Digital fundraising 101: Your guide to driving donations online

If you work in fundraising today, you likely have at least a basic understanding of fundraising software, websites, apps, platforms, plugins, etc.,—it’s essential. In an increasingly tech-driven world where every facet of our lives is increasingly online, even the most traditional of traditionalists have come to recognize the need to embrace digital tools to succeed. 

But not all digital fundraising tools are equally effective, nor is their effectiveness interchangeable from one organization to another. Your team, its goals, and its pool of donors are unique; therefore, finding the right platform(s) that align with your needs is a personal process. 

That process – among other things – is exactly what this article is here to guide you through. We’ll offer advice leveraging technology to unlock new opportunities, streamline operations, and maximize impact.  

So, if you’re ready to enhance your fundraising efforts, we invite you to read on. Whether you’re a seasoned expert or a relative newcomer to the field, this guide contains insights and strategies for thriving in today’s digital landscape. 

Table of contents

1. What is digital fundraising? 
2. What are the benefits of digital fundraising?
3. Key components of a digital fundraising campaign
4. Digital fundraising campaign ideas
5. Building a high-performing digital fundraising strategy
6. Making a fundraising website
7. What makes a digital fundraising platform effective?
8. Getting started with Gravyty for digital fundraising
9. Capitalizing on Gravyty’s digital fundraising tools
10. Fundraising analytics
11. Marketing and communications strategies with Gravyty
12. Case studies and success stories
13. The future of digital fundraising with Gravyty

What is digital fundraising?

Digital fundraising is the practice of leveraging various online platforms and tools to connect with donors, build relationships, and drive donations for your mission. The approach taps into the vast potential of digital communication to reach a wider audience, create personalized donor experiences, streamline giving processes, and continuously improve efforts using data analytics. 

Why is digital fundraising important?

Digital fundraising channels more resources toward meaningful causes, which drives real-world change and makes a lasting difference for institutions and their communities. That’s why digital fundraising matters. It empowers organizations to amplify their impact in ways that were previously unattainable.  

By implementing the latest technology, fundraisers can reach a broader audience, personalize donor engagement, and make the giving process seamless and efficient. And, in addition to increasing the scale of their efforts, online giving software makes teams more adaptable to changing circumstances, ensuring that they can continue to thrive in a rapidly (and often radically) evolving digital landscape.

How does digital fundraising work?

This purpose can be put into practice in a variety of ways. Digital fundraising is diverse and prone to frequent change. However, there are several categories that most online campaigns fall into. 

1. Email Campaigns: Old but gold. Email is still one of the most direct and reliable ways to engage donors. Its personalized letter format is perfect for sharing impactful stories, updates, and calls to action. Plus, with the emergence of AI-driven donor outreach, sending personalized messages to a large audience is simpler than ever.  

2. Crowdfunding Campaigns: Crowdfunding harnesses the power of the collective, bringing together small contributions from a large number of people to fuel a specific project, cause, or event. Using online platforms, these campaigns set clear fundraising goals, offer real-time updates, and encourage supporters to share progress through social media. This approach not only raises funds but also builds a community of engaged advocates who are invested in your success. 

3. Giving Days: A Giving Day is a 24-hour fundraising event designed to rally donors around a common cause within a limited timeframe. These events are designed to maximize engagement and excitement, often incorporating gamification elements like leaderboards and goal thermometers. Days of giving are a perfect opportunity to re-engage existing donors and attract new ones. By creating a sense of urgency and friendly competition, Giving Days inspire donors to contribute more generously, transforming a single day into a powerful force for impact. 

4. Recurring Giving Programs: Digital fundraising tools facilitate the launching and management of recurring giving programs, where donors commit to ongoing, regular, subscription-style contributions. These programs not only provide a reliable source of income but also strengthen the bond between donors and your organization, fostering long-term support and a deeper connection to your mission. Some online giving platforms even include the option for a recurring donation to make it simple to set up 

5. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Peer-to-peer fundraising empowers your supporters to become advocates and ambassadors who raise funds on your behalf. Using digital tools, they can easily create personalized fundraising pages and share them with their networks through email, social media, and other channels. This approach not only extends your organization’s reach but also helps you connect with new donors through the trusted relationships your supporters already have, amplifying your impact and building a broader community of engaged supporters. 

6. Social Media Campaigns: Leveraging the power of social networks, digital fundraising campaigns can be amplified through targeted social media advertising and organic outreach. These campaigns often include calls to action, shareable content, and hashtags that encourage broader participation and visibility. 

