Donation Campaign Ideas for Small Nonprofits

Introduction

Donation Campaigns are a critical but often under-utilized funding source for small nonprofits, booster clubs and PTOs. In many cases, organizations may set up a single evergreen donation campaign and just leave it to… exist. This set it and forget it “strategy” does capture some random donations, but in general they don’t consistently work well for small organizations. Part of this is small nonprofits have small traffic by nature, and the other reason is that without continual refreshing, any campaign gets stale.

So how does a small organization better utilize donation campaigns? The best way to solve this, is to break down the process of developing donation campaign ideas, which can then be translated into a donation campaign strategy!  Once you have a strategy, you can start using a FREE online donation tool like Booostr Donation Campaign Manager to set up your campaigns. Let’s start by breaking down the different types of donation campaigns.

Types of Donation Campaigns

Online vs. Offline Donation Campaigns

Organizing campaigns by channel is a great way to think of new donation campaign ideas. Your donation campaign could be online only, in-person only OR have both an online and in-person component to it. Understanding the channel(s) your donation campaign ideas will live on also encourages proper planning.

Evergreen Donation Campaigns

Evergreen donation campaigns are campaigns that have no set end date. It is an ongoing, usually general donation campaign. It is a good practice to always have an Evergreen Donation Campaign running for your small nonprofit, booster club or PTO.

Cyclical Donation Campaigns

These are donation campaigns that happen on a regular cycle. It could be annually, quarterly, monthly or perhaps even weekly (though weekly would be a little hectic 😊). These generally have a regular theme, like our Annual Giving Campaign. Because these happen on a regular schedule (typically annually or quarterly), they serve as great “tent poles” for your organization’s overall donation campaign strategy. These campaigns usually last a little longer around 1-3 months depending on the donation campaign idea.

One-Off Donation Campaigns

A single campaign that happens one time and never recurs, is normally referred to as a one-off campaign. These are pretty common and usually focus around a point in time related to a person, place or thing.  A good example would be disaster relief campaigns.

Partnership Donation Campaigns

Partnership Donation Campaigns are campaigns organized with a specific partner. It could be another nonprofit or a local business. The two or more entities work together to raise the funds, instead of your small nonprofit, booster club or PTO promoting the campaign on it’s own. These donation campaigns can be some of the best performing with the right partnerships.

Matching Donation Campaigns

Similar to partner campaigns, we split off Matching Donation Campaigns as it’s own type because this requires a fiscal partner that is willing to match the donations raised. Typically with matching campaigns there is a top level cap on the matching funds.  So for instance the fiscal partner might match the first $1000 of a $5000 raise.  This means your organization would only have to raise $4000 out of the $5000 since the fiscal partner is matching the first $1000 in donations. One thing to keep in mind when talking to fiscal sponsors, they can also change the match amount – it does not have to be a 1 to 1 match, it could be a 2x match meaning that they would provide $2000 for the first $1000 raised. These donation campaigns are incredibly powerful if your organization has a solid reach.

Viral Donation Campaigns

Finally the last category of donation campaigns are Viral Donation Campaigns. Technically any donation campaign could go viral, but in most cases it really takes a wild, crazy or just unique donation concept for a viral campaign to go viral. Think of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. We separated this campaign type, because to even attempt to go viral, the donation campaign idea requires quite a bit of thought and planning.

Coming Up with New Donation Campaign Ideas

Understanding how many different types of donation campaigns exist, really helps the thinking process of coming up with new Donation Campaign Ideas.  Using the categories of Donation Campaigns, one way to start is to think of a single donation campaign idea for each type of donation category. At this stage, anything as far as ideas goes, as it is better to add as many ideas as possible. Of course, if an idea is completely unrealistic, you may want to leave it off.

One additional thing to consider, is that every type of Donation Campaign listed here may not fit your nonprofit, booster club or PTO.  For instance it might not make sense to do a Matching Donation Campaign or a Partnership Campaign.  That’s fine, the real goal of the list is to give a different perspective of Donation Campaigns to spur some brainstorming. 😊

Examples of Donation Campaign Ideas

To help get you started, we thought it would be helpful to come up with some Donation Campaign ideas based on our breakdown above. Feel free to use any of these donation campaign ideas for your own Booostr Donation Campaigns.   For Online vs. In-Person Campaigns, we will simply designate if they are online, in-person or both.

Here are a few Evergreen Donation Campaign Ideas:
(Online/In-Person/Both)

1. Become a Member Donation Campaign – Make every donor a “member” with potential perks
2. Every Dollar Helps Campaign – focus on small donations and letting people know how it all helps.
3. Community Support Campaign – focus on the community supporting the organization.

Here are some Cyclical Donation Campaign Ideas:
(Online/In-Person/Both)

1. End of Year Giving Campaign – focus on tax deductible giving
2. Holiday Campaign – Holiday themed campaign instead of an end of year campaign
3. Spring Fling Campaign – General season campaign held in the Spring months.
4. Summer Campaign – General season campaign held in the Summer months.
5. Fall Campaign – General season campaign held in the Fall months.
6. Winter Campaign – General season campaign held in the Winter months.
7. Sports/Activity Campaign – great for booster clubs that support multiple activities.

Here are a couple of One-Off Donation Campaign Ideas:
(Online/In-Person/Both)

1. Equipment Campaign – A campaign to raise funds for purchasing equipment
2. One Time Event Campaign – A campaign leading up to a one-time event or after a one time event to support those impacted

Here are a few Partnership Donation Campaign Ideas.
(Online/In-Person/Both)

1. Local Business Partnership – Identify local businesses that could benefit from the promotion
2. Local Nonprofit Partnership – Focus on nonprofit that is adjacent to your organization mission

Here are some Matching Donation Campaign Ideas
(Online/In-Person/Both)

1. Local Business Matching Partner – Identify local businesses that could benefit from the promotion
2. Multiple Local Business Matching partners – Identify multiple small businesses to match different tiers.
3. Regional/National Brand Matching Partners – Connect with larger companies that your activity or nonprofit may already work with in relation to your mission.
4. Foundation Matching Partners – Find local, regional and national foundations that would match a donation campaign.
5. High Net Worth Individual Matching Partners – Identify local or possible alumni that have a high net worth and would be a matching donation partner.

Here are a few Viral Donation Campaign Ideas.
(online)

1. Balance an object on your head – the longer they balance the more that is donated.
2. Chewing Gum Bubble Blowing Contest – the larger the bubble the more donated.
3. Push Ups Contest – The more push ups completed within a set time the more donated.
4. Pull Ups Contest – The more pull ups completed within a set time the more donated.
5. Paper Airplane Contest – Single sheet of paper, the longer it stays in the air the more donated.

Donation campaigns do not have to be boring, stagnate and/or random.  In addition to understanding the different types of donation campaigns, taking the time to come up with great donation campaign ideas is critical to the success and continued interest in your organization’s donation campaigns. In fact, when a small nonprofit, booster club or PTO focuses on creating a year-round donation campaign strategy with multiple types of donation campaigns, they can see an incredible lift in donation funding.

When your small nonprofit, booster club or PTO is ready to  set up your online donation campaigns, Booostr is here to help. Booostr Donation Campaign Manager tool is an easy to use, yet powerful online donation solution. Not only is it FREE to use, every campaign comes with a landing page, embed code and QR code to make it easier to share. Furthermore, Booostr takes 0% of any donations that flow through your campaigns on Booostr Donation Campaign Manager!  Get your FREE Booostr account set up today and start your first Donation Campaign in 3 simple steps!