Churches require money to keep offering services to their communities. Tithes and offerings help support the cost of operation, but intentional church fundraising initiatives are key to staying afloat and providing influential service in the long run.  Regardless of denomination, fundraising is a necessity.

Along with hosting traditional fundraising events, many churches and community organizations send out fundraising letters to their potential supporters to ask for donations directly. Mail appeals can reach a broad audience of congregants and are typically successful in gaining support from communities. When done well, fundraising letters are a cost-efficient way to share your story and frame your donation request.

We’ve developed countless templates and strategies for writing the best fundraising letters, and we’re here to help churches like yours write effective letters to garner the support you need. 

Church donation appeals vary significantly from nonprofits’ and other organizations’ letters. We’ve created this guide to provide you with the best tips for writing church fundraising letters so you can communicate with and strengthen your church community. We’ll cover the following letter-writing tips:

1. Use Personal Salutations.
2. Include Fundraising Campaign Information.
3. Make Church Fundraising Asks in Specific Amounts.
4. Vary Your Fundraising Letter Format.
5. Show Appreciation For Their Support.

Writing any church communication letter requires strategic language and personalized touches. Use these five tips to take your fundraising letter and turn it into donations that help to push your mission forward!

1. Use Personal Salutations.

To start your letter-writing plan, choose a church fundraising letter template that can apply to a large group of donors. After you plan your general body text, personalize each letter for every recipient by adding personal details wherever you can. This will make your congregants feel valued and appreciated, making them more likely to donate.

A few ways to add this important personal touch are:

• Addressing the donor by name. The days of “Dear Donor” are long past. Each letter needs to address the recipient by their preferred name to make an impact. This may seem simple, but it goes a long way, especially in a community as close as a church.
• Asking based on history. Include suggested donation amounts in the letter based on the donor’s previous giving history. This shows the donor that you know them, value their past contributions, and are reaching out specifically to them.
• Pulling information from your CRM software. Use any other engagement information you have on hand to personalize letters further. This can include mentioning the last service or church event they attended, or alluding to a broader history of how long they’ve been involved with your congregation.
• Segmenting your donor base. Put your hard-earned data to work by using your church’s database to create groups of donors. Then, tailor letters for each segment. For example, create a group of donors who regularly get involved with your church and one for those who haven’t been as active lately.

With these best practices in mind, your donors will feel like the valued members of your congregation that they are. Plus, you can mutually strengthen your relationship through this messaging tactic.

2. Include Fundraising Campaign Information.

As you’re drafting your church’s fundraising letter, make it clear what you are asking of your donors and why. Be sure church members and supporters understand what the fundraising campaign supports, how it will affect the church’s mission, and what part their individual donations will play.

Answer these questions when drafting your letter to effectively market your fundraiser:

• Why do you need their donation?
• Why should they donate right now?
• How can you communicate your campaign to the best of your ability?
• Can you include a story to explain your need?

While answering these questions in your letter, position your donor as the person doing the action. For example, you could provide a scenario such as, “your gift of X dollars will help send five children to Bible Camp this year.” This detail helps the reader understand your campaign’s purpose and gives them a sense of connection to your cause. If you’re stuck on how to word your ask, check out Double the Donation’s guide on how to ask for donations.

Once your mission is clear, some people may want to help out but be unable to contribute financially. Provide other church fundraising opportunities for them to get involved with your campaign, such as donating volunteer time or supplies.

3. Make Church Fundraising Asks in Specific Amounts.

Don’t leave it up to the supporter to decide how much to give. Instead, provide suggested donation amounts to add personalization and reflect your church’s attention to detail.

How do you choose specific amounts for your church fundraising asks? Follow these simple steps:

1. Using data collected in your CRM, group recipients based on wealth indicators and giving history.
2. Get an idea of each donor’s capacity to give based on demographic information like their employer, date of birth, and mailing address.
3. If you don’t have this information in your donor database, a one-time data append service can help you fill in the gaps. Or, check if the software tools you already use have real-time data appending functionality.
4. Based on this information, decide on suggested donation amounts for each group of donors.