7. Personalized Donor Engagement: Through AI-powered tools like Gravyty, fundraisers can manage and nurture donor relationships more effectively. These tools help in identifying the best times to reach out, suggest personalized messaging, and automate many of the administrative tasks involved in donor stewardship, allowing for more meaningful interactions at scale. 

8. Video Fundraising: Platforms like Gravyty enable organizations to create and send personalized video messages to donors. These can be used to thank donors, make appeals, or provide updates on how their contributions are making an impact. Video messages add a personal touch that can significantly enhance donor engagement and retention. 

What are the benefits of digital fundraising?

Digital fundraising offers a wealth of strategic benefits for modern organizations, some of which we’ve mentioned already. Now let’s take a more deliberate and detailed look at the factors that make it so impactful: 

• Accessibility & Convenience: Donors can give anytime, anywhere, making it easier for them to support your cause at their convenience, no matter where they are. 

• Wider Reach: Digital fundraising connects you with a global audience, allowing you to reach potential donors beyond your immediate community and grow your supporter base. 

• Cost-Effective & Scalable: It’s more affordable than traditional methods, with lower overhead costs (e.g., event space and physical materials) and the ability to scale quickly as your campaign gains momentum. 

• Data & Analytics: Real-time insights help you understand donor behavior, allowing for targeted outreach and personalized engagement that drives better results. 

• Engagement & Community Building: Digital platforms enable real-time interactions, fostering a sense of community among supporters and strengthening their connection to your cause. 

• Flexibility & Innovation: Digital tools offer creative opportunities like gamification, AI-driven personalization, and automation, allowing you to innovate and adapt your fundraising strategy. 

Digital fundraising campaign ideas

Inspiring donors to engage more deeply and contribute to your mission in meaningful ways requires a mix of creativity and strategy. The right tools are important, but without great ideas for energizing your community and encouraging a spirit of giving, even the most advanced technology won’t be of much help.  

Here are a few tried-and-true campaign ideas that will help you get the ball rolling as you strategize ways to bolster your fundraising efforts and drive results. 

• Challenge Campaigns: Build excitement and competition by organizing challenges between different donor groups—like departments, alumni classes, or regions—to see who can raise the most. Use leaderboards and live updates to keep the competition lively and drive more giving. 

• Seasonal Fundraisers: Tie your campaigns to holidays or special occasions to capitalize on heightened feelings of generosity. Whether it’s a back-to-school drive, a holiday giving campaign, or even something like an Earth Day initiative that showcases your values, these seasonal fundraisers resonate with donors who are already in the mindset of giving, making it easier to inspire contributions. 

• Matching Gift Campaigns: Increase your impact by partnering with companies that match employee donations. Highlight these opportunities to encourage donors to give more, knowing their contributions will be doubled or even tripled. Some digital fundraising platforms like Advance have a built-in matching gifts tool directly on the donation page, making it easy for organizations to capture every dollar available. 

• Social Media Takeovers: Let well-known public figures, on-campus personalities, or advocates of your organization take over your social media for a day. They can share stories, promote your campaign, and reach new supporters through their networks, boosting your visibility. 

Building a high-performing digital fundraising strategy

To create a digital fundraising strategy that delivers results, it’s essential to focus on key strategic elements that maximize engagement, efficiency, and impact. Here’s how: 

Planning and Executing Successful Digital Giving Events (e.g., Giving Days): The foundation of any successful digital fundraising strategy is meticulous planning. Define clear objectives, set realistic fundraising goals, and identify your target donor audience. Then create a detailed roadmap/timeline for your digital giving events, ensuring you have the right messaging and promotional tactics in place. This includes launching email campaigns, social media, and other forms of personalized outreach to generate excitement and drive participation. Ensure that your event is easy to access and navigate, offering seamless donation experiences that encourage maximum involvement. 

Leveraging Analytics and Reporting: Data is one of your most valuable assets in digital fundraising. Use analytics to track donor behavior, campaign performance, and overall engagement. The insights you gain will allow you to make informed decisions, adjust strategies on the fly, and optimize your campaigns for better results. By understanding what works and what doesn’t, you can continually refine your approach to meet your goals more effectively.  

Integrating Flexible Giving Forms for Year-Round Fundraising: High-performing strategies aren’t just about one-time events—they’re about sustained, evergreen engagement. Integrate re-usable giving forms on your website and digital platforms that allow donors to contribute whenever they’re inspired, not just during an event. These forms should be easy to access, user-friendly, and mobile-optimized to ensure a smooth experience across devices. Offer options for one-time donations, recurring gifts, and even customizable donation amounts. By making it easy for donors to give on their terms, you create a steady stream of support that fuels your mission year-round. 

