How to develop a successful nonprofit fundraising strategy

It’s the end of the quarter. You’re scrambling to hit a revenue goal, your biggest corporate sponsor hasn’t renewed, and your team is burned out from launching three separate “urgent” campaigns in the last two months. You feel stuck in a constant cycle of putting out fires, with no time to think about next year, let alone three years from now.

This reactive loop is a direct symptom of operating without a clear fundraising strategy. Your nonprofit fundraising strategy serves as your organization’s blueprint for recruiting new supporters, engaging existing ones, and expanding your influence—all with the goal of funding your mission more efficiently and predictably.

That’s why developing a strategic fundraising plan is necessary. It’s the key to breaking the cycle. Whether you’re looking to refine your existing approach or design a new plan from scratch, this guide will steer you through the process of building a fundraising strategy. We’ll cover:

• Nonprofit fundraising strategy: FAQs
• 10 steps to build your fundraising strategy
• Free nonprofit fundraising strategy template
• Build a powerful fundraising strategy with Bloomerang

Keep in mind that successfully executing a powerful fundraising strategy requires a strong partnership between your organization’s marketing and fundraising staff. Commit to eliminating departmental silos so that everyone is on the same page and all team members contribute their unique skills to help you succeed. With that, let’s get started.

Nonprofit fundraising strategy: FAQs

What is a fundraising strategy?

A fundraising strategy is the plan or roadmap your nonprofit uses to organize its fundraising efforts throughout the year. It provides a cohesive structure and blueprint to maintain fundraising momentum, with clearly defined campaigns, team roles, deadlines, and benchmarks to hit.

Despite the critical benefits of a fundraising strategy, almost half of nonprofits lack a guiding plan to empower growth and future success. As we’ll discuss in the next section, this is a critical oversight that nonprofits must consider when building their fundraising calendars.

Why is a nonprofit fundraising strategy so important?

You likely understand the general benefits of planning, but why is creating a fundraising plan so crucial for your nonprofit? A well-developed fundraising strategy will accomplish the following:

• It will provide your team with a guiding blueprint for making informed decisions. Whenever there’s uncertainty in your decision-making process, your team members can turn to your fundraising strategy for clarification and guidance.
• It will help you build upon past successes. Your fundraising strategy will consider your past successes and opportunities to help your organization grow year after year.
• It will provide accountability. A fundraising strategy helps keep you on track by offering deadlines and benchmarks to hit throughout the year.

Ultimately, a well-rounded fundraising strategy will help your organization raise more and fuel long-term support. But what does a fundraising strategy look like in practice?

What are the essential components of a fundraising strategy?

Although every nonprofit is unique, and its fundraising plan will be as well, there are several key elements that most nonprofits should include in their fundraising strategies to achieve their goals. That’s because all nonprofits share similar goals, including connecting with more donors, enhancing their donor retention rates, and forming strategic, sustainable partnerships with other organizations.

Therefore, your fundraising strategy should address several vital components. We’ll introduce these elements here and then provide actionable steps for incorporating each of them into your fundraising strategy.

1. Donor stewardship

Donor stewarship is the process of cultivating strong relationships with supporters after they make a donation to your cause. When you build deeper relationships with them, you can turn one-time donors into ongoing—sometimes lifetime—supporters of your mission. Donor stewardship also helps boost your donor retention rate, enabling you to earn more over time.

2. Major gifts

Your fundraising strategy should focus heavily on cultivating major gifts. Why? Studies show that 88% of total dollars raised come from only 12% of donors; these are your major donors. When you create a tailored plan to build relationships with them, you’ll earn more support for your mission.

3. Marketing

Your marketing plan describes how you will connect with your target audience and inform them of engagement opportunities. This involves recruiting new supporters and maintaining contact with existing donors. Pursuing a multi-channel marketing strategy—communicating via social media, email, direct mail, and other communication channels—will allow you to expand your reach and promote your cause to the broadest possible audience.

4. Online fundraising

No nonprofit fundraising plan is complete without an online fundraising strategy. According to Double the Donation’s fundraising statistics, 63% of donors in the U.S. and Canada prefer to donate online using a credit or debit card. Your fundraising strategy should address how you will connect with supporters online, which requires defining a digital marketing strategy, outlining your virtual event plans, and planning to send personalized online communications.

5. Events

Fundraising events engage supporters in person or online, offering a unique and exciting experience. Events such as 5Ks, Giving Day challenges, auctions, peer-to-peer fundraisers, and galas should play a significant role in your fundraising strategy.

6. Strategic partnerships

Partnerships between nonprofits and for-profit organizations are more common and impactful than ever before. Businesses are seeking more opportunities to expand their corporate philanthropy programs, thereby bolstering their own reputations while giving back to the community. Nonprofits benefit from a variety of corporate philanthropy programs, including event sponsorships, in-kind donations, and corporate matching gifts. Corporate partnerships are an effective yet often underutilized source of support for nonprofits.

So, how can you build a fundraising strategy that incorporates these six critical elements? Read on for a step-by-step guide to establishing a strong fundraising strategy.