Including these specific amount options in your fundraising letters will give your donors an idea of how they can help and drive them to give more. With these benefits in mind, it’s worth spending extra time to target your potential donors.

4. Vary Your Fundraising Letter Format.

For the same reasons personalization benefits your fundraising letters, varying your letter format can make a major impact on the number of donations you receive. Direct mail isn’t the only option!

Use multiple different communication channels and letter formats to make your church fundraising asks appeal to more of your members’ preferences and therefore increase donations. Consider using a mix of the following formats:

• Traditional letters: Send direct mail appeals to give recipients a tangible reminder of your church’s need for funds. Provide multiple ways to give, such as a QR code leading to your online donation page or a pre-addressed return envelope for cash or checks.
• Email appeals: Email is a convenient way to reach supporters and inspire them to donate right away. Use first names in the subject lines, and include plenty of links to relevant pages on your website, like your online giving form.
• eCards: Combine the benefits of both email and direct mail with creative eCards. These messages offer a unique, memorable way to ask for donations for your church. Plus, they’re easy to create using fundraising eCard software.

If you already have information in your donor database about your members’ communication preferences, use that data to determine who to send which type of letter to. If not, don’t be afraid to send out a quick survey to find out their preferences now.

5. Show Appreciation for Their Support.

Each time a congregant gives to your campaign, whether in money, time, or supplies, make it a priority to thank them for their generosity. They’ll feel validated in their decision to give when you recognize their contribution, which can encourage them to give again in the future. Plus, sending thank-you messages strengthens your relationship with your church community as a whole.

To do this effectively, be sure to show appreciation for all types of engagement, including:

• Monetary contributions: Whether your congregants donate to a special project or a general tithe, they’re financially supporting your church’s work. Thank them for their generosity and explain how their contributions will be used to impact the community.
• Volunteerism: The congregants who give their time to run your vacation Bible school (VBS), nursery, small groups, and any other church program donate their valuable time. Be sure to thank them for their involvement and explain the impact their efforts have on the congregation.
• Participation: It may seem expected that congregants would show up to church events, but it’s not always easy for them to be heavily involved! Recognize that your church members have busy lives and that their participation in church events is meaningful to you. Explain that showing up for potluck dinners, weekday classes, and any other church outing helps your congregation feel like a family.

Follow thank-you note best practices to optimize your appreciation efforts. In these thank-you letters, you can also take the opportunity to reiterate your goals and recap the progress you’ve made toward them with a well-crafted impact statement. This will keep church members informed and looking forward to future opportunities to give!

Peer-to-peer fundraising can sometimes seem like a daunting venture. With this strategy, your success or your failure rests in your supporters’ hands. You’re relying on your supporters to champion and fundraise for your cause as proxies for your organization. 

When you have invested supporters, peer-to-peer fundraising allows you to expand your reach and engage new, potential donors in their individual networks. Because these donation requests are being made by a trusted friend or colleague, these potential donors are also more likely to donate to your cause.

However, without supporters’ dedicated participation, this type of campaign is likely to fall flat. So, how can you encourage participation from both existing and potential supporters? 

Whether this is your first peer-to-peer campaign or your fiftieth, follow these four tips to set your fundraising campaign up for the best possible engagement:

• Set SMART goals.
• Leverage regular, multichannel communication.
• Choose powerful peer-to-peer fundraising software.
• Show your appreciation.

Even though your supporters are in the driver’s seat, you can’t sit back and relax as the donations roll in, especially in the planning and preparation stages. The more work you put in upfront, from recruiting a stellar fundraising team to sending letters requesting donations, the more likely your supporters (and thus your campaign) will be successful.

Set SMART goals.