How to build a fundraising website

Creating a successful fundraising website starts with a design that prioritizes simplicity and user experience. Your site should be easy to navigate and focused on clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide visitors toward donating. It’s essential to ensure the site is mobile-friendly, providing a seamless experience on any device, as many donors will likely access your site from their smartphones or tablets. 

The content on your site should focus on storytelling and visual impact. Use compelling narratives that highlight the real-life difference your organization is making, supported by powerful visuals like videos, photos, and infographics.  

This combination helps build an emotional connection with potential donors, making them more likely to contribute. 

Optimizing the donor experience is crucial to converting visitors into supporters. Streamline the donation process by keeping the form simple and offering multiple payment options, including credit cards, PayPal, and digital wallets. Ensure that the process is secure, and consider providing options for recurring donations to encourage sustained support. 

Finally, to reach a wider audience, it’s important to implement SEO best practices that improve your site’s visibility in search engines. Additionally, make sure your website is accessible to everyone by incorporating ADA-compliant features.  

This includes using alt text for images, ensuring readable text contrasts, and providing transcripts for videos. By focusing on these key areas, you can create a fundraising website that not only looks great but also effectively engages donors and drives contributions.

What makes a digital fundraising platform effective?

Finding the right digital fundraising platform for you, your team, and your goals is essential for driving success in your campaigns. Here’s a helpful checklist to guide your selection process with some key criteria that any good platform should offer. 

• Customized Giving Day Sites: Ensure the platform allows you to create tailored microsites for specific campaigns, reflecting your organization’s branding and messaging to boost engagement during giving days. 

• CRM and Payment Integration: Verify that the platform integrates seamlessly with your CRM and payment providers. This is crucial for smooth data management, tracking contributions, and generating accurate reports. 

• Integration with Email: With email marketing, organizations can personalize outreach, nurture relationships, and provide timely updates to donors, increasing the likelihood of repeat donations. Seamless integration allows for automated, data-driven email campaigns, making it easier to target specific donor segments and track the impact of each message, ultimately driving higher engagement and fundraising outcomes. 

• User-Friendly Donation Process: Choose a platform that offers an efficient, intuitive donation experience to reduce bounce rates and increase the likelihood of completed transactions. 

• Retargeting Tools: Look for features that allow you to re-engage potential donors who didn’t complete their donation, helping you capture missed opportunities. 

• Recurring Giving Options: Select a platform that supports recurring donations, enabling ongoing support and a steady stream of income for your organization. 

• Donor-Advised Funds Payment: An effective digital fundraising platform should support donor-advised fund (DAF) payments, offering donors a tax-efficient, flexible giving option. This encourages larger, more strategic donations, boosting long-term financial growth for nonprofits. 

Maximizing fundraising success with AI: Innovative strategies for donor engagement and outreach

To fully leverage the capabilities of digital fundraising, it’s important to employ tactics that not only encourage donor engagement but maximize it. In this regard, personalization and automation are key.

Here’s how AI can help you achieve both of those objectives:  

Personalized donor engagement

• AI-Enhanced Donor Outreach: Leverage AI tools like Gravyty to automate and personalize communications. Prioritize outreach, tailor messages, and time engagements perfectly to deepen relationships with donors. 

• Customized Messaging Campaigns: Use AI to craft and deliver tailored messages for specific campaigns, such as Giving Days or annual fundraisers. Personalized messaging at the right time increases donor engagement and boosts contributions. 

• Automated Donor Stewardship: Implement AI-driven stewardship programs to automatically send personalized thank-you notes and updates after donations. This keeps donors engaged and encourages future giving. 

Strategic donor management

• Targeted Donor Visits: Use AI to identify clusters of high-potential donors for in-person visits, optimizing travel to ensure you focus on donors most likely to contribute. This makes your travel budget more effective and increases the impact of face-to-face interactions. 

• Optimize Virtual Fundraising Events: Use AI insights to target invitations to your most engaged or high-potential donors when hosting online events like webinars and follow up with personalized communications to turn interest into donations. 

• Sustainable Giving Programs: Integrate AI into donor management to automate tasks like segmentation and portfolio adjustments. This helps maintain strong, personalized donor relationships and ensures your programs evolve with donor needs and campaign goals. 

