Nonprofit Fundraising: Coronavirus & Major Donors

The arrival of the coronavirus (COVID-19) could change the way your nonprofit interacts with major donors. In the past, you’ve enjoyed sharing your vision, celebrating successes, and making appeals for additional support during events, like galas, or one-on-one meetings.

Now, with the risk of infection, some donors may want to avoid those gatherings. Reduced visibility could mean out of sight, out of mind. That could put at risk some of the big dollar support you need.

In a competitive fundraising world, you need to have good communication with your major donors. While there’s still a lot we don’t know about the coronavirus, these tips can help you strategically position yourself, should your in person meetings and gatherings go away.

Video Email

There are several programs in the marketplace that allow you to record personalized video messages that can be sent through email. This is different than putting a generic YouTube link in a message.

These services let you record a message through your smartphone or desktop computer. An image of the recording or a short preview can then be inserted, as a link, into your email, text message, or social media. There’s a relatively low barrier to entry and you don’t need to know how to edit video. It's not high tech...it's high touch.

These messages great for those special touches that can help you memorably connect with donors. Examples of them could include, birthday greetings, fundraising appeals, and success stories.

Some of these service providers of video email include:

• BombBomb
• Loom
• Covideo
• Dubb

Click on the image below to see me in this kind of clip. Through BombBomb, I recorded a standard message and then talk about what I did. Click on the clip below or this link, https://vid.us/t74hbq, to see it.

These programs are very popular with sales organizations, as they are a great way to engage with customers. I feel they could be extremely useful for nonprofits, where donor engagement is priceless.

Virtual Meetings and Fundraising Galas

If the coronavirus limits gatherings, can you shift those connections online? This would see you chatting with donors, one-on-one, through meeting software like Zoom.us or Skype.

Your fundraising events may also need to go virtual. For this kind of production, you’ll want to decide whether you want to run it yourself or hire someone else to push the buttons. It’s also important to make sure this kind of meeting is rehearsed, as online mistakes and challenges can become donor repellent or embarrass your stakeholders.

Also, can your silent auction be shifted online? You don’t want to lose that funding source.

Your goal is not to recreate the in person excitement of an event but can you make it a source of pride for your donors, one that excites, surprises, and engages them.

It will take time to produce this kind of event but it can be done. And don’t forget to find roles for your current sponsors, some of whom may already have online tools to help you.

Examine Your Overall Messaging

Even without the coronavirus, we’re living in a time when inboxes are full of messages from retailers, company CEOs, and politicians. The same goes for social media. There’s a lot of competition for attention.

Review your current offerings. Is your messaging saying, “Give us money because we do good stuff.” Or are you taking people behind the scenes of what you do, sharing examples of how their support made a difference, and talking about your vision for the future?

When you take people deeper into your organization, they dig deeper into their pockets.

Beside video, take pictures, write copy like you’re taking to a friend, and understand that you can’t take your major donors for granted.

Final Thought

We don’t know what kind of impact the coronavirus will have on our world. But we can prepare now for possibilities. You may discover some of those possibilities could become overall good strategies for major donor engagement. 

As someone who has raised money for nonprofits, Ken Okel understand that role of donor engagement. Now, as a professional speaker, he engages audience who want to raise their performance and meet the challenges of change. And yes, he also presents virtually. For more, visit: KenOkel.com.