10 steps to build your fundraising strategy

1. Evaluate your current fundraising strategy

Assess your current fundraising strategy, if you have one. If you don’t have a formal strategy, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your individual fundraising efforts and campaigns.

For example, you might find that your annual fundraising 5K is well-attended, but you have a hard time maintaining supporters’ attention in the aftermath. Or, you might determine that your email newsletter receives a lot of engagement, but you’re struggling to grow your social media following. Note these specifics and address them in your new fundraising strategy.

Also, review your fundraising metrics and data from previous campaigns. This information can give you a clearer picture of how your fundraising efforts have grown or changed over the years. Plus, you can identify trends or patterns that illustrate where you’re most successful and where there’s room for improvement.

2. Set goals

Set goals that are achievable given your current capacity. Consider your staff size and the time they have to devote to fundraising pursuits, your current budget, and your past fundraising campaign totals.

However, you should also set goals that are ambitious enough that they give your team something to strive for. You should always keep your focus on growing your organization, so make sure your goals are consistently higher than your past fundraising results.

3. Assess your software solutions

A modern fundraising strategy relies on powerful software solutions that consolidate fundraising into a centralized online system.

Assess your current fundraising toolkit and consider how your solutions work together to support your fundraising efforts. Are there any solutions or apps you’re missing or that you’d like to replace with a different system or provider?

Ensure you have access to these useful tools:

• CRM. Your nonprofit CRM helps you store and manage donor information within robust donor profiles. Powerful platforms like Bloomerang also allow you to create donor segments for more targeted research and communications, view donor engagement and generosity metrics per supporter, and track fundraising campaign progress.
• Giving platform. A giving platform or fundraising tool enables your nonprofit to create a branded online giving form and accept digital donations from supporters at any time, from anywhere. Solutions like Bloomerang Fundraising take this functionality a step further, with peer-to-peer fundraising, text-to-give, and auction planning built right into the core giving platform.
• Email marketing software. Use email marketing software to personalize donor outreach, thank donors for their contributions, and build relationships by offering donors more ways to get involved. Plus, you gain access to a variety of email metrics, such as open rates and click-through rates, that let you know how effectively your emails engage recipients.
• Matching gift database. A matching gift database helps you identify donors who are eligible for corporate matching gifts. In corporate matching gift programs, businesses match donations that their employees make to nonprofits and other charitable organizations. With a matching gift tool, you can follow up with match-eligible donors to remind them to apply for a match. And, you can even embed a matching gift search tool into your online donation form so donors can research their eligibility and apply for a match on the spot.
• Social media scheduling tools. Social media scheduling platforms help you generate an active social media presence. You can schedule posts in advance on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to ensure that you’re consistently appearing on followers’ feeds. Tools like Hootsuite and HubSpot are popular platforms that also integrate with a variety of social media platforms, project management tools, and CRMs.
• Event planning software. Planning fundraising events requires coordinating many moving parts, including the event schedule, volunteers, food, prizes, special guests, and more. Event planning software helps keep all event planning necessities under one roof so that your team stays on the same page throughout the process.

Remember: When it comes to fundraising, you will have to spend a little upfront in order to see fundraising success. If you’re lacking any of these crucial fundraising tools, it’s worth it to investigate your options and invest in a solution that can take your fundraising to a higher level. The investment will pay for itself when you start seeing steady fundraising growth.

Also, your fundraising solutions should integrate with one another. When your solutions are aligned, you can create a streamlined data entry process and seamlessly leverage data across platforms. This means you can pull the information from your CRM to construct email marketing campaigns, or use donor data to create an event invite list.

4. Determine your core fundraising initiatives

Your fundraising strategy should describe the core fundraising campaigns that you intend to host throughout the year and relevant details for each initiative.

5. Conduct prospect research

Prospect research is the process of identifying prospective major or mid-tier donors that exhibit both a willingness to give to your cause and the capacity to do so.

6. Make giving easy

Your fundraising strategy should facilitate convenient, simple giving opportunities on an ongoing basis so that donors can contribute whenever they feel inspired.

7. Create a donor stewardship process

As mentioned above, donor stewardship is crucial for building long-lasting donor relationships and boosting your donor retention rate.

8. Plan your marketing approach

To increase the success of your fundraising events and initiatives, you need to get the word out among your target audience members.

9. Develop database hygiene procedures

Accurate data is a key component of many fundraising initiatives, from major donor stewardship to auction planning and marketing campaigns.

10. Identify and track key performance indicators

To consistently improve and evolve your fundraising strategy, choose and measure a variety of key performance indicators.

Free nonprofit fundraising strategy template

Ready to build a rough outline of your nonprofit fundraising strategy? Use this template to help get started.

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Start planning your fundraising strategy today

Your fundraising strategy doesn’t have to be set in stone. You can update your plan throughout the year as you see fit, adapting to unexpected circumstances or new opportunities.

For more information about building a powerful nonprofit fundraising strategy, review these additional resources:

• The 12 best donor management software options for 2025.
• Nonprofit strategic planning: your path to impactful growth.
• Major gifts 101: what you need to know to raise more.

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