Let’s discover two fundraising eventualities. College A and College B are each holding month-long read-a-thon fundraising campaigns to cap off the top of the varsity 12 months. College A asks college students to gather flat donations of $10 from their family and friends. College B makes use of the pledge fundraising mannequin and asks college students to gather $3 pledges for every hour spent studying from their sponsors.
In the long run, each faculties are profitable—however College B raises extra money and has higher participation from college students. It is because the scholars knew that they might elevate extra to help their faculty just by spending extra time studying.
This information will discover how your faculty or nonprofit can use pledge fundraising to enhance its impression by breaking down a number of the prime continuously 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 providers that shall 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 offer $1,000 over six months).
However how does this course of work in observe? 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 individuals.
- Encourage your individuals to share the donation pages on-line.
- Individuals gather pledge donations from family and friends, often 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.
- Gather proceeds as soon as the occasion wraps up. Your software program ought to robotically ship reminders and gather funds from donors.
Understand 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 might 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, faculties, and different fundraising organizations as a result of it:
- Is extra versatile. Improve your donors’ experiences and safe extra donations by providing them other ways to donate. For instance, throughout a walk-a-thon they could select between giving pledged donations for every mile walked or donating a flat fee. Flat charges enchantment to donors who know what they need to donate whereas pledges may be higher for individuals who can not or don’t want to donate instantly.
- Can enhance donors’ capability to offer. Not your entire supporters can afford to offer giant quantities at one time. Nevertheless, 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 at the very least two alternatives to attach with them: once they make the pledge and once they donate. In the event that they plan to satisfy the pledge in a number of funds, you’ve gotten much more probabilities to indicate your gratitude. Ship donors heartfelt thank-you messages and share the impression that their contributions should steward the connection.
Pledges are additionally an effective way for donors to supply focused help to the causes or tasks they care about most. For instance, an afterschool program may use a sports activities group fundraising concept like a baseball hit-a-thon to lift cash for its group 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 a lot of other ways to handle pledged donations, and it’s as much as your group to determine what works finest. Nevertheless, there are some suggestions and finest practices to observe that may hold the method operating easily:
- Use pledge fundraising software program that can observe pledges and fundraising progress throughout your marketing campaign.
- Settle for a wide range 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 way of peer-to-peer fundraising, take into account making a donation web page for the entire marketing campaign and permitting individuals to create particular person pages.
- Select a fee processor or fundraising platform that’s secure and safe. Usually, these suppliers are PCI compliant and make use of safety measures like information encryption and two-factor authentication.
Moreover, you’ll have to be sure to’re asking for these donations in an efficient means. As a result of some donors might not be aware of pledge fundraising, clarify how the strategy 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 individuals.
4. What occurs if a donor doesn’t fulfill their pledge?
Sadly, pledge attrition can occur in virtually any marketing campaign. Nevertheless, a median of 84% of occasion fundraising pledges are fulfilled, so you possibly can relaxation assured that this isn’t a rampant problem that can critically impression your success. To offset any anticipated losses, set the expectation that you just gained’t obtain roughly 10% of the entire quantity pledged.
In lots of circumstances, pledging to donate just isn’t legally binding. Which means that the easiest way to curb pledge attrition is thru preventative measures. Begin with clear communication—be sure donors perceive what pledging to donate means, inform them once 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 robotically gather the agreed-upon quantity on a selected date (and neither you nor the donor will overlook about it).
5. How can your group encourage donors to pledge once more?
You’ll have to 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 parts like:
- Sending donors thank-you messages. Share an e-mail or handwritten letter expressing your gratitude for his or her help. eCardWidget’s information to thanking donors recommends including private particulars like the quantity donated, centering the donors’ impression, and guaranteeing your message suits the present quantity.
- Creating donor recognition partitions. Recognition partitions are mounted, public shows in your facility that function the names of your prime, most loyal donors. These partitions honor the donors’ contributions, bodily signify your group of supporters, and make these featured really feel deeply linked to your trigger.
- Giving prime donors public shout-outs. Establish the donors that pledged the most important 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. Take into account asking them a number of temporary questions on why they help your trigger. You may function their solutions within the submit.
In case your nonprofit or different group shares an impression or annual report, take into account including a bit that acknowledges impactful donors. Unfold consciousness of your pledge fundraisers and enhance supporter retention by including a particular part to spotlight the impression of pledge-based fundraisers.
Pledge fundraising permits your group to offer its supporters a unique method to contribute to your trigger. The power to make smaller donations over time or sooner or later can enhance your donors’ capability to offer. Unit-based pledges can empower individuals in charity races, dance-a-thons, and different occasions to go the additional mile in the course of the marketing campaign.
To inspire each your donors and individuals 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 faculties, 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 help easy pledge drives in addition to performance-based campaigns (e.g. enjoyable runs, walk-a-thons, read-a-thons, and many others.).
