10 Ways To Plan And Promote Your Charity Fundraiser

When organizing a charity fundraiser, the most important thing is the donations. It can come from many sources such as financial commitments, direct transactions in cash or check, participation fees, and payments from auctions. In order to secure that there will be donations, you need a lot of people, especially those who are your targeted audience, to attend the event. 

Word-of-mouth can only do so much. Why not leverage digital tools? After all, most of them are free and can reach a wide population in just a matter of seconds. 

10 Ways To Plan and Promote A Charity Fundraiser

Planning a charity fundraiser is no easy task. On most occasions, you need people besides you who are reliable and trustworthy. On top of that, you can follow the tips below so to ensure that your charity fundraiser event runs as smoothly as possible.

1. Set Up The Goal

To start, you need to define the goal of your charity fundraiser and make sure everything is in line with it. For example, if you want to raise funds for medical or health awareness, isn’t it inappropriate to conduct a hotdog eating contest at your event, right? 

2. Define The Audience

You also have to define the nature of your fundraiser, your intended audience, and your activities in order to encourage participants or donors. Moreover, you have to set a realistic budget to hold the event so you can make sound decisions on what and who to involve. 

3. Work Professionally

Ultimately, your team has to stay professional and value expertise, experience, and passion. This is why you need to recruit people that are right for the job. Additionally, make sure that you are good at delegating responsibilities and utilizing the strengths of your team members well. Now that you have a clear idea of how to plan your charity fundraiser, the next step is to promote it. 

4. Secure Sponsors

Realistically, you can encounter moments wherein you will be short of funds for the event. To avoid being in such a situation, you have to secure sponsors beforehand. You can attract people that you know with such capacity to sponsor or you can solicit financial help from a specific crowd. It all boils down to how well you market your fundraiser. 

5. Utilize Email Marketing And Newsletters

One great digital tool for marketing is using email. Build first a list of potential donors and interested participants. Then, you can promote your fundraiser by sending informative newsletters and updates. In order to increase the appeal of your messages and the chances of getting positive responses, use charity email templates that are available online. 

6. Leverage Social Media

Social media platforms are powerful tools for promoting any event. They can reach a wide audience that can even exceed your expectations. On those platforms, you can reiterate what you have advertised in emails. However, you can also do more than that. Follow trends if you must. The key to increasing the success of social media engagement is to be creative. 

7. Engage Local Media And Influencers 

In line with leveraging social media, it helps to enlist assistance from modern digital celebrities – the influencers. These people already have a substantial reach in social media and anything they promote can quickly gain attention. If you double it down by reaching the local media like newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels, you will broaden your audience more. 

8. Create A User-Friendly Donation Process 

A simple and secure donation process definitely encourages people to transact willingly. Cash and checks are good, but you have to provide electronic and online financial transactions also. Aside from credit cards, you can try exploring the process for e-wallets, online banking transfers, and even cryptocurrency. Do not forget to consider your audience while doing so. 

9. Host Pre-Event Awareness Activities 

Before the actual event, you can boost the anticipation for your fundraiser. Think of it like a movie trailer before the film is shown in cinemas. Pre-event awareness activities can be in the form of campaigns, seminars, and even vlogs. Hosting such activities may demand a bit more of your creativity, courage, and budget, but it is definitely worth the effort. 

10. Don’t Forget Post-Event Marketing

Do not disregard the post-event marketing. After you have received donations and commitments, you don’t want to leave them hanging, right? You have to show your appreciation. If you organize a fun-run event, make sure you have at least an awarding ceremony. You can also give tokens or personalized messages of gratitude. 

Conclusion

As you implement either of the ways presented, make sure to observe its effectiveness. One easy measurement for that is the attendance of the people at your charity fundraiser event. The next measure is matching the donations with the expectations brought by the number of attendees. If you find the results lacking, then try to re-explore the other aforementioned ways.