You’ve probably heard big promises about how AI will change everything. You’ve also heard warnings that it could damage trust, relationships, or donor connection. Neither extreme is very helpful when you’re just trying to get your work done with a small team and limited time.

This guide is here to cut through the noise.

We cover practical, nonprofit-first resources designed to help you understand where AI actually fits into your fundraising today and where it doesn’t. No hype. No automation-for-automation’s-sake. Just clear, realistic ways to use AI to reduce busywork, create clarity, and protect the human side of your work.

What This Guide Helps You Understand

This guide breaks down how AI actually shows up in nonprofit fundraising today. Not in theory, but in real workflows.

You will learn:

• What AI is and is not in a nonprofit context
• Where AI can realistically save time for small teams
• How to use AI without sounding robotic or losing donor trust
• How to keep humans in control of decisions, relationships, and voice

In This Guide You Will Find

This guide walks through how nonprofit teams are using AI right now in ways that feel supportive, ethical, and genuinely useful.

We cover:

• Practical AI use cases for fundraisers: Real examples across content creation, donor experience, reporting, segmentation, stewardship, and visibility.
• Sample prompts you can actually use: Clear prompt examples and frameworks designed for nonprofit work, not generic marketing.
• Human-centered guardrails: Guidance on responsible AI use that prioritizes ethics, transparency, and donor relationships.
• Clarity over hype: How embedded AI supports reporting, data hygiene, and workflows, with examples you can adapt.d what can wait.

Download The Complete Guide To AI in Nonprofit Fundraising

AI doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The most meaningful wins come from small, thoughtful use cases that reduce busywork and create space for better fundraising.

Download The Complete Guide to AI in Fundraising and explore practical ways to use AI that support your team, your donors, and your mission.

But when the dust settles, there is one question every fundraiser eventually has to answer. Was it actually worth it?

That is what fundraising ROI helps you understand.

What Is Fundraising ROI?

Fundraising ROI shows you how much you raised compared to what it truly cost to run your event. That includes cash expenses and the time your staff and volunteers put in.

It is one of the clearest ways to see whether an event is helping your organization grow or slowly draining your resources.

When teams are lean and expectations are high, understanding ROI is not just a nice-to-have. It is how you protect your time, your budget, and your mission.

In This Resource You Will Find

• Clear framework for calculating event fundraising ROI that includes both cash expenses and the true cost of staff and volunteer time.
• Step-by-step spreadsheet that helps you calculate total event cost, total funds raised, net profit, ROI percentage, and expense ratio using a realistic nonprofit benchmark.
• Simple dashboard view that makes it easy to understand results at a glance and share insights with your team or leadership.
• Practical tool you can reuse for future events to compare performance and improve results over time.

How the Workbook Works

Once you download the workbook and make your own copy, you will enter a few key inputs across clearly labeled sheets. You will log expenses, track staff and volunteer hours, enter fundraising goals and actual revenue, and then review your ROI and expense ratio automatically calculated for you.

Everything is set up to save you time and give you clarity without adding more complexity to your workload.

Download the Free Event Fundraising ROI Calculator

If you want a simple, honest way to evaluate your events and make smarter fundraising decisions, this resource is a great place to start.

Download the free Event Fundraising ROI Calculator and take the guesswork out of your event planning this year.

What’s your destination for 2026? In 2025, your fundraising may have taken you to a different destination than you originally planned–something that can often happen in the nonprofit world.

As you map out your 2026 fundraising plan, keep in mind how quickly the landscape is shifting. Philanthropy is still resilient, but donors are giving more strategically as economic uncertainty and new tax rules push them to be intentional about timing and impact. Small and mid-level donors may have more incentive to give, but they’re also expecting clearer reporting, faster updates, and digital communication that actually feels personal. In this environment, diversifying your revenue through recurring giving, peer-to-peer, events, grants, and strong mid-level cultivation is your best path to stability and growth.

Ready to dive in? Here are a few recommendations as you focus on planning your fundraising initiatives in 2026.

Make sure to download the template to fill in as you read through the steps below (on the right of your screen if you’re on a computer and at the bottom of this article if you’re using a mobile device)!

What is a fundraising plan?