So where should you start? Before you launch your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign and reach out to supporters, you’ll want to be clear about what you and your supporters will be working toward with your campaign. 

Campaign Goals

In conversations with your financial and development departments, you’ll establish your organization’s overall campaign fundraising goal. Consider: How much revenue do you intend to raise? What will be the impact of that money? Where and how will it be used? 

We recommend that the goals you set follow an established framework such as the SMART model:

• Specific. Your goals should be narrowly-focused and identify specific, tangible resources, outcomes, and impacts for both your organization and community.
• Measurable. Your goals should have a quantifiable definition of success and clear, accessible metrics
• Attainable. Your goals should be achievable within reason. Sometimes organizations will have two goals: a “baseline” goal and a “reach” goal.
• Relevant. Your goals should be meaningful to your organization, your donors, and the community you serve. 
• Time-based. Your goals should have a defined target date as well as checkpoints along the way.

Determining the timeline and deadline for your campaign is a crucial but oft-forgotten part of the goal-setting process. If your campaign is associated with a specific event (such as a fun run or gala), you’ll likely align your deadline with that date. If you have more flexibility in your timeline, consider what time of year your supporters are most likely to be able to fundraise and donate. 

For example, if a large portion of your proxy fundraisers are teachers, you might plan the campaign for the summer—when they’ll be off from school and more available. Or since 30% of all annual giving occurs during the month of December, you might choose to host your campaign accordingly.

Individual Goals

While your organization will have an overall fundraising goal, you should also give your supporters the ability to set individual fundraising goals. Depending on the functionality of your fundraising platform, you can suggest achievable individual fundraising goals (plus their associated impact) and allow supporters to then make adjustments to their goal. 

For example, if your organization has an overall goal of $20,000, a supporter with a large network and free time might set a goal of $1,000, while a supporter with a busy schedule might set a goal for $100. Taken together, these smaller goals add up—and give individual supporters a sense of responsibility for meeting their commitment. 

Leverage regular, multichannel communication.

When you clearly articulate deadlines, impacts, and goals, you put your supporters in a strong position to set forth on their individual fundraising efforts. They’ll feel their involvement is making a positive, tangible impact and will communicate that to their network.

Thus, it’s imperative to keep your supporters apprised of how well the campaign is going, how close you are to reaching the overall goal, how they can get involved, and particular highlights and successes. But unfortunately, you can’t reach everyone on the same platform or with the same approach. Some people, for example, don’t use social media. They would miss your clever posts on Twitter or Instagram completely. 

In order to reach as many supporters as possible, plan to share these updates across a variety of channels, including:

• Email. According to Donately, 28% of all online nonprofit revenue is generated via email outreach. People are constantly checking their emails, so this is one of the easiest ways to get your campaign in front of your supporters. Since emails can be easily forwarded and shared, write them with both your supporters and potential supporters in mind.
• Social Media. Love it or hate it, social media is now an all but necessary fundraising tool to reach potential supporters beyond your immediate network. Focus on the platforms (such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter) your followers use most. 
• Google Ads. While for-profit corporations pay large sums of money to advertise on Google search results pages, your position as a nonprofit makes you eligible for free advertising on Google with their Ad Grants program. With up to $10,000 worth of ad placements a month at your disposal, you can connect with a broader audience and engage them to join your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. 

Whatever channels you choose, you can use storytelling to effectively engage your audience. According to Getting Attention’s Guide to Nonprofit Storytelling, while 63% of people will remember a story, only 5% will recall a statistic. Using personal narratives, first pose a problem that your nonprofit is working to solve. Then, give followers a way (peer-to-peer fundraising!) to take an active role in shaping the story.

Choose powerful peer-to-peer fundraising software.

