In this article, we’ll highlight the top three ways to raise money for charity, a platform that simplifies charity fundraising, and best practice tips to bolster your fundraising success.
Sell Event Tickets Online
Create Seasonality
Spread the Word
Charity Fundraising Tips
1) Sell Charity Fundraising Event Tickets Online
When you’re firing on all cylinders, and your social media team is pumping out that message 24/7, but it’s still not enough – that’s when it’s time to give your audience a reason to become emotionally invested in your cause. How?
Give them a meaningful experience. One that taps into their wants, needs, and desires. One that makes them feel good about helping you.
- Host a charity fundraising event and offer incentives (freebies, upgrades, VIP options).
- Allow your partners to promote their products, services, or business at your event. (This is a sure winner when you partner with food or beverage companies).
- Partner with small, independently owned organizations to show you’re invested in the community.
Ticketstripe has been working closely with charities for years, tailoring tools to help you get more out of your charity fundraising events.
- Customize your event page with a logo, background colors, event image, and custom message so it’s instantly recognizable to your donors and attendees. Create emotional content that really pulls your audience in, tugs at their heartstrings, and makes them feel good about giving. Emotional content that strikes a chord with your readers will not only invite them to the conversation but also encourage them to stay, become loyal supporters, and share your story with their networks. And when your patrons share your story in their own words, that creates a web of new supporters willing to give and share.
- Enjoy discounted service fees that can be passed on to the buyer or absorbed, saving you hundreds or thousands of dollars on each event.
- Create multiple and unlimited tickets for free. This is an amazing way to raise money for charity because you can get creative with your fundraising, creating opportunities for a variety of attendees, including a pay-what-you-wish ticket.
- Raffle Tickets – People love raffles. They’re fun and exciting and give us a chance to win! Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter what we win. You can mix it up and do reverse raffles or silent raffles. Just keep in mind that local gambling laws and regulations may prohibit raffles, so check first.
- VIP tickets – These pricier variants let you create a sense of expectation and exclusivity. Giving perks for purchasing higher-priced tickets will increase your bottom line. Note the VIP perks don’t even have to cost you a dime. It can include early access and an after-hours party.
- Ticket Bundles – Allow sponsors or large donors to purchase in volume and share tickets with their employees, family, and friends while you effortlessly capture contact information for each ticket holder —essential for growing that list!
- Mix and match donations. Create a variety of donation types to welcome all donors: flexible (pay-what-you-want), suggested, and tiered. You can even include admission with donations.
2) Create Seasonality
Most people think the Holiday Season is the season of giving. Not only are November and December when your charity fundraising will face the most competition, you’re forgetting about the other ten months of the year.
Instead, tie your fundraising efforts to other iconic days or weeks during the year. Good “anchor days” for charity fundraising events include:
- Earth Day
- World Homeless Day
- International Day of Charity
- Random Acts of Kindness Day
- Forest Week
- World Mental Health Day
- Human Rights Day
With Ticketstripe, you can create limited-time ticket tiers only available during specified times. This is a great way to raise money for your charity year long as it creates urgency and entices donors to act now.
3) Spread the Word
How can Ticketstripe help you reach your donors?
- Custom URLs
- Snail Mail – Create flyers, postcards, or one-sheet handouts to mail, hand deliver, or post around town for your event. Slap on a QR code that creates a quick and easy interface to send viewers directly to your event URL. Or/and include your personalized, easy-to-remember custom URL, i.e., Ticketstripe.com/AnimalRescue2024.
- Social Media & Email – Our customizable URLs are easily shareable across all social media platforms and direct all of that digital traffic right to your event page.
- Collecting Emails – Automatically collect email addresses of buyers when they purchase tickets or donate and add them to your marketing and outreach lists.
- Peer-to-Peer – Invite your supporters to help you raise money. Every charity has a core group of people who believe in your cause. Offer incentives encouraging them to spread the word to their contacts and look for ways to support their endeavors. Ticketstripe’s Promoter tool lets you invite each supporter straight from your dashboard. Multiply your reach and donations while tracking each promoter’s contribution.
