Ep. 126: 10 Key Trends in Nonprofit Fundraising & Marketing for 2025
EPISODE 126
10 Key Trends in Nonprofit Fundraising & Marketing for 2025
About the Episode:
There are 10 trends that are revolutionizing nonprofit fundraising in 2025 and beyond. If you're ready to build unstoppable donor movements and you're ready to break revenue plateaus, you're in the right place. If you follow these trends, you will see increased growth, increased donor engagement and retention, and of course, donations. So grab a pen, bookmark this and dive in with me!
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Brave fundraising is on the rise: Embrace bold asks, audacious goal setting, and taking action
Switching up your donor cycle: Donors no longer like long, antiquated donation cycles in the age of instant gratification
Utilize your Social Street Team™: Bring together your volunteers and biggest supporters to champion your cause, raise awareness, visibility, advocacy and donations for your nonprofit
Center your email list: Email should no longer be an afterthought, rather the core part of your fundraising strategy
Hire support staff: The era of doing it alone is over, DIYing everything in your business is to the detriment of your success
Gather around the impact of your mid-level donors: Shift attention not only to the existing major donors in your world, but the mid level donors – there’s a whole goldmine
Leave generic messaging in the past: Your people value connection, stop treating them like entities and have a specific POV
Dig into monthly giving: The lifetime value of monthly givers is so much higher than one-time givers, devote the time deserved to these donors
Rethink the way you launch: Every campaign should utilize a three-phase approach that will guarantee success each time
Cultivate the power of belief: When nonprofits act with this unwavering belief in themselves and their mission, in their vision, opportunities align and partnerships emerge
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Donors are giving to your organization for a reason. Many times they're not giving more because you simply haven't asked for more.”
“Your nonprofit needs to be brave, it needs to be nimble and adopt quick, forward thinking, high impact fundraising campaigns.”
“It's time to utilize your email list front and center as a core part of your fundraising strategy. It no longer should be a programmatic afterthought.”
“I highly recommend bringing on a virtual assistant or admin person just a few hours a week to start to reclaim your time. This is how you work less, but fund more.”
“Donors are so hungry to support organizations that they actually know – the people who are in the organizations that they actually feel connected to.”
“You cannot try to please everybody, and if you try to, you will lose a lot of time and leave even more money on the table.”
“If you believe your strategies will work and your mission will grow, that confidence will actually guide the decisions and inspire others to join you.”
Episode Resources:
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Christina Edwards 00:00Hey, welcome back to the purpose and profit club Podcast. I'm excited to dig into this year's trends. So if you're ready to build unstoppable donor movements, you're ready to break revenue plateaus, you're in the right place, and we're not digging into trends like like a Buzzfeed article. So this isn't just fluff or buzzwords. This is really what I'm seeing as major trends in the sector. And if you follow these trends, you will see increased growth, increased donor engagement and retention, and of course, donations All right, so grab a pen, bookmark this and get ready. So let's dig in. The first trend is the rise of brave fundraising. So organizations this year should double down on courageous outreach. So what does that look like? It looks like high touch donor asks and creating donor movements. We're going to dig into what that is here in a little bit, but just kind of notice that. But donor movements also fear based reluctance to ask boldly should be replaced by audacious goal setting and action. What do I mean? I mean no D no more decaf energy, no more going to Mr. Donor, Mrs. Donor, and just taking what you can get or not wanting to upgrade them or ask for more because you're worried, you're fearful, you think you've read too many headlines, you're believing that it's a bad economy, right? All of those things, and it's keeping your organization stuck versus having a conversation with your donors, getting to know them, person to person, human to human, understanding their own goals, their own motivation, their own alignment. They're giving to your organization for a reason. Many times they're not giving more because you simply haven't asked for more. Like, what? What if you just asked for more? What if you were willing to hear no What if you were willing to have a conversation that stepped into this this expansiveness, this brave, bold, audacious ask in a way that you never had before. There's a client inside my coaching program, the club, and she's really rocked at this idea of brave fundraising in the past year. And she has not only upgraded donors, she has asked donors to donate to a particular campaign when they've already donated to another, or asked them to be donor matches when they've she literally had a donor say, no one's ever asked me to do this before. How cool. And they came in at a donor match at 5k like, what a gift that was for them. How amazing it is for the organization that now they're running a campaign with a donor match. But think about what it would be like to be in that donor shoes. They're giving multiple 1000s of dollars a year. So this, this particular person, has given a five figure gift over, you know, multiple