You can do everything in your peer-to-peer fundraising outreach right, but your fundraising software will ultimately make the difference in whether that work pays off. The best fundraising platforms are easy to use, offer robust sharing, data tracking, and integration capabilities, and are fully customizable. When choosing your software, consider its: 

• Usability. Usability is just as important to your proxy fundraisers as it is to their donors. Participants don’t want to struggle to set up their personal campaign page—which can be an immediate deterrent to their participation—and share text and visual updates on their progress. Moreover, many of their donors will abandon the donation process at the first hint of a roadblock. Your platform should make it as easy as possible for visitors to donate without having to jump through multiple hoops.
• Sharing capabilities. With so many people on social media, your platform’s sharing capabilities are crucial to the success of your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. Consider how easy it will be for participants and donors to share using your peer-to-peer solution. What social platforms will it connect to? Will sharing be burdensome or ignored, or actively encouraged with noticeable buttons and prompts? 
• Data tracking capabilities. The right peer-to-peer fundraising software will support easy and organized data tracking and analysis. You should be able to track your most successful fundraisers, popular donation amounts, and giving trends at the click of a button. Use this information throughout your campaign to adapt to new trends and the needs of your fundraising participants and their networks. Some software can even help you fill in missing data, like employer information, at the click of a button.
• Integrations. Nothing’s worse than having to retype hundreds of email addresses from one platform to another. For the sake of efficiency, your fundraising software should be able to connect widely to other software, such as MailChimp, Double the Donation, and WordPress. Integrations can also have significant implications for donor participation. For example, when 84% of potential donors say they’re more likely to donate if a match is offered, integration with corporate donation matching software can dramatically increase both your number of donors and donation amount. 
• Customization. While customization is certainly important to your peer-to-peer fundraising participants, it’s also important to how your organization presents itself to the public. For a consistent brand experience, you should be able to set your organization’s colors and logos across all pages.

Don’t let your fundraising software hold back your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. As you choose your software, consider these factors alongside the needs and budget of your organization. 

Show your appreciation.

Don’t save your appreciation till after your peer-to-peer fundraiser is over. Instead, make it a practice to show your appreciation to your supporters at regular intervals. 

Unsure about the best way to say thank you? Ask your supporters how they’d like to be appreciated! Popular thank-you ideas include:

• Public recognition. Throughout your campaign, highlight your peer-to-peer fundraising participants with shoutouts and profiles in your email newsletter and on your social media accounts. Like any positive reinforcement, sharing positive recognition will deepen your participants’ connection with your organization, incentivize participation, and drive traffic to their individual fundraising pages.
• Exclusive events. In addition to hosting a celebratory event at the end of your campaign, consider also hosting informal events during the campaign. Use these events to show your thanks and give peer-to-peer fundraising participants opportunities to connect with one another. If your participants are spread across the country—or the world!—use virtual event software to strategically host a hybrid or virtual event.
• Personalized thank-yous. Once the campaign is over, don’t forget to send participants thank-you letters or emails. You can use your CRM to automatically personalize these with their names, their titles and pronouns, and the amount they fundraised in the campaign.

In addition to thanking your proxy fundraisers, you can also take steps to thank those who contributed to each individual’s campaign page. While they may not yet be invested in your cause, you can leverage your shared connection to convert them into loyal supporters.

As you plan your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, don’t forget to ask for help. Especially with this type of fundraising, your supporters will be your best resource. So ask for their input! Reach out to trusted donors, volunteers, staff, and board members. If you’ve run a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign before, you can ask past participants for feedback on those campaigns—where they were successful and where they could be improved. 

Not only will you gain valuable insights, but your supporters will also feel that their voices are being heard. With this in mind, go for it! We’re excited to see your campaign in action.

How to Effectively Market Your Upcoming Fundraiser: 4 Tips

Imagine your most perfectly-planned fundraiser. You’re all set with the most desirable auction items, the most engaging entertainment, or the catchiest campaign slogan. With all the details squared away, you can just sit back, relax, and watch the funding come flowing in, right?

Not so fast. In order to rake in the donations and meet your fundraising goal, you need to work to find participants and donors. But how can you strategically share your fundraiser with new audiences and invite existing supporters to contribute to your latest initiative?