Getting started with Gravyty for digital fundraising

Gravyty seamlessly bridges traditional fundraising with today’s digital demands. By integrating Gravyty, you create a strong digital foundation that complements your existing strategies, keeping your organization effective and competitive in an evolving landscape. 

Building your digital fundraising infrastructure with Gravyty

Optimizing your donation website 

Gravyty transforms your donation site into a catalyst for meaningful engagement. By leveraging Gravyty’s intuitive design features, AI-driven personalization, and seamless integration, your site not only becomes mobile-friendly and easy to navigate but also a dynamic tool that enhances the donor experience and drives conversions. 

Selecting the right tools 

Gravyty equips you with a robust suite of AI-powered tools designed to revolutionize your digital fundraising efforts. From personalized donor outreach to sophisticated analytics and CRM integration, Gravyty ensures that your organization has the strategic resources needed to streamline operations, deepen donor relationships, and achieve unparalleled impact

Capitalizing on Gravyty’s digital fundraising tools

Gravyty transforms your fundraising campaigns by integrating cutting-edge AI with personalized engagement strategies, ensuring that each initiative not only resonates with your audience but also maximizes its impact.  You’ll be able to craft compelling, personalized video messages that foster deeper connections with donors, driving increased engagement and boosting donations.  

Additionally, Gravyty empowers you to run targeted messaging campaigns that deliver tailored communications directly to donors, enhancing engagement and maximizing response rates. With AI technology, you can also design and send timely, personalized texts and emails that capture attention and strengthen donor relationships at the best possible moment. 

Fundraising analytics

To drive successful fundraising, it’s crucial to leverage data effectively. With Gravyty, you can track essential metrics, analyze donor behavior, and fine-tune your strategies in real-time, ensuring your efforts are targeted and impactful.

Here’s how Gravyty helps you make the most of your data: 

• Key Performance Indicators: Set and track KPIs like donor retention, average gift size, and conversion rates with Gravyty to measure your success and set goals. 

• Donor Journeys: Gravyty helps you map and analyze donor journeys from engagement to donation, refining strategies for better outcomes. 

• Real-Time Reporting: Monitor campaign performance with Gravyty’s real-time dashboards, allowing you to make data-driven decisions on the fly. 

• Data Segmentation: Use Gravyty’s segmentation tools to tailor your outreach, ensuring your messages resonate with specific donor groups and drive engagement. 

Case studies & success stories

Gravyty has empowered numerous organizations to achieve remarkable results through innovative strategies and cutting-edge technology. Here are some standout examples: 

Saint Leo University: Inspiring competition to boost giving day donations

Saint Leo University used Gravyty to energize their annual Giving Day by introducing friendly competition among donor segments. Through Gravyty’s personalized outreach tools, they crafted challenges that significantly boosted donor participation.  

The results were remarkable: Saint Leo saw a 42% increase in donations and a higher level of commitment than in past giving days. Reflecting on the success, a representative from Saint Leo University shared, “It was a healthy competition, and everyone is still talking about it. That was a win for us. We not only saw more alumni giving, but we also saw more faculty, staff and even students giving.” 

Butler University: 44% More Giving Day Donations with Personalized Video  

Butler University leveraged Gravyty’s AI-driven personalized video outreach to create deeper connections with potential donors during their Giving Day campaign. The tailored video messages made donors feel valued, leading to a 44% increase in Giving Day donations compared to previous years. One administrator from Butler University noted, “Since using Gravyty, we have had more frequent interactions with a wide range of Butler donors.

The platform has allowed us to create personalized messages that are appealing and highlight the sincerity of our appreciation for those who help us achieve our mission. Each message was customized for the individual donor and was sent from a representative within the department supported by the donation. We received great feedback from those that received them.” 

The future of digital fundraising with Gravyty

As digital fundraising evolves, embracing AI-driven solutions like Gravyty is key to staying ahead of the curve. Gravyty equips organizations with the tools to build deeper, more personalized connections with donors, ensuring your efforts are both impactful and efficient. 

The future of fundraising lies in leveraging data and automation to deliver personalized donor experiences at scale. Gravyty is leading this transformation, offering the insights and technology needed to navigate the complexities of modern fundraising. By adopting Gravyty’s AI-powered tools, you can enhance donor engagement, streamline your operations, and drive greater success. 

As digital trends continue to reshape how we connect with supporters, Gravyty will be your trusted partner in adapting and thriving. From innovative campaign strategies to cutting-edge analytics and automated outreach, Gravyty is committed to leading the way forward. With Gravyty, your organization is poised to embrace the future of fundraising, ensuring lasting growth and impact for years to come.