Looking to raise more funds for your nonprofit this summer? Start a fundraising campaign on Mightycause today!
We all know that come summertime, fundraising tends to slow down for many nonprofit organizations. You’re taking a break between your spring auction or gala and bracing for the end-of-year season in the fall. It’s not worth trying out summer fundraising, is it? Glad you asked … and yes it absolutely is!
Looking to infuse some creativity into your more traditional fundraising methods, or close the gap in this year’s annual budget? Summer fundraising is a largely untapped opportunity. Our Event and Team Fundraising on Mightycause can help you make sure to keep fundraising FUN and different from your other initiatives throughout the rest of the year.
Why miss out on the opportunity to raise even more funds for your cause this summer? We’ve pulled together the best ways you can use Event and Team Fundraising to make the most of your summer fundraising plans!
Join an existing community event
Chances are your community, city, or state has all kinds of fun events planned for the summer. It’s no wonder — when the weather is nice and kids are off school, families are always looking for fun events to get outside!
Take advantage of existing events in your community, whether it’s a 5k walk, a marathon, or a bike race. Let the event organizers focus on the logistics of running the event and gathering the permits, and you just focus on getting a few supporters to participate in the race to raise funds for your nonprofit. Leverage your community to create an easy and seamless fundraising campaign.
You can create an Event or Team Fundraising campaign on Mightycause to help coordinate your participant’s efforts and showcase the impact they are having as a group. With nothing to manage for the event, you can focus on helping your fundraisers with tools and ideas for success. Before long, you’ll develop a whole new source of funding with little time investment from you or your staff.
Get a leg up on the competition
Other nonprofits may tend to slow down their fundraising appeals over the summer, but you can use this to your advantage. During the holiday season, by contrast, your supporters are getting emails from tons of nonprofits which may mean your message and ask are left competing against all the others in their inbox. With less competition in the summer, your message will stand out!
This can lead to increased donations, but also hopefully a better understanding of the critical impact your nonprofit has on your community. Even better, use this extra advantage to get your supporters to start a fundraiser on your behalf. You can make it easy for them by creating a fundraiser template so all they have to do is join the effort and spread the word!
Build your donor base with new names
Summer may be a slower time for fundraising, but it comes right before the busiest time of the year for giving.
Instead of just thinking of summer as a planning time for fundraising, think of it as a prospecting time. A time to build out a whole new list of names and emails. With that, you can cultivate relationships with new donors when the busy giving season comes back around.
Peer-to-peer fundraising is a great way to grow your donor pool with new contacts. Your peer-to-peer participants will all be tapping into their personal networks and introducing family and friends that have likely never given to your organization. This is a big win! Their first step is bringing new donors into the fold through their campaign. From there you have a few critical months to engage and cultivate these new donors, so they can make their second gift to your organization once the holiday giving season rolls around.
Involve your volunteers and board members
You don’t always have to look outside of your organization to find good opportunities to amplify your fundraising. Use the extra summer downtime and encourage your volunteers and board to get involved in a new way through online fundraising.
Create a fun competition between board members. Or maybe even pit your volunteers against the board to see who can raise more funds for your cause!
Summer is a great opportunity to create an in-person kick-off or close-out to the online competition. Small in-person events such as a barbecue or a picnic help bring people together and build excitement. Not only will you raise funds for your cause, but you’ll create a new opportunity for engagement. This will without a doubt build morale. That is something that is always valuable.
Engage a local business
Consider how you can involve local businesses as partners in a summer fundraising campaign. Think outside the box, there are all kinds of ways businesses can participate and give back. They can encourage their employees to participate as volunteers or participants in your event.
Businesses can offer prizes like gift cards or merchandise for top fundraisers in your campaign. They could even offer a matching grant incentive if your fundraisers can raise a certain amount. On Mightycause, it’s easy to display a partner’s logo on your campaign page. This allows you to showcase their brand and show them a little extra love. Bonus: Getting their whole staff engaged will form a stronger partnership that your nonprofit can build on throughout the year.
Discover new content
Looking beyond the dollars and the donors that will come in, event and team fundraising has another key benefit to your organization. By engaging your supporters to start their own fundraisers on behalf of your nonprofit, you create an opportunity for these supporters to tell a personal story about the impact of your organization.
Whether they’ve served as a volunteer or staff member, or have received the benefits of your work directly or indirectly, they will have a unique and personal story that showcases the impact of your mission.
These stories are critical to enhancing your fundraising efforts and communicating your impact to your supporters. Once your fundraising campaign has run its course, your communications and fundraising staff will have access to a whole new bank of photos and stories. This will showcase your impact throughout the year.
More Summer Fundraising Ideas
Whether it’s organizing outdoor events, hosting charity runs, or launching creative online campaigns, summer fundraising isn’t only about raising funds; it’s about leveraging the collective power of communities to come together and creating meaningful impact. Looking for more creative summer fundraising ideas? Check out our blog post below.