With a strong donation page and a multi-channel digital marketing strategy, you can amplify the reach of your fundraiser and generate critical support for your mission.

We’ve helped countless nonprofits reach their fundraising goals, so we’ve seen firsthand how a thoughtful marketing campaign can make all the difference. To make the most of your promotion efforts for your next fundraiser, use the following tips:

1. Start with an optimized website and donation page.
2. Incorporate a multi-channel approach.
3. Simplify the donor conversion process.
4. Collect and analyze your metrics.

A fundraiser is only effective if you can invite enough support. Let’s go through these tips to help you attract potential donors and secure their donations once they arrive.

1. Start with an optimized website and donation page.

In order to successfully market your fundraiser, you should first confirm that you have a strong foundation to build on. This means optimizing the user experience of your nonprofit’s website—particularly your donation page.

If your donation page is confusing, hard to find, or poorly designed, you run the risk of losing potential supporters. Plus, problems with general web accessibility or mobile-friendliness may mean your donation form is completely unusable for some audiences!

Avoid these challenges by making sure your donation page is:

• Easy to find. Your website should have intuitive and user-friendly navigation. Supporters shouldn’t have to struggle to locate any of your organization’s information, but especially your donation page. Prominently link your donation page from the navigation menu and in calls to action across your website.
• Simple. Pare down your donation form to include only the essential elements. While it can be tempting to gather as much information as possible, stick to only necessary fields like contact details and payment information. We’ll dive deeper into why this is important later in this article, but for now, keep in mind that a streamlined form is convenient and easy for donors.
• Mobile responsive. Linking your donation page in social media posts and emails means that a large portion of potential supporters will be reaching your site from their phones. It is critical that you provide a positive experience for these users by implementing a mobile-responsive layout and ensuring images and text appear at an appropriate size.
• Accessible. Your website should be in compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations in order to ensure access for all supporters. While the full list of requirements is extensive, adding accessibility elements like alt text to images is a great start.

Your CMS or donation software will determine a lot of these factors, so make sure you’re using a well-designed option that fits your organization’s needs. Take advantage of customization features, but ensure that they make your website easier to navigate and not more confusing.

2. Incorporate a multi-channel approach.

Due to strict spam filters and complex social media algorithms, it can be difficult to get your content in front of the right audience. But with a multi-channel approach to marketing, you’ll be able to reach a wider audience and increase the likelihood that supporters will see at least one of your messages.

To create a comprehensive campaign, feature content with emotionally resonant imagery, storytelling, and calls to action that you can spread across a variety of platforms. Once you have a strong foundation for your messaging, consider incorporating a few (or all!) of the following nonprofit marketing channels:

• Your nonprofit’s website. Your website is the core of your digital marketing strategy, so it needs to be well-designed and intuitive to navigate.
• Email. Launch specific email campaigns for your fundraiser, and incorporate fundraising appeals and updates into your regular email newsletters.
• Direct mail. Physical letters may feel outdated, but they’re still an effective way to connect with potential donors.
• Social media. Meet your supporters where they’re already spending their time. Share content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whichever platforms are most relevant to your audience.
• Call and text. These methods allow for compelling one-on-one conversations. Use these personal appeals to cultivate relationships, especially with longtime supporters and major donors.
• Online advertising. Nonprofits can receive up to $10,000 a month in in-kind search advertising through Google ad grants. This program can help your campaign receive more search visibility than from organic traffic alone, allowing you to get your mission in front of more potential supporters.

Throughout all of the marketing channels you choose to incorporate, strike a balance between unifying a central message and tailoring your content to each platform. It should be clear that everything is part of the same fundraising campaign, but you won’t want to replicate the exact text of an email appeal on Twitter.

Additionally, many fundraising software providers have built-in marketing features that allow you to promote your campaign from within a unified system. Determine whether your fundraising platform offers any of these features for an easy way to level-up your marketing strategy.