It might seem like an obvious answer: it’s your guide to how you’ll conduct fundraising. Your goals, your strategies, your events, your deadlines, and your activities for a given time frame. But what does that actually look like? That’s what this guide is here to help you with. Essentially, you’ll want to put together a document that includes your financial goals, your main strategies, and your marketing plan so that you can see who will be doing what for the next year. There are tons of different ways to organize them, which is why we’ve included a downloadable template to get you started.

Why is creating a fundraising plan important?

Trying to navigate to your fundraising destination without a map, directions, or a plan will be challenging. You need a plan to know where you’re going, and to keep you on that track.

A strong plan also helps you prioritize what really moves the needle, like building out a recurring giving strategy that fuels predictable, sustainable revenue month after month.

The best fundraising plans are organized, actionable, and tell a complete story of how you’re going to achieve your goals. This helps point you in the right direction, gives you benchmarks along the way so you know how you’re doing and can make course corrections, and breaks down big goals into smaller, digestible steps.

It actually makes the whole fundraising process much less daunting because you’ve created your own to-do list for the next year. Let’s take a closer look.

The anatomy of a fundraising plan

Each fundraising plan may look a little different, depending on the needs of the organization and the specific events or campaigns involved. But they all have some things in common. Nearly every fundraising plan will include:

• Goals: look at how much you raised in the past and consider where you can increase your goals for the future.
• Budget: how much you intend to raise, as well as your expenses and staff time so you can see what you’re actually bringing in. This is also where you should account for the technology and platforms you rely on, like your CRM, donation platform, email tools, or event software, so you have a realistic picture of the resources needed to run an effective program.
• Calendar/timeline: due dates, important dates for fundraising events or other activities, and the approximate time frame you’ll start working on each piece.
• Activities: what will you actually do to raise the money and who will do it?
• Gift pyramid: a gift pyramid helps you break up your overall goal into specific gift levels so you can plan for how many donations of each size you will need.

Creating a Fundraising Plan

Creating a fundraising plan may seem daunting and overwhelming. Even the phrase “planning document” might make you stressed. Luckily it doesn’t have to be, because we’ve created a plan for your plan. All you have to do is follow the steps and you’ll be well on your way .

1. Evaluate Your Past Goals and Previous Fundraising Plan

The new year is a time to focus on evaluating what fundraising approaches from 2025 worked and to be honest about what didn’t go as planned. With this knowledge, you can begin creating a plan for the future and in turn create the energy and fuel to begin the fundraising journey in the best possible way. If you have a fundraising plan from last year, now is a great time to pull it out. If you don’t, that’s ok! You just need to be able to review your fundraising from last year.

Break out a spreadsheet and create a complete list of all fundraising activities you organized in the previous year, as well as any other sources of income. (If you need more ideas, we put together a list of 200+ fundraising ideas) 

For each of these activities you want to take a look at a few factors:

• The expenses of running the activity (including staff and volunteer time)
• The benefits generated for your organization (such as revenue, brand, donors)
• And any other pertinent information

You want to evaluate this information to help you determine what the return on investment is for running these activities. You want to know whether a specific activity is worth repeating again, or if you need to come up with new activities to replace them. 

Every fundraiser wants to minimize expenses while maximizing returns, so calculating return on investment is pertinent to making sure the money you spend is working for your organization.

Remember to cover ALL sources of income on this spreadsheet. This exhaustive list should include:

• All individual donations (including major donors) procured by
  • Direct mail
  • Online fundraising
  • Special/in-person fundraisers
  • Phone solicitations
  • Membership fees
• Corporate sponsorships
• Company matches
• Grants
• Sale of items/services

Now, take a good look at this spreadsheet. Highlight the fundraisers you expect to bring in similar results. Mark those that you want to do again, and cross out anything that wasn’t worth your time or had a low return on investment (ROI).

2. Revisit Your Mission and Vision

Your mission and vision should be the anchor of your fundraising plan. When we’re buried in spreadsheets, it’s easy to forget the real people at the center of our work. Take a moment to reconnect with why your organization exists and who you’re showing up for. That clarity helps you set goals that feel meaningful, not just numerical.