over the course of the year, and no one's ever asked them before. Like, what an honor. How cool. But it took willing to be brave and bold and disrupt the status quo of hey, maybe the donor might say no, and that willingness to hear a no will get you to a lot of yeses. All right, next trend step or hang on. Trend number two, breaking free from traditional fundraising cycles. Okay, so we know that I don't like long, lengthy, boring, antiquated, old donor cultivation cycles. And here's the secret, your donors don't either. Think about it. We are used to this happened to me today. Ordered something last night. It's on our doorstep at 630 this morning. That is wild. So if consumers are used to that level of service, which that even went above and beyond, right or the Uber Eats or the Door Dash, where it literally can be brought to my door often faster than I can go in the car order wait for people to prepare the food and then drive it home to myself, it is faster than ever. Then why? Oh, why are you making your donors do it the long way, particularly your mid and major donors, right? Why are you only offering them and inviting them to give once or twice a year? Why are you making them go through all of these hoops of coffees and phone calls and handwritten notes when they actually just want to be a part of a movement? Now think about it, especially somebody who cares deeply about the environment, about healthcare, about social justice, about family services. They want to see a change yesterday, they. Want to see a change in, you know, 120 months, let them be a part of a movement now. So that takes, again, a willingness of step one, being brave, and it also takes a willingness for your nonprofit to be nimble and adopt quick, forward thinking, high impact fundraising campaigns. Okay, Trend number three, big one, the social Street Team revolution. This is revolutionizing the way that Nonprofits Fundraise, the way that nonprofits grow. Why? Because it's using the power of online influencers, the creator economy and ambassadors, those superstar volunteers and supporters and and bringing them all together to champion, raise awareness, visibility, advocacy and donations for your nonprofit. This is essential. This is essential. You should be putting more leads in your pipeline, right? More donors, more supporters, more volunteers, and it is very hard to do that if you're doing it all organically, right? If you're not doing any sort of paid outreach, or you don't have a big PR team or a big media budget or something like that, this is so much more powerful than any of that anyway. So creating a social street team to amplify the power of partnerships is essential, and the brands and the nonprofits that are doing this are seeing huge results, and we'll continue to see huge results this year. So inside the club, my coaching program, this is what I teach. We have a complete system. We have complete templates and tools so that organizations can do this, and we typically see that nonprofits double their next campaign with a social straight team. So highly, highly, highly, recommend you start taking a nod from the for profit playbook. They've been collaborating with influencers for decade now, plus, right? Corporations know this. Nonprofits don't be so late on this, right? It's time for your organization to partner with influencers and ambassadors. Okay, so more about that in the club. The best way to learn about that is to hop on my wait list, which we will have a link in the show notes for you. Okay, Trend number four, under utilized email is your biggest revenue leak. Okay, let me say that slightly differently. It's time to utilize your email list front and center as a core part of your fundraising strategy. It no longer should be a programmatic afterthought. It no longer should be a nice to have. It should be essential. It should be essential. Think about the success of Black Friday. Think about the success of Cyber Monday. Just close your eyes for a moment if you're not driving, and think about how many emails you got from your favorite or not so favorite, retailer, service provider, brand business. How many emails did Nordstrom or Old Navy or Sephora or Ulta or wherever you shop. How many emails did they send you tons? Right? They sent you a ton of emails, because the ROI of email is 42x of every dollar spent. They know something that nonprofits are just not taking seriously. And I know this. I walk my clients through this, and it's true. Neon one knows this, we have the case study that shows that for every email subscriber that should return a $6 $6 for every email subscriber on every campaign. So if you plug in, we have a calculator. If you plug in, the number of subscribers you have on your list, depending on the size of your nonprofit, you should be fundraising. Let's say you have 1000 subscribers on your list. That's over $6,000 per campaign. Why aren't you doing that right? It's because you're under utilizing your email list. So email is like the backbone, essential part for your nonprofit, for communication, for donor engagement, for event ticket sales, for memberships, for monthly donors, for any sort of fundraising content. Okay, so nonprofits that aren't doing this are absolutely leaving money on the table. We have an entire email course inside the club. So if you would like that, just send me an email and send me an email, and I will tell you about that email course, easy emails for impact. We also have a self study version. You're welcome to reach out to me if you're interested in joining that. Okay, highly recommend this. This is how you scale up your time, because you can have very simple but high impact automations running in the background. This idea of rolling out the red carpet for donors happens on email