3. Simplify the donor conversion process.

You want to make it as easy and convenient as possible for donors to give. By streamlining your donation process, you’ll increase your donation page conversion rate and ultimately raise more for your mission.

Simplifying your donation page is especially important for mobile giving. According to Double the Donation’s fundraising statistics, transactions on mobile devices increased by 50% over the past year. Although conversion rates on mobile devices tend to be lower, more and more people are accessing donation pages on their phones.

Take a close look at both the desktop and mobile versions of your donation page to find opportunities to streamline the process. As you evaluate the form, consider the following questions:

• How many fields do supporters need to fill in? Can any of these be eliminated?
• On average, how long does it take to submit a donation?
• Is the form a single page or multiple pages?
• How many clicks are required to submit a donation?

One useful strategy for simplifying the donation process is incorporating text-to-give. Text-to-give reduces the number of steps between deciding to support your cause and actually making a donation. With fewer steps, it’s more likely that supporters will complete the transaction immediately, without abandoning the page or getting distracted.

Snowball’s text-to-give guide highlights just how streamlined the process can be. For text donations, there are only three simple steps:

1. Text the number. A donor sends a quick text message with a campaign keyword (for example, #FundFosterCare2023) to a designated phone number.
2. Follow the link. The individual gets an automatic response with a link to a donation page, then chooses how much to donate.
3. Submit the donation. The donor fills out a short online donation form and provides their payment and contact information (that can be saved for next time). Once the individual hits “send,” the donation is complete.

Whether you choose to implement a new text-to-give system or improve your existing donation page, making the effort to streamline the process will improve your conversion rate. At this point, you’ve dedicated ample time and energy into marketing your campaign for supporters to find it. You don’t want to lose them once they’ve gotten this far!

4. Collect and analyze your metrics.

Collecting data is vital for improving your marketing efforts and for creating lasting relationships with supporters. Gather data from social media platforms, your website, and your donors, then store it in your organization’s CRM. Throughout the course of your marketing campaign, pay special attention to these metrics:

• Donor demographics
• Giving amounts and frequencies
• Website traffic
• Email open and click-through rates
• Social media engagement metrics

After collecting the data, analyze each metric to gain important insight into your donor base and how they respond to different types of marketing.

Analysis of demographic data, for example, will allow you to segment your donors and better target marketing for each group. Implementing segmentation and personalization will then help you to increase your email open and click-through rates. From social media data, you can learn which platforms and types of content your supporters prefer to engage with. Then, redirect your social media efforts to prioritize the content your donors most respond to.

The information you get from these metrics isn’t just valuable for your current campaign, it’ll also be useful for future fundraisers and your organization’s overall marketing strategy. From this data, you can see which tactics were the most effective for different donor segments and focus your attention on the methods that will make the biggest impact in the future.

Your fundraiser needs to reach supporters in order to be successful. By creating a compelling multi-channel campaign that drives prospects back to a streamlined donation page, you’ll be well-positioned to increase the number of site visitors and completed donations.

Once you’ve implemented these strategies, all that’s left to do is thank your donors! Show your appreciation for each and every person who donated, and work on creating relationships that will keep them involved with your nonprofit for years to come.

Guest Author: John Killoran, Clover Leaf Solutions

John Killoran is an inventor, entrepreneur, and the Chairman of Clover Leaf Solutions, a national lab services company. He currently leads Clover Leaf’s investment in Snowball Fundraising, an online fundraising platform for nonprofit organizations. 

Snowball was one of John’s first public innovations; it’s a fundraising platform that offers text-to-give, online giving, events, and peer-to-peer fundraising tools for nonprofits. By making giving simple, Snowball increases the donations that these organizations can raise online. The Snowball effect is real! John founded Snowball in 2011. Now, it serves over 7,000 nonprofits and is the #1 nonprofit fundraising platform.