Instead of thinking about a dollar amount, think about a story. Maybe it’s a survivor stepping into a safe space for the first time, or a parent filling a pantry bag and finally breathing easier. When your goals reflect real lives being changed, donors can feel the impact in a much deeper way. And your values can guide how you invite them in. If education is part of your mission, maybe you create simple gatherings or workshops that help people connect with your work. It all starts with coming back to your “why.”

3. Determine Your Budget

Step one in your budget is determining your big, year-long fundraising goal. What number do you need to hit to have a successful fundraising year? This is your macro goal and in theory, should match your organization’s mission. 

Keep it concise; it doesn’t need to be long. However, this goal should be the one that all the other smaller goals feed into. If you start working on something in the year that doesn’t feed into this goal, then you need to question whether it’s worth doing.

To calculate your organizational goal you should know how much you need to raise in 2026 (or whatever your fiscal year looks like). If you need guidance, work with whoever’s in charge of finances to get a copy of the budget.

Then, complete the following steps:

1. Write down how much you expect to spend on ALL expenses (administrative, programming, fundraising).
2. Write down how much are you expecting to bring in from guaranteed, committed sources (campaign pledges, government grants, private grants, foundations) in 2026. This is also where you might consider major donors who have already committed.
3. Calculate the total you need to raise by subtracting your guaranteed income (#2) from your total expenses (#1). This is how much you need to raise in other types of fundraising activity during the next calendar year.

For example, if your total operating budget is $250,000 and you have $25,000 in government grants, $20,000 in foundation grants, and another $50,000 in pledges already committed, you must raise an additional $155,000 through other fundraisers.

4. Set New Goals

Now that you have the big goal you’ll be working towards, you can start to create smaller goals that will help you achieve that final year-end number.

Your fundraising goals, or “micro-goals,” should be SMART goals–specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time bound. You should definitely aim high with these, but make sure they’re realistic within the timeframe you have.

These smaller, strategic goals will feed directly into your organizational goal. For example, if you want to raise an additional $155,500 next year, you will probably need to increase the number of donors you have (this is a great opportunity to implement peer-to-peer fundraising). Or you will need to increase the average gift from your existing donors. It is likely that you will need to do both. You can think of these as your fundraising strategies.

Put these goals in order of priority – which ones which have the most impact, and which ones should you prioritize? I’m sure you’ll want to do them all, but remember this plan is about focusing your efforts on what will matter (to your bottom line) most.

Fundraising macro + micro goal examples in the downloadable calendar template

By starting big (your organizational goal) and working your way down (to your fundraising strategies), you now have a great understanding of what you need to accomplish throughout the year to be successful.

Here is an example of a campaign with a fundraising goal by the Foundation for Developmental Disabilities. A campaign like this can have its own target that will help you to achieve your overall organizational goal.

5. Break Those Goals Down Into Smaller Milestones

You might also call these strategies, or the activities you’ll need to do to reach those fundraising goals. 

Outlining your strategies may take some time, and it’s something that is worth doing with your staff and/or team members for ideas. As mentioned in step 1, we also recommend doing a review of what strategies did and did not work for you last year so that you pick and focus on the ones that drove results.

As you outline your approach, consider how multichannel donor conversion fits into your plan. Donors rarely convert from a single touchpoint anymore, most need a mix of email, social media, your website, direct outreach, and retargeting to move from awareness to action. Building strategies that intentionally connect these channels, like running ads that reinforce an email appeal, or using social posts to drive traffic to a landing page that captures new subscribers can help you create a more reliable pipeline for donor acquisition and conversion.

These strategies should also have specific metrics and/or KPIs associated with them to measure their success. For example, how many new donors do you expect to acquire? And by what time frame? Remember the SMART goals.

Here are some examples of suggested strategies that we traditionally see in fundraising plans, and ideally what the end product should look like in your plan.

Goal: Increase the total number of donors by 5%

• Strategy: Organize one major fundraiser per quarter and one small fundraiser per month.
• Strategy: Plan a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to acquire new donors online.
• Strategy: Use Facebook and Instagram ads to direct a targeted online audience to our fundraising website.
• Strategy: Send a segmented email campaign to target lapsed donors to reactivate 50 of them.
• Strategy: Implement mobile wallets on giving pages to make giving easier and reduce donor drop off.