first. Happens on email. First, I joined three different monthly donor programs just in the past quarter, last quarter, and I only remember one. I only remember one because one of them is saying so top of mind on email. It's so interesting. I'm like, oh yeah. What was the other two I donated to? What were they? Who are they? Oh, right. I see, you know my car. Record statement, right? Email, email, email, it's very, very sticky. Builds a lot of loyalty, a lot of trust, and I highly recommend email first. Trend number five, and this may be a hard one to hear. I don't know everyone. Yes, even you should hire support staff. And here's what I mean, the era of trying to do it all alone is over. So if you are the solo Ed, let's talk to you first. If you have a small team or a large team, we'll talk to you second. Okay, if you're all solo Ed, stop it. The reason why your organization is that the funding level you're at, which is very often 20,000 50,000 under 100,000 is because you are DIY the whole thing. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. I highly recommend bringing on a virtual assistant or admin person just a few hours a week to start to reclaim your time. This is how you work less, but fund more. Okay? Now, brands and businesses that feel like they came out of like a rocket that they launched, we think about Silicon Valley, where you're like, wow, how did that startup get so big so fast? They hired talent, they hired support, they invested in people. Those people were essential to scaling Charity Water. Great example of this. They hired people. Scott Harrison could not have reached $100 million organization in such a short period of time if it was him and a programs person. Just think about that like it's it's impossible, right? And it's impossible for your organization, too. Now you may be saying to me, I don't have the budget to you. Have the budget for two hours a week. You absolutely do. Now we're going to bring on an expert, so make sure you subscribe to the podcast, because we are bringing on an expert on bringing on onto the podcast, who's going to discuss how to hit, how to hire a virtual assistant, admin person and how you can adapt that specifically for the lens of nonprofits. Many of our clients are doing this inside the club, and it's absolutely it's not only is it creating more time in their schedule for CEO, time for fundraising, time for building donor relationships, it's bringing in more revenue. Okay, so everyone should hire a support staff now, if your organization is, you know, mid to large size, yes, even you. Here's where I see y'all get stuck. I see many of y'all have a fundraising slash comms person, and usually that person is great at one or the other, but not both. And one of the best areas that you can hire out a support team member or a contractor is for the area of Comm, specifically marketing, somebody who can help you create Canva graphics, social media posts, any sort of events. I had a client who's like, I've got to work on our flyer for upcoming event, I'm like, You are the executive director. No, I want you to go bring in $20,000 of sponsorships for that event while you hire somebody to create a very simple flyer for you. You guys, this is essential. Okay, so that's how that looks for the mid to large size. And at the point that you continue to scale, you can bring on more of an executive assistant level person. Highly recommend that Trend number six, mid level donors are your new gold mine. Okay, so what do I mean here? I mean your nonprofit should really shift attention not only to the existing major donors in your world, but the mid level donors, there are so many mid level donors already in your world, who already donate to your organization, who already know about your organization, who have already leaned in and raised their hand and you are totally missing them. You are missing them. They're waiting to be upgraded. They're waiting to become board members. They are waiting to be invited to become a social street team, or you just haven't asked them. These are people who care about your cause. These are people who very likely have a higher capacity to give. They just haven't been asked. They just haven't been asked. So really thinking about, ooh, what are some opportunities that I could bring a collective of mid level donors together. Maybe this is an online event, like a virtual event. Maybe this is a one to one outreach, really thinking about those warm leads so so important, I bet you could unlock another 20% in funding just by cultivating mid level donors. Trend numbers one, Trend number seven, you know, I'm going to get super spicy on this one. Generic messaging is out Stop it. No more sterile. Nonprofit messaging. You're tired of writing it, we're tired of reading it, so let's all collectively. Knock it off. Okay, so no more safe, generic communications that 100 out of 100 people are like great idea. Susan, amazing. No, your communications, that means your social media content, your emails, your any personal outreach, your fundraising direct mail pieces, if you're doing any of that should sound like you. They should sound like a human. A person wrote it. Donors are so hungry and waiting to support organizations that they actually know the people who are in the organizations. They actually feel connected to. One of the things that we value as like humanity, as humans is connection. It's very, very important to our livelihood. And when nonprofit entities treat their people like entities, we miss the connection. We miss the point of feeling like I'm a human supporting another human who is helping humans. Right, connection, right? Like being part of a true movement. So it's really, really important to have a specific point of view. And also, if you're the