The promptness with which you can raise funds for your project or other needs will be determined by the steps you take toward your campaign. Non-profit organizations like churches may even find it somewhat challenging to raise funds in a short period of time. So, if you intend to raise funds for your church, you should consider following the five steps highlighted in this article.
1. Creation of a Donation Form
You can look to take your fundraising up a notch by incorporating some innovative measures and doing things differently. Beyond limiting yourself to a set of donation boxes around the corners, you can easily create a donation form for your church online. This form is primarily used to collect data or information about a donor’s details, and the number of funds he/she will be putting in.
Nevertheless, you can make the form more personalized by stating your needs and the motive behind the fundraising campaign. By this, you can have members and non-members of your church donate without paying a visit to the church’s building. You can drop the link to the form right under the message communicating your fundraising needs on social media or email.
2. Leverage Text-to-give Option
The text-to-give option is a fast-growing and highly effective means of raising funds for your church. The success of this fundraising strategy is hinged on the vast use of mobile phones. To get this done, you must subscribe to a text-to-give platform that appropriately addresses your needs. There are quite a few of these platforms, but Donorbox currently has a tremendous edge over the rest – it’s about the most efficient.
Upon subscribing to the text-to-give platform, the mobile carrier will provide you with a unique mobile phone number that the donors will send their donations.
Additionally, you can create some code that defines your project – for example, “ChurchRaise.” Once all this is done, you should pass the message to the congregants, guiding them on how to go about texting to give. You can have the code and phone number displayed at a central/strategic spot in or around the church for people to see.
Your social media channels can also increase awareness about your text-to-give fundraising details. You can share the mission/objective of the campaign and the integrated giving option with friends, families, and other social media users. You can anticipate a marked percentage increase in donations you will receive after adopting this strategy.
3. Design Fundraiser Envelopes
We cannot also rule out some good old strategies like the use of specially designed fundraiser envelopes. You can prepare these envelopes and distribute them to your church members on meeting days.
Besides, it would be great if you consider urging members to pick one or more envelope(s) for others who can donate to the cause. The distribution of envelopes should be thoughtfully and tactically done to put waste in check. You should include a leaflet conveying the message about the fundraising goal to those who are not regular members of your church.
Interestingly, your text-to-give number can also be printed on the envelope or leaflet to give prospective options and even brighten your chances of raking in more funds. One thing you must not leave off the fundraiser envelope is the address [of the location] to which you want them to deliver the donation.
4. Host an Award Night
An award night will present a great avenue to pull some crowd together. It could give you a springboard to launch your fundraising campaign. You can choose to recognize and appreciate the contributions of your church members and some other dignitaries towards community growth and development on this occasion. You should be mindful not to hide under the cover of “award night”.
From the get-go, the message must be clear that it is a fundraising event. This will prepare the mind of the attendees and also place you in good light. You should be ready to tell the story about your mission and the projections you are having, especially concerning how the funds will be utilized.
You should use social media channels to create buzz about the awards night. More so, you may make it an ‘entry by ticket’ event whereby you can generate some funds through ticket sales.
5. Organize Charity Auctions
Another quick way to raise funds for your church is through charity auctions. You can contact some of your church members, other churches, businesses, and so on to kindly request the auction items. Once you have these items in place, you can start extending invitations to individuals who would have to participate in the charity auction.
Besides, the gates may be flung open to allow interested attendees to come around – but this will only be possible if you have initially put out words (advertisements) on the event. More importantly, you should engage the services of a professional auctioneer to oversee the whole event.
Again, donation boxes can be strategically placed at the venue’s entrance. This helps you to maximize the opportunity presented by the event. It may also interest you to know that you can wholly or partially do your charity auction online.
Adopting donation management software can significantly aid your fundraising campaign a great deal – irrespective of the other steps you take. With such software, you can commendably manage the donations and remain better connected to donors with high giving tendencies. You can check out what Donorbox has got in this regard.
Conclusion
You can promptly address your church’s lack of funds by taking the proper steps toward a successful fundraising campaign. The good thing is that nothing stops you from employing more than one means of raising funds.
Leveraging the different methods can bring about a massive impact with expectations met – or even exceeded – in no time. Nevertheless, you should always have a solid plan and keep the cost of planning or initiating the fundraiser within a manageable range. It would be somewhat self-defeating to accrue unnecessary expenditure while doing a fundraising campaign.