Goal: Increase the average gift size by 3%

• Strategy: Create giving levels and incorporate into all online fundraisers.
• Strategy: Secure a corporate partnership that offers a matching grant during end-of-year giving.
• Strategy: Target one-time donors for a recurring giving campaign.
• Strategy: Steward mid-level donors to increase overall giving.

Once you’ve gone through this process, it’s finally time to start putting it all together. You now have a deep, thorough understanding of your goals, strategies, the resources you have to meet those goals, and some techniques that worked in the past.

Fundraising Techniques 

So, let’s touch some more on these fundraising techniques. After all, fundraising professionals don’t simply rely on direct mail anymore. Today, your fundraising options sometimes seem, well, endless. And, that’s a GOOD thing!

For starters, make a list of all the fundraisers or campaigns you want to run and when you want them to occur. Be mindful of remaining “strategic” (have we used this word enough?), meaning you should use donor trends and knowledge of your donor base to outline your annual plan. 

As an example, if you know donors aren’t as likely to attend an event in the summer months, focus on an online campaign at this time.

By using CauseVox, you can uncover trends and results in your fundraising. This might be an indication as to the best times to run certain campaigns.

Specify details for each fundraiser you want to run, including:

• Fundraiser type and name
• Anticipated income
• Staff and volunteer time
• Marketing costs
• Other expenses
• Day/time
• Intended audience
• Any other notes

During this step, be sure to plan enough activities to cover your budgetary needs and be mindful of overstretching your current resources. Consider using a fundraising platform to help you streamline and succeed at your fundraising goals, freeing up valuable time from your hardworking employees.

6. Assign and Delegate Milestones

Now that you have your full list of tasks and activities for the year, it’s time to start thinking about who will do what. For each activity, make sure that there is a staff person assigned to complete the task. Not only will this help your team get organized and prepared for the upcoming year, it also means nothing will slip through the cracks. Creating a fundraising plan without names associated with each task is a great way to work hard on a document and then ignore it. Instead, make the fundraising plan feel like a resource your teammates can come back to each month and review what they need to accomplish and how they did in the past month.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to look for opportunities to automate repetitive work. Simple AI tools can help draft donor emails, summarize meeting notes, build follow-up reminders, or categorize data, freeing up your team’s time so they can focus on high-touch relationship building instead of admin tasks.

7. Set Reasonable Due Dates

The easiest way to make your plan feel like a plan instead of a nebulous strategy is to include due dates for each task assigned. This is where you can really get strategic about creating a document that supports your work. In general, it’s helpful to work backwards: start with when you know a given project is due. For example if you’re running an event, then the day of the event would be your drop dead date for everything. From here, you can estimate how much time you’ll need for each task and calculate backwards. 

Think especially about tasks that have to be completed before other things can be done: you need to book your venue before you can think about catering. Add in a due date for the first step that gives you enough time to complete the second step.

You’ll also want to take into account the workload of each individual team member. If you notice that one person has a lot of due dates clustered together, see if you can spread them out. Are there places you can work ahead? Can you adjust the timing of a campaign so that it doesn’t overlap as much with others? It’s easy to want to front load your year, but think carefully about what you can place in each quarter so that you have a sustainable pace.

8. Create and share your calendar

Think of your fundraising plan as both a communications calendar and a strategic plan. Remember this should be a living document – something that you refer to regularly and one that includes key fundraising objectives, detailed plans to execute, and goals.

Your final product will be a calendar you can share with your team so everyone can follow along. The downloadable spreadsheet in this article includes a sample, along with a blank template for you to use for your own plan.

Fundraising calendar template (included in the download)

While many nonprofits and charities use an everyday calendar to organize annual fundraisers, we believe that a detailed spreadsheet can work wonders in keeping you organized before, during, and after each fundraising activity.

Best Practices for Building Out Your Fundraising Plan

In addition to simply following these steps, there are a few other strategies you can use to make sure you get the most out of your fundraising plan. Here are the best practices to follow.

Go Into As Much Detail as Possible

Any work you do now is work you don’t have to do in the future. That means the more detail you add in at the beginning is something off your plate for next year. For example, you could start assigning tasks to your team based on a gut feeling. Or you could take a more systematic approach.

