Jay Love, the co-founder of Bloomerag, shared his insight of the best ways to find new donors. With 30+ years in the nonprofit software sector here are 5 great tips for finding new donors to support your organization.

  1. Use the many people who already support you to gain new donors. You most certainly have a strong advocate network – that means you have volunteers, donors, and friends who are passionate about ensuring that the mission of a nonprofit organization is successful. Request that staff members and volunteers help you promote the nonprofit you support to family and friends. If there are people who would love to donate to your cause, give a gift to them (such as a t-shirt) encouraging them to do this. You can reward volunteers for bringing a guest to a fundraiser or give t-shirts to people whose friends attend a fundraiser.
  2. If someone is interested in supporting your cause, offer to host a Get to Know You event for them. Those opportunities include walking a tour of one of our facilities, hearing a speaker, or even just getting to know each other. This is an opportunity for donors to learn more details on how to support you, the mission of the organization, how to partner with you on activities, and how they can help. Do follow-up interviews via email with people you meet at fundraising events to learn what kind of new donors you have and what new fundraising opportunities you have available for future donors.
  3. Leverage multiple social media to reach new donors more easily. You need to be active on a variety of different platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Do not become overwhelmed by trying to connect with a bunch of new people on several social networks at the same time. Be specific: Learn what your ideal donor looks like, and then search for them on the different networks that they use. In order to prevent the overwhelm that comes with posting to social media regularly, put together a content schedule. Plan out a specific time each week to post content on various social networks, and then, ask that staff and volunteers also re-post to help you reach more people. Engaging with current supporters is as simple as responding to what prospects ask you, sharing photos and videos that show you responding to what others have posted.
  4. Create a list of prospective new supporters by looking at the support they have given to similar organizations. Check out the donors who have supported other nonprofit organizations and identify potential donors from what you see. Who are some of the constituents these other organizations are reaching out to? Maybe they would be a great fit to be a donor with your organization as well. Search publicly available donor lists to find out who is on their lists. Organize a meeting with those who may have connections to those on your list. If you happen to know someone who belongs to one of those lists, encourage him or her to tell others about your organization. Likewise, offer them the opportunity to come to one of your events or to receive your newsletter.
  5. Research, research, research. Prospective donor research is very useful to identify potential donors and find out what your organization could do to help make an impact. Take advantage of both the resources available within and outside of your organization to find donors whom you can trust and whom you believe would be able to give a monetary donation if you asked them to. Check the donor lists of other organizations to see who they are in the target donor pool. You can do this by visiting these other organizations and finding out how they help others. It would also be helpful to identify donors whose assets show they have great financial stability. One indicator of this may be that they might have given a significant donation to other charities. Once you identify this list begin to reach out to see who would be interested in partnering in accomplishing your organization’s mission.

MyDonors is a great donor management platform with a cost-effective and scalable financial model to meet the needs of a nonprofit organization of any size. To find out more information about MyDonors, visit mycommunity.info.

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Source: https://bloomerang.co/blog/10-ways-to-find-new-donors-for-your-nonprofit-organization/