executive director and you're listening to this, and maybe you have your programs person or your development person or your marketing person, who one of them, or all of them, write some sort of content. Oh, my God, please let them use their own voice. Okay? Like, let Marta sound like Marta in her emails. Okay, let Juliana sound like Juliana in her direct mail pieces. Let her sign it from her. Because I'm so tired of supporting ominous brands, right? I'm not excited about donating to Nike when there's just right? Imagine Nike was a nonprofit. I don't know the CEO of Nike. I don't know who the director of marketing is of Nike, right? I wouldn't be excited about donating to that organization, right? But when I think about other organizations, I'm going to use Charity Water as an example here. I actually can picture Scott Harrison's face, like, Oh yeah, you know him. I can actually picture a couple of the people who have emailed me from that organization, let me give another shout out to the adventure project. Same thing. Becky does a great job of doing this, right? I can think of her and her unique voice. She has a unique voice of writing. She has a unique style, right? Or maybe an organization like Chamber of mothers, and what they sound like is different. What the CEO sounds like is different than every other organization, so it takes the guts, the willingness to sound like you, so you don't sound like everyone. And I want to give you the asterisk that like some people won't agree. Some people be like. That email should be shorter. That email should be longer. That direct mail piece should be front and back. That direct mail piece should be one page, right? You cannot please everybody, and if you try to please everybody, you will please no money, right? Or you're just pleased, you're bored, or whoever, and you're gonna leave a lot of money on the table. You're gonna lose a lot of time and leave a lot of money on the table. So really important to be nimble, to be to be curious, to be creative, to innovate and to try something, and we go, told you I was gonna get hot on that one, generic messaging is out. Last piece on that donor attention crisis. So part of this is because there is a crisis. There is a crisis with donor attention. I just told you is that I donated to three different nonprofits, and I can't remember what the other two were, right? My memory is pretty decent, right? If I pause, I can really remember them. But the point is, those organizations are not top of mind because they are not making it a priority for them to be top of my mind. They could do this by emailing me more or reaching out more, and they would also do this so much better if I was connected to the people in the organization, the people they serve, the people, the staff, the support team, right? Somebody, anybody. I remember when news story charity started doing Instagram reels, and they had their actual staffers, like talking head style in the reels. And I loved it, because it was like, oh, human it's not everything. Doesn't seem like this, this formulaic B roll or this formulaic stock video stuff, right? It's just, it's just a staffer in their home office. It just felt so real, and I highly recommend thinking about what's our version we could do for that. I Trend number eight, the rise of monthly giving communities. So we had an entire series on the podcast all about recurring giving. And recurring giving is not just some little tab on your website that allows people to give monthly, recurring giving is really productizing, creating a product or a program that encompasses being a part of a movement as a monthly giver. And this is really, really important in the nonprofits that have said yes, this is important to us. Yes, we're making this a priority. Have seen a lot of revenue growth. And not only do they see the revenue growth, because they start bringing in money right, funding on a monthly basis, so they're not getting as many peaks and values, so they can hire, they can increase staff support, they can increase programmatic growth, because they have that consistent revenue right? There's that piece, but they're also seeing more donor engagement. Because when you have a group of monthly givers, those givers again, are like, warm, warm, warm. They're like, we not only care about your mission, but we care about your mission so much that we want to give each month, right? Do not discount those people who are giving $20 a month. Those people can be some of your best social street teamers. So it's really important to think about, where can we increase our monthly giving program? Or if you haven't already, you can actually start your monthly giving program. We're going to link here in the show notes to I have a monthly giving kit that is very affordable that increase that includes a monthly giving template to start your monthly giving program and a video training. So if you haven't started one, or maybe if, here's what I'll say, if you have less than 30 monthly donors, you haven't started a monthly giving program. Okay? If you haven't branded your monthly giving program, if it doesn't have a name, you haven't started a monthly giving program. Okay? If you are not communicating with that segment of donors on a regular basis, just that segment you do not have a monthly giving program, and that's okay. I'm not saying that to be like, you know, rude. I'm saying that to say there's so much opportunity. There's so much opportunity in recurring giving, because the lifetime value of recurring giver, giver is 8x they typically stay with the organization for over eight years, versus an individual donor who gives one time. We see eight out of 10 donors never give again. Highly recommend. If I'm looking at the pie chart of where you're going to devote a