with tips and templates, your fundraisers are well on their way to raising funds for your Give OUT Day campaign. But it will be critical for you to maintain regular communication with your fundraisers to ensure they feel prepared and motivated.
Since you will receive an email each time someone creates a fundraiser for your organization, you’ll immediately know their name and email address: You can download all the email addresses of your fundraisers by navigating in your dashboard under “Fundraising” to “Campaigns” and clicking “Download” in the upper-right corner. On that same page, you can also find each individual fundraiser’s email by clicking the three vertical dots next to each fundraiser entry.
We recommend sending every new fundraiser an email as soon as possible thanking them for starting a fundraiser, making sure they have the toolkit, and cheering them on. Then, send them regular communications with motivational reminders to keep their fundraisers going. You can also message fundraisers when they reach certain milestones (e.g. first donation, halfway to their goal). Remember that you can easily navigate to individual fundraiser pages from the “Campaigns” page to see their progress. You want your fundraisers to feel celebrated and inspired!
Ask your fundraisers to share and share and share to leverage their reach.
Liz Nolan
JASMYN, Inc.
Sample Fundraiser Communications Calendar
When | Message |
|---|---|
Upon sign up to become fundraiser | Fundraiser welcome |
May 1 | Giving starts today |
Mid-May | Fundraiser encouragement |
May 30 | Fundraiser last day |
June 1 | Fundraiser thank you |
Template: Fundraiser Welcome Email
Subject: Welcome!
I saw you recently signed up as a fundraiser for our Give OUT Day campaign. First, thank you so much for your support! Encouraging your networks to give to your fundraising page in support of [LGBTQ Organization] will have an incredible impact on our work.
Please let me know how I can support you in your fundraiser. If you haven’t seen it already, check our this Fundraiser Toolkit [insert link], which includes all you need to know to reach out to your networks and raise funds. Remember, every donor during the month of May helps us win thousands in prize money, so your fundraiser can have a huge impact.
Thank you again for your support!
Template: Giving Starts Today Email
Subject: It starts today!
Thank you again for signing up as a fundraiser for our Give OUT Day campaign. This means to so much to our organization!
I wanted to let you know that today is the official launch of the campaign. That means every donor from now until May 30, Give OUT Day, counts toward the prizes!
It would be incredible if you started reaching out to your networks today, if you haven’t already. That fundraiser toolkit [insert link] I shared before includes an outreach template. I hope you find it helpful.
You’re the best, have a wonderful day!
Template: Fundraiser Encouragement Email
Subject: Way to go! How can I help?
Our Give OUT Day campaign is half over! Thank you again for creating a fundraiser and any work you’ve done so far toward your goal supporting [LGBTQ Organization]! We so appreciate that you decided to take on this important work.
Every dollar you raise brings us closer to our goal and advances our critical work [supporting LGBTQ youth.] Not to mention we could win thousands in prizes!
I’ll be cheering you on the rest of the month! Let me know if I can be helpful at all.
P.S. If you haven’t already, would you consider sharing your fundraiser link on social media and texting it to a few close friends? Thank you!
Template: Fundraiser Last Day Email
Subject: Today's the day!
Today’s the day! It’s Give OUT Day! That means it’s the last day for folks to give and for donations to count toward the prizes.
Up until today, we haven’t been able to see how we rank on the Leaderboards, which determine the major prizes. But now we can see the rankings on the Give OUT Day homepage, and the competition is stiff!
Will you do one last push to your network asking them to contribute to your fundraiser? I know as a community we have what it takes to win these prizes – and the impact on [LGBTQ Organization] will be tremendous. [Every $10 funds one call to LGBTQ youth seeking support!]
Template: Fundraiser Thank You Email
Subject: THANK YOU!
Wow, what a day! Yesterday, Give OUT Day was the conclusion of a month-long campaign – and what a day it was!
Because of the work of fundraisers like you, we raised [Amount] from [Number of donors] unique donors! [If you won a prize, indicate it here.] It’s fundraisers like you who are most critical to our Give OUT Day success. We simply couldn’t do it without you!
This means so much to [LGBTQ Organization]. It means we’ll be able to [describe impact of funds raised in relation to campaign purpose]. And it means we’ll be one step closer to advancing the vision we all share.
From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your support!