How to get started with online fundraising in 2026: 7 simple steps

Online fundraising has become an essential fundraising tool for most, if not all, nonprofits. Whether you’re just beginning your fundraising journey or looking to strengthen your current efforts, now is the time to ensure your fundraising is optimized for online giving. In this guide, we will break down step-by-step the most important elements of how to start your online fundraising journey.

Why online fundraising matters more than ever.

When donors consider giving, they want an easy and convenient way to support the causes that matter most to them. And online giving has become one of the most popular ways to do so. For small to medium-sized nonprofits that have limited staff and resources, online fundraising provides a cost-effective way to expand reach without the overhead of traditional fundraising events.

Step 1: Choose the right online fundraising platform.

Your fundraising platform is the foundation of your online giving strategy. Your platform should not only process donations but also help you engage donors and manage your donor data.

When evaluating platform options, you should consider:

• Ease of use for your staff and donors
• Subscription costs
• Mobile-friendly donation pages
• Recurring giving and peer-to-peer fundraising options
• Integrated donor management and CRM tools like Mightycause Contacts

✨Mightycause solution: Mightycause combines all these features into one, easy-to-use platform, giving you donor insights, embedded donation forms, and peer-to-peer functionality without the complexity of multiple systems. With no monthly subscription fees and free-to-use tools, more of your funds go directly to your mission.

Step 2: Build an effective donation page.

Your donation page is where supporters convert from site visitors to actual donors. And an optimized donation page can dramatically increase giving for your organization. 

An effective donation page should:

• Provide clear messaging about your mission and impact
• Offer suggested donation levels and recurring giving options
• Work seamlessly on mobile and load quickly

✨Mightycause feature: With Mightycause embeddable forms, you can easily embed donation forms directly on your website, offer recurring giving options, and collect all the data you need. Create unlimited forms and track which forms perform best, so you can continuously improve and optimize your online giving.

Step 3: Leverage email marketing for donor engagement.

​​Email is one of the most effective and highest ROI communication channels for nonprofits. Beyond asking for donations, email is a great way to tell your story, highlight your success, and deepen relationships with supporters. 

To maximize email, focus on:

• Sharing updates and impact stories rather than just donation appeals
• Segmenting your donors/audience using Mightycause Contacts CRM
• Incorporating automated email journeys
• Clear calls-to-action linking directly to donation pages

✨Mightycause feature: Mightycause makes it easy and simple to maximize your email fundraising. Target your outreach through our donor management tool, Contacts. Easily segment and organize your supporters and send personalized messages to individuals or groups directly from the platform. You can also reduce your workload through automated emails. Enable and customize automated emails such as a Welcome Message or Yearly Donation Reminder, so you can stay consistently engaged with your donors, without having to put in any manual work.

Step 4: Harness the power of social media.

Like many of us, social media is where supporters spend much of their time. It’s a prime channel and opportunity to engage with your donors, expand your reach, and drive donations. 

When using social media, focus on:

• Sharing campaign links and stories across Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
• Using quotes, photos, videos, and audio clips to showcase your impact and tell a compelling story
• Encouraging supporters to share, like, and repost your campaigns

✨Mightycause feature: Campaigns created in Mightycause are social-ready and easily shareable. As well, easily track which social channels generate the most donations for clear and transparent reporting.

Step 5: Implement peer-to-peer fundraising.

Peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the strongest strategies and forms of online fundraising. It turns your supporters into fundraisers and advocates by empowering them to fundraise on behalf of your organization. By asking their networks to donate to cause, peer-to-peer fundraisers help expand your reach and bring in new donors.

To make a peer-to-peer campaign successful:

• Provide participants with pre-made templates, graphics, and messaging
  (Utilize the Mightycause Participant Toolkit to give your supporters a step-by-step guide for building and creating their fundraiser.)
• Incentivize and recognize top fundraisers to encourage friendly competition
• Set up event and team pages to make fundraising participation seamless
  

✨Mightycause feature: Mightycause’s robust event and team fundraising pages are flexible enough to support a wide range of peer-to-peer campaigns, from walkathons to memorial campaigns and volunteer challenges. These pages make it easy for nonprofits to manage and track the progress of their peer-to-peer campaigns. Combined with customizable fundraising templates, supporters have all the tools they need to launch their own campaigns seamlessly. 

Step 6: Focus on recurring donations.

Recurring donors provide sustainable and predictable revenue every month. They also tend to give significantly more over time. That’s what makes these donors so crucial to nonprofits. Make sure to highlight this giving option and communicate its impact clearly to supporters.

To increase your recurring donors, you should:

• Make recurring giving prominent on donation forms.
• If recurring giving is your primary focus, set it as a default option.
• Steward donors with personalized updates and exclusive content.
• Name your recurring giving program or recurring donors to provide a sense of community or exclusivity.

✨Mightycause feature: Mightycause provides a recurring giving report that helps nonprofits track monthly donors, monitor growth, and understand retention trends.  Nonprofits can easily recognize, manage, and keep track of their most important and loyal supporters.

Step 7: Track, measure, and improve.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Tracking key metrics helps you understand what’s working and where to focus your efforts.

Focus on:

• Donation page conversion rates
• Email open and click-through rates
• Average gift size and donor retention
• Campaign ROI

✨Mightycause feature: Easily integrate with Google Analytics and the Facebook Pixel to track visitor behavior, conversions, and social ad performance. These integrations help you understand where donors come from, which campaigns are most effective, and how to optimize outreach for maximum impact.

 

Get started today.

You don’t need a large team or budget to succeed in online fundraising. Start by improving one key area, like embedding a donation form, launching a recurring giving program, or automating your Welcome and Lapsed donor journeys. The most important step is simply to begin.

With Mightycause, your nonprofit has the tools to manage campaigns, engage donors, and optimize results – all in one platform. Ready to transform your nonprofit’s fundraising? Get started for free today on Mightycause.