Adaptive Fundraising Strategies: How to Pivot in a Crisis

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Disaster can strike at any time—and whether that’s a fundraising drop, a community disaster, or a loss of government funding, your nonprofit needs to be prepared. Taking preemptive action to ensure your fundraising strategy can weather the storm will insulate your organization from whatever comes your way.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the steps you can take to ensure your nonprofit can continue its important work even in hard times.

1. Be honest with your supporters.

We get it: it’s hard to ask for support, even when things are going well. You worry about getting on your supporters’ nerves with your repeated pleas or coming across as desperate. It’s that much harder—and that much more vital—to ask for help from supporters when times are tough.

Candidly telling your supporters that your organization is facing difficult times, without sugarcoating it, makes it more likely that they’ll want to come to your aid. Your supporters already care about you and your cause, but they may not contribute unless they understand what’s at stake. You can communicate urgency by:

  • Crafting the perfect ask for pledges. Tailor your request to your organization’s needs, your community’s capacity to give, and the issue at hand. Be clear about exactly how much funding your organization needs, but be sensitive about how much you’re asking your supporters to give if the crisis at hand has caused an economic downturn. Supporters will be more likely to donate if they feel they can trust you to be honest with them. Be earnest and thoughtful, and you’ll build donor relationships that can survive through any crisis.
  • Use social media. In a crisis, it’s vital to extend your reach beyond your existing pool of supporters. Social media is a valuable tool to let the public know about your organization and its mission. In uncertain moments, reach out to your more social media-savvy supporters for extra help in getting the word out. They can share your posts with their networks to broaden your outreach.
  • Meet with your major donors. Face-to-face meetings with your biggest supporters are a great way to build and maintain connections, reminding them of your nonprofit’s mission and the impact their support can have on your ability to create change. These relationships are particularly valuable when disaster strikes and you need a significant boost to keep your mission alive.

Open communication with your donors is critical. It builds trust and increases the likelihood that they’ll rush to your aid when your organization faces challenges.

2. Revisit your donor retention strategy.

Recurring donations are the lifeblood of a sustainable nonprofit. By refreshing your donor retention strategy, you can create stability for your organization, regardless of what the future may bring. Here are some tips to ensure donor loyalty:

  • Identify likely candidates. You can make your recurring donor recruitment process more streamlined by focusing your attention on the supporters most likely to become consistent donors. Use donor data and AI tools to identify patterns among your existing recurring donors and look for those traits in other donors.
  • Make your online fundraising infrastructure user-friendly. Ensure that donors can easily navigate your website to make donations and access recurring giving opportunities.
  • Make your case. Show donors the change a recurring gift will make and brand your recurring donor program with a unique name to create a sense of community. For example, charity:water’s giving program is called The Spring, and its marketing centers on the exclusive experience of being a recurring donor and the long-term impact of these gifts.
  • Be consistent. Building loyalty isn’t about sending a single recruitment email. You should communicate consistently with your donors to build strong relationships. Reach out on multiple platforms such as email, social media, and phone calls to stay on donors’ radars.

Having an effective strategy to recruit and retain recurring donors will pay off in the long run, lending your organization stability.

3. Take advantage of AI.

Predictive AI solutions are adaptive fundraising tools that can help you identify patterns in your fundraising and prepare your organization for any future crisis. Simply gather previous fundraising data, run it through a machine-learning algorithm, and apply variables to see how various emergencies could impact your fundraising outcomes.

BWF describes the potential of AI for nonprofits, explaining that “AI benefits nonprofits across various sectors looking to streamline fundraising and increase organizational efficiency.”

If you’re not confident yet in your nonprofit’s ability to harness AI, hire an experienced AI consultant who will help you maintain data privacy, support custom modeling, and increase efficiency.

4. Explore your untapped market.

Looking for silver linings, thinking outside the box, making lemonade out of lemons—these old adages may be cliches, but they still hold weight. Be open to shifting your fundraising focus, as you may be leaving money on the table by neglecting to explore alternate funding sources.

For example, in the healthcare sector, a volatile political climate and threats to programs like Medicaid make future governmental support unpredictable, which has historically been a major source of funding. However, the private sector and individuals are stepping up to fill in those gaps. As a result, these organizations are dedicating more attention to these sources. Think about who you could contact to expand your fundraising network.

Furthermore, a moment of crisis might actually increase donors’ desire to support important causes like yours. For example, despite economic challenges during the pandemic, giving actually increased in 2021.

Make the most of supporters’ desire to help by hosting a peer-to-peer fundraising event to help diversify your fundraising.Qgiv’s guide to peer-to-peer fundraising explains how these events can expand your reach and get your existing supporters more invested in your cause. Here are the essential steps of setting up your own peer-to-peer fundraising event:

  • Pick the right P2P fundraising platform. An online platform can streamline the registration process, track your progress, and create distinctive branding for your event.
  • Recruit your volunteers. P2P fundraising allows your supporters to raise money on your behalf. Reach out to dedicated supporters and set up individual fundraising pages for each volunteer. Be sure to give your fundraisers strong promotional resources so they can spread the word.
  • Track your progress and thank your supporters. Throughout the event, you should keep track of how much you’ve raised so that you can celebrate successful fundraisers and provide additional support to anyone who’s struggling. At the end of the event, thank each of your supporters for their hard work.

If you’ve historically been reliant on a particular source of funding, diversifying your fundraising audience through strategies like peer-to-peer fundraising can help you reach current and future supporters alike.

5. Consider hiring a fundraising consultant.

When something goes wrong, getting a professional outside opinion can help you get back on the right track. Fundraising consultants assist with campaign launches, donor connections, and crisis strategy recommendations. They can also help you connect with important stakeholders in your organization, like beneficiaries, staff members, donors, and volunteers.

Finding the right fundraising consultant requires connecting with someone who aligns with your organization’s budget, needs, and goals. Working with a consultant means having someone in your corner who knows nonprofits and knows your organization, which will give your organization security in uncertain times.

Nobody wants to think about a disaster shifting the way your organization works, but being prepared for whatever the future may bring is crucial for nonprofits. You should ensure your fundraising strategy rests on a strong foundation and be willing to adjust when the need arises.

We can’t always control the outside world. But being proactive, flexible, and creative will help you stay on top of the variables you can control, safeguarding your organization from the unpredictable.