lot of your time this year, but that is a chunk of the pie. Social street team is a chunk of the pie too. Mid level donors is a chunk of the pie you see me, got that? Okay? Trend number nine, a new online fundraising campaign launch system. Now that sounded very marketing speak, but what do I mean? What I mean is, when you are running any sort of online fundraiser, so that could be for a spring, spring event ticket sales that could be a monthly membership. So if you're trying to get more monthly donors within a period of time, that could be for a program you're fundraising for any sort of fundraiser, peer fundraising, anything, you need to rethink and reimagine the way that you're actually launching that okay? So we teach a process inside the club that has the three phases of campaign success, okay? And a huge part of that phase is actually the priming phase before you even launch, okay? And that priming phase is essential to the success of your campaign. So our clients that have had amazing Giving Tuesday fundraisers already knew this. They were going through their pre game and rocking it so their audience was ready. They were building out their street team. They were mobilizing their street team, right? Really, really essential that you change the way that you're launching or promoting your online fundraisers, your event ticket sales, any of that? Okay? So donors are going to be drawn more to organizations that demonstrate this, that show social proof, that share testimonials, that have that trustworthiness in advance of the actual campaign launching. Okay? And we teach the entire process inside the club. So Trend number 10, the power of belief and bold action. So this is a mindset trend. This is a an inner work trend that is going to be essential. And I see this absolutely true of last year and even the year prior, the organizations that experienced growth in donors, growth in revenue, growth in awareness and visibility had that belief, cultivated that belief and took bold action. If you believe your strategies will work and your mission will grow, that confidence will actually guide the decisions and inspire others to join you. It is an infectious, contagious, right? Think about it, like your energy, your excitement, draws people in or away. Draws people in or away. Think about like a puppy, like a puppy, if you have, if you kind of match that Puppy's energy, it will come towards you, right. But if you are kind of that Puppy's gonna right, if you're like low energy, that Puppy's gonna walk up to. You like, Hey, are we gonna play? Are we gonna play? Are we gonna play? And then it's gonna give up, right? So you want to think about, like, Where can I turn up that power, that belief, and the ways you can even look for past evidence, like past history, of how it's actually inspired people to say, Hey, can I help? Or, Wow, I see what you you've been doing. Wow, you guys have been busy, right? That buzz converts into a ripple effect. That buzz converts into a movement where people are like, I want to be part of that. I want to be on that train. What they're doing is amazing. I want to help. When nonprofits act with this unwavering belief in themselves and their mission, in their vision, opportunities align, partnerships emerge, people, literally, this has happened. Like, can we partner with you? Can we be a sponsor? Right? The universe conspires together to amplify their impact. And if this sounds a little Woo, it is, it is. That's okay. Like, let it be a little Woo. And this idea that we talked about in the past episode, in the previous episode, of relentless optimism, fits here, of like really going to work for believing it's going to work. Really going to work for believing people want to hear from you. Really going to work for the idea that there are people, donors, supporters, already in your world, who are just waiting for you to call them, who are waiting for you to invite them to a zoom, who are waiting for you to invite them to a coffee, who have been wondering if they can help you just haven't asked them, right? So that belief, though, that belief that they already exist and then there's more of them, will fuel your mission forward. Okay, so that's a wrap on my 2025 predictions. I highly recommend that you choose what resonated most most with you and take bold, decisive action. Okay, so the few hang on you. If you want support to make these happen, hop on the wait list for the club when we open later this spring, coming soon, we will link to that in the show notes. In the meanwhile, I highly recommend sharing this episode with a friend or colleague who is also curious about 2025 trends. Share it on LinkedIn and tag me in it. I would love to see what's resonating. Oh, my God, I'm going to do the whole outro again. That's a wrap for my 2025 predictions and trends. So take what resonated most with you and take bold, decisive action. Okay, these aren't just ideas or things or random buzzwords. I may remember. These are actually trends that could bring your I am on the struggle bus. Okay, one more time you that's a wrap on my 2025 predictions and trends. I highly recommend taking the ones that resonate most with you and taking bold, decisive action. And as always, I'm here to support you, we will be opening up the club very soon, so hop on the waitlist so you get exclusive access to bonuses when we open up enrollment soon. And if you enjoyed this episode, highly recommend sharing it on social. Tag me on a LinkedIn post, screenshot it and tag me and tell me what most resonated with you. Maybe it was the rise of brave fundraising, or really cultivating that mid level donor, or building out your social straight team. I am here to support you, and I'm here to ensure that 2025, is your missions year. So let's go. You.