5 Tips for Successful Charity Fundraising
1. Set Clear Fundraising Goals
Choosing the right approach is easy if you have a clear end goal. Individual donations may be the best source of funding for your organization if you only need a few hundred dollars to fix some equipment or freshen up some property. However, if you’re aspirations include a mission trip abroad or revamping a dilapidated community center, then appealing to major sponsors would help you reach your goal more quickly.
Ticketstripe facilitates both strategies, enabling you to list unlimited tickets and donation levels on your event page.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
Your most charitable audience will be determined by the type of nonprofit organization you represent. Churches find donors within the faithful. Charitable organizations depend on philanthropic neighbors. Community outreach programs often rely on businesses and other civic-minded organizations like schools, shelters, and food pantries.
These target groups will likely be some of your biggest supporters. But don’t think of them simply as marks to be milked. They’re also an extremely valuable resource. Meet with the leaders of these groups. Pick their brains. Ask them about fundraisers they’ve held, organizations they’ve relied upon, and who they’ve gotten solid donations from in the past.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have revolutionized how companies and individuals interact. Take the time to learn how these tools can supercharge your charity fundraising efforts and connect you with resources you didn’t even know existed. You’ll open doors to new and vibrant artists, marketing teams, and vendors eager to collaborate with your charity fundraising efforts.
3. Share Your Charity’s Mission
An emotional connection is powerful. Our emotions dictate our experiences as we move through life. Creating a positive emotional connection is essential for the success of any charity fundraising event.
Collaborators and donors alike want to feel good about partnering with your organization and giving charitably to it. That’s why you need to put your nonprofit’s mission at the forefront of all your public-facing outlets. That means social media, marketing materials, event flyers, and especially face-to-face interactions.
The old adage that “people buy from people, not companies” applies to charity fundraising, too. People give to people, not organizations.
Don’t rely on “spray-and-pray” marketing. Get personal. Get interactive. Clear, straightforward, and visceral engagement can elicit a powerful reaction, contributing to a meaningful experience.
- Host open house events.
- Give guided tours.
- Get your team members into high-profile positions at events like local festivals or fairs, church services and events, business after-hours events, or other community networking opportunities.
- Respond quickly to any questions.
Most importantly, be thoughtful.
4. Create a List
Your list is a database of contact information for people who have interacted with your organization. For nonprofits, maintaining such a list is crucial because those who have advocated, taken interest in, or given to your cause before are often inclined to contribute again.
Use this list to communicate with your audience about:
- The progress of ongoing projects
- Requests for donations
- Upcoming events
How do you get that email address?
- Ticketstripe automatically collects the email for every attendee who registers for your events online.
- When accepting a donation online or in person, always request the donor’s email.
- Offer a freebie in exchange for the email, i.e., a physical or digital product.
- Create a newsletter for your organization that interested individuals can sign up for.
- Ask for it. Yup. Really. Just ask.
Ticketstripe’s Ticket Bundles allow you to effortlessly collect emails from every ticket holder—not just the person or organization that buys the tickets! Easy individual ticket sharing for Sponsors means more contact information for the organization with every event.
5. Thank Everyone
Thanking a donor or event attendee after the fact is not only polite, it has a more important purpose.
First, genuinely thanking a person triggers very real emotional responses inside. It makes them feel good. They’re likely to remember that you took the time to recognize their contribution.
Second, it is an essential way to build on that new relationship. Don’t just thank them and forget about it. Thank them and ask what they loved about your event, how they would change things in the future, or what they would like to see from you in the days and weeks to come.
People love giving their opinions. People love it when other people ask for them. Make your audience feel valued for more than just their money.
Lastly, that interaction reinforces your organization in their mind. Our memory is finite. We tend to remember firsts and lasts and little in between—it’s called the primacy and recency effect in cognitive science. That “thank you” creates a recency event for your recipient to remember.
Maximize Your Charity Fundraising with Ticketstripe
With the powerful digital tools that Ticketstripe offers charities, you can easily reach more people, create incentives to spur more and larger donations, and streamline your donation process so it’s simple for everyone involved. Plus, nonprofits enjoy decreased service fees and the ability to pass all fees to ticket buyers—making our services completely free for the charities to use. Don’t wait. Get started today and use Ticketstrfipe as your primary way to charity fundraise!
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