Let’s discover two fundraising eventualities. Faculty A and Faculty B are each holding month-long read-a-thon fundraising campaigns to cap off the tip of the college 12 months. Faculty A asks college students to gather flat donations of $10 from their family and friends. Faculty B makes use of the pledge fundraising mannequin and asks college students to gather $3 pledges for every hour spent studying from their sponsors.
Ultimately, each colleges are profitable—however Faculty B raises extra money and has higher participation from college students. It is because the scholars knew that they might increase extra to assist their college just by spending extra time studying.
This information will discover how your college or nonprofit can use pledge fundraising to enhance its influence by breaking down among the high incessantly requested questions (FAQs). Let’s start.
1. What’s pledge fundraising?
A pledge happens when a donor guarantees to make a present of cash, items, or companies that can be delivered to the group at a later date. Donations, however, are paid instantly. Typically donors use pledges to stagger bigger funds, breaking them into extra manageable funds (e.g., pledging to provide $1,000 over six months).
However how does this course of work in apply? 99Pledges’ information to kid-friendly fundraising concepts illustrates how your group can weave this fundraising technique into your subsequent marketing campaign:
- Work with a pledge fundraising software program supplier to arrange donation pages for contributors.
- Encourage your contributors to share the donation pages on-line.
- Members gather pledge donations from family and friends, normally corresponding with a unit of distance, time, or amount (e.g., $1 per automotive washed throughout a automotive wash or $3 per mile jogged throughout a jog-a-thon).
- Monitor pledges utilizing your fundraising software program.
- Acquire proceeds as soon as the occasion wraps up. Your software program ought to routinely ship reminders and gather funds from donors.
Remember the fact that pledges are completely different from month-to-month giving initiatives. Month-to-month or recurring giving signifies that the donor has enrolled in your sustainer program and agrees to donate a selected greenback quantity every month (e.g., $25 every month, on repeat). Whereas a donor could pay some pledged donations in installments, this doesn’t make them part of your month-to-month giving initiative.
2. Why settle for pledges?
Pledge fundraising is an efficient technique for nonprofits, colleges, and different fundraising organizations as a result of it:
- Is extra versatile. Improve your donors’ experiences and safe extra donations by providing them alternative ways to donate. For instance, throughout a walk-a-thon they might select between giving pledged donations for every mile walked or donating a flat price. Flat charges attraction to donors who know what they wish to donate whereas pledges may be higher for individuals who can’t or don’t want to donate instantly.
- Can improve donors’ capability to provide. Not your whole supporters can afford to provide massive quantities at one time. Nonetheless, pledge donations give them the choice to pay towards a bigger sum over a number of months. Whereas your group gained’t obtain an instantaneous main present, these small donations add up.
- Gives extra alternatives to steward supporters. With pledged donations, you’ll have a minimum of two alternatives to attach with them: after they make the pledge and after they donate. In the event that they plan to satisfy the pledge in a number of funds, you’ve gotten much more probabilities to point out your gratitude. Ship donors heartfelt thank-you messages and share the influence that their contributions should steward the connection.
Pledges are additionally a good way for donors to offer focused assist to the causes or tasks they care about most. For instance, an afterschool program may use a sports activities workforce fundraising concept like a baseball hit-a-thon to boost cash for its workforce sports activities program. When donors pledge to donate to this marketing campaign, they’ll know precisely the place their funds are going.
3. How are pledges collected and processed?
There are various alternative ways to handle pledged donations, and it’s as much as your group to determine what works greatest. Nonetheless, there are some suggestions and greatest practices to observe that may maintain the method working easily:
- Use pledge fundraising software program that may monitor pledges and fundraising progress throughout your marketing campaign.
- Settle for quite a lot of fee strategies like bank cards, PayPal, ApplePay, and GooglePay to make donating versatile and handy for donors.
- Leverage on-line donation pages. Since pledges are sometimes collected by means of peer-to-peer fundraising, take into account making a donation web page for the entire marketing campaign and permitting contributors to create particular person pages.
- Select a fee processor or fundraising platform that’s protected and safe. Usually, these suppliers are PCI compliant and make use of safety measures like knowledge encryption and two-factor authentication.
Moreover, you’ll must be sure you’re asking for these donations in an efficient approach. As a result of some donors is probably not conversant in pledge fundraising, clarify how the tactic works in your asks. In case your group is holding a peer-to-peer marketing campaign, share some primary fundraising suggestions and advertising supplies with contributors.
4. What occurs if a donor doesn’t fulfill their pledge?
Sadly, pledge attrition can occur in nearly any marketing campaign. Nonetheless, a median of 84% of occasion fundraising pledges are fulfilled, so you may relaxation assured that this isn’t a rampant difficulty that may critically influence your success. To offset any anticipated losses, set the expectation that you simply gained’t obtain roughly 10% of the entire quantity pledged.
In lots of circumstances, pledging to donate shouldn’t be legally binding. Because of this the easiest way to curb pledge attrition is thru preventative measures. Begin with clear communication—make sure that donors perceive what pledging to donate means, inform them after they might want to make the fee, and ship out reminders.
Moreover, some fundraising platforms require a donor’s card data to course of the pledge. This fashion, your nonprofit can routinely gather the agreed-upon quantity on a selected date (and neither you nor the donor will neglect about it).
5. How can your group encourage donors to pledge once more?
You’ll must make efforts to steward your group’s relationship with donors to make sure they pledge once more sooner or later. To take action, arrange a gratitude system that features components like:
- Sending donors thank-you messages. Share an e mail or handwritten letter expressing your gratitude for his or her assist. eCardWidget’s information to thanking donors recommends including private particulars like the quantity donated, centering the donors’ influence, and making certain your message suits the present quantity.
- Creating donor recognition partitions. Recognition partitions are mounted, public shows in your facility that characteristic the names of your high, most loyal donors. These partitions honor the donors’ contributions, bodily symbolize your group of supporters, and make these featured really feel deeply related to your trigger.
- Giving high donors public shout-outs. Determine the donors that pledged the biggest quantity, contributed for the primary time, or have joined in on essentially the most pledge campaigns. Then, ask in the event that they’d prefer to be featured in your web site or social media. Think about asking them a number of temporary questions on why they assist your trigger. You’ll be able to characteristic their solutions within the submit.
In case your nonprofit or different group shares an influence or annual report, take into account including a piece that acknowledges impactful donors. Unfold consciousness of your pledge fundraisers and enhance supporter retention by including a particular part to focus on the influence of pledge-based fundraisers.
Pledge fundraising permits your group to provide its supporters a distinct technique to contribute to your trigger. The flexibility to make smaller donations over time or sooner or later can enhance your donors’ capability to provide. Unit-based pledges can empower contributors in charity races, dance-a-thons, and different occasions to go the additional mile throughout the marketing campaign.
To encourage each your donors and contributors to do extra to additional your mission, take into account implementing pledge fundraising into your subsequent marketing campaign.
In regards to the Writer
Rodrigo Ramos
Rodrigo Ramos is the Supervisor of Buyer Success at 99Pledges, the #1 on-line fundraising platform for colleges, sports activities groups, music teams, and extra. 99Pledges gives organizations with an easy-to-use, web-based resolution to handle and drive success in fundraising. The platform’s strong performance can assist easy pledge drives in addition to performance-based campaigns (e.g. enjoyable runs, walk-a-thons, read-a-thons, and many others.).
