1. Know your non-profit backwards and forwards

If your non-profit has been doing its work properly, there is plenty of information available about what it seeks to accomplish, who will accomplish this, and how it will be accomplished! The more information you command about your organization and the more specifically it has defined its goals, the better. Once you have your mission in sight, you are in a better place to focus all your efforts on that target!

2. Know your target demographic

A commercial business needs to understand who its customer is, how it can reach this customer, and how to give this customer what it wants—things are no different for a non-profit! What do your patrons want? Why are they interested in or involved with your organization? Where can they be found? What sources are most likely to reach them? It is essential that you understand the answers to these questions in order to expand your patron base and maximize funding for your goals!

3. Research all the latest marketing strategies

A non-profit exists to serve altruistic purposes, but it still needs to utilize all the moneymaking and marketing tricks used by big business. For a minimum investment that leads to superlative returns, I would suggest our non profit marketing course. It covers all the latest marketing tactics your non profit can use to maximize its online fundraising. More funds will allow you to expand your non profit quickly so you can do more good!

4. Create a budget

Whatever your non-profit hopes to achieve, you need to understand how much money you have to work with and how much money you need in order to move forward! Creating a budget is one of the most important tasks in your marketing plan! Whether you need to spread the news about an event or to offer a service to the community, your organization needs funds to get the mission accomplished! Of course, marketing isn’t the sole purpose of your non-profit, so you want the largest portion of your budget devoted to your mission—advertising and marketing costs are a necessary expenditure that moves you towards achieving your objective.

5. Create steps and take action to execute your plan properly

Once the previous steps are in place, you should be ready to outline exactly HOW your non-profit will proceed! Focus on the purpose of your organization and decide the key points of your plan of action! Layout the method that you will use for your output—whether that means providing food and shelter to those in need or offering free art classes to at-risk children—and then formulate a strategy to provide the necessary financial input, through donations and fundraisers.

Please check out our non profit marketing eBook for more great tips.

If your website is badly designed, hard to navigate and lacking important elements, you will find it much hard to reach your maximum potential. The web has plenty rewards to offer non profits who take the time to create exceptional websites and by doing so you can help ensure long-term success, which means you can do more good for your cause.

Below is collection of well-designed non profit websites that will hopefully inspire anyone looking to freshen up their organization’s online presence!

Non Profit Web Design Inspiration

www.hopeunlimited.org

www.oaklandnatives.com

www.childrensheartassociation.org

www.digital-equality.org

www.oceanfutures.org

www.oceanconservancy.org

www.oxfam.org

www.stopchildlabour.eu

www.encompassinstitute.org

www.rednoseday.com

ww.keepmemoryalive.org

www.strength.org

www.wkkf.org

www.cct.org

www.fourwaystospeakout.com

www.cityharvest.org

www.sixdegrees.org

www.learntobe.org

www.helpindyonline.com

www.helpjamaica.org

www.nwf.org

www.smallcanbebig.org

www.care2.com

givemn.razoo.com

www.memphiszoo.org

wisergirls.org

www.housingworks.org

www.globalonenessproject.org

www.plantwithpurpose.org

www.cupscalgary.com

Put a face to donations

The World Vision online donation website is an excellent example! We are all aware of events that occur or situations that need our attention and our financial contribution, but there is more satisfaction in feeling that our donation is making an actual difference in the lives of individuals!

Not all supporters are able to donate their time or to hand out supplies directly; use your website to provide convenience without sacrificing intimacy. It’s good to know that your $16 bought basketballs for underprivileged American children or to know that your $32 donation financed one year of a child’s education in Rwanda.

Giving a face to a circumstance makes it more difficult to postpone our contribution (if you know those kids are waiting for drinking water, are you really going to wait until NEXT month to give $10?), and makes us more likely to donate more generously. I don’t want to say that guilt will play a role when we see pictures of starving children, but sometimes it’s good to be reminded that other people desperately need things that we forget to value or to discover that we could buy safe drinking water for an entire village with the amount that we overpay for coffee . . .

Accept multiple payment options

Convenience for your donors will increase your donations. We’ve moved beyond the days of waiting for the telethon and mailing a check or “phoning in now with your credit card handy.” The Internet is a miraculous way of reaching your target patrons and giving them every possible opportunity to contribute! Accepting multiple payment options is mutually beneficial. Credit cards, debit cards, personal checks (for those so inclined), PayPal, and direct debit are all options that might suit your supporters.

Direct debit, in particular, would be tremendously convenient for contributors and highly beneficial for your organization; your supporters would have the option to schedule regular contributions of any amount they choose, and to have that donation automatically withdrawn from their account on whatever schedule they prefer. Nothing could be better or easier!

Allow multiple types of donations

As much as people want to give, the easier we make it, the better! In all honesty, I’ve personally seen plenty of examples (my Alma Mater comes to mind) where I was asked to donate at a MINIMUM that was, shamefully, beyond my means! It’s not the best feeling when someone suggests that you could “at least” donate $300 to the poor, starving, university students, when you yourself are a poor, starving university graduate. (I don’t want to say that you shouldn’t—I just want to say that I most certainly could not at that time . . .) Situations like this one are completely unnecessary with online donation sites that accept multiple payment options.

Donors have the opportunity to contribute at whatever level feels appropriate for them; it can be offensive to have someone suggest a price-range for you. There’s a danger in over-gauging your donor’s enthusiasm or giving the impression that you don’t want their grossly inadequate $10! (I can imagine this going both ways—if I’d previously donated a new dormitory, I’d probably resent being asked to give a $20!)

Not to mention, maybe I COULD swing $25 a month and it would add up to that $300 anyway. The bottom line—allowing multiple types of donations (one time, monthly, quarterly, recurring, custom) is HIGHLY convenient for donors; this translates into more donations for your organization. Be sure to also allow visitors to enter in a custom donation amount.

Please check out our non profit marketing eBook for more great tips.