For starters, answer these questions:

• How many staff people can devote their time to fundraising?
  • How much time can they devote each week?
• Do you have a volunteer base to help with fundraising tasks?
  • If so, how many hours per week total for all volunteers?
• Are your board members required to fundraise on behalf of your organization?
  • If so, how many hours per week can you expect them to engage?
• What is your annual fundraising budget, including marketing costs?

Then, organize your findings using this checklist on a spreadsheet or table similar to the one provided below:

•  List each staff person and the amount of time they can devote per week
•  Write down the average number of volunteers and their anticipated weekly commitment
•  Outline your annual fundraising budget, including staff time, fundraising, and other expenses

You can complete a similar process for any of the steps listed above. If you’re using a spreadsheet to create your plan, each of these areas can get its own tab so you have all your information easily in one place and you know how you reached a certain due date or assignment.

Make It Collaborative

You have a team: use it! The more you can incorporate your team from step one, the more buy in you’ll have on the plan moving forward. Plus your team is there with you in the trenches: they also have insight on what worked well last year and what needs tweaking. Get their feedback when reviewing past strategies, work with them as you’re setting tasks and deadlines to make sure it feels reasonable, and ask them for brainstorms of new strategies to use. The best part is that if you have a collaborative document or spreadsheet, each team member can update it as they finish tasks so you know things are down and where each team member is in the process.

Be Willing to Change When Necessary

Remember, your fundraising plan should be a living document – a “north star” that guides you throughout the year. It helps keep your team aligned, ensures your priorities stay focused on the strategies that support your goals, and gives you a roadmap to follow.

While setting goals and strategies is important, allow yourself the flexibility to adjust the plan when necessary. If a new opportunity arises, consider whether it makes sense to swap it in for another strategy. Review your plan each quarter to check your progress, evaluate what’s working, and update any goals or strategies that have shifted.

Make It Visible and Prominent in Your Organization

One of the most frustrating things in life is when you spend a ton of work creating a plan and no one uses it. Don’t let that happen. Make sure everyone on your team knows where they can find the plan, and have it on hand during meetings to check in on whether due dates are being met. It can also be helpful to print it out and post it somewhere in the common spaces so anyone can check it when they need to.

Raise More With Less Effort Year-Round On CauseVox

Typical fundraising software is clunky, complex, and contract-bound. CauseVox tidies up your digital fundraising so you can raise more with less effort.

Your donation forms, events, peer-to-peer campaigns, and CRM all work together in a unified place, so you save time, raise more, and build stronger donor relationships without juggling multiple tools.

Learn more about how you can raise more with less effort, all year-round with CauseVox.

Fundraising auctions turn giving into an experience. They bring supporters together, spark friendly competition, and make generosity exciting and contagious. When donors bid, they’re not just giving money. They’re connecting with your mission and your community in a powerful, memorable way.

In This Guide You Will Learn How To:

• Understand what makes auctions effective fundraising and engagement tools
• Choose the right auction format, whether silent, live, virtual, or hybrid
• Secure, price, and showcase items donors actually want to win
• Promote your auction to build excitement and participation
• Turn one-time bidders into long-term, loyal supporters

Whether it’s your first auction or your tenth, you’ll walk away with practical strategies, fresh ideas, and clear next steps to raise more with less stress. 

Download the free guide and make your next fundraising auction your most joyful and successful yet!

Year-End has the potential for large returns, with 30% of annual charitable giving taking place in December alone – but what about the philanthropic challenges to contend with?

The Challenge

In 2024, generosity reached new heights as 36.1 million people came together on GivingTuesday to donate a record-breaking 3.6 billion dollars in just one day. This incredible 16% increase from 2023 shows the unstoppable power of people uniting for good.

That is why we created the 2025 Year-End and GivingTuesday playbook, your guide to harnessing this energy and turning it into lasting impact.

The Solution

Embrace the donor-centric revolution. As you work to capture hearts and wallets, you’ll need to focus on the donor experience and differentiate yourself from the crowd.

We’ve created a comprehensive Year-End & GivingTuesday Fundraising Toolkit so you can plan your Year-End and GivingTuesday journey from start to finish.

Our Ultimate 2025 Year-End & GivingTuesday Fundraising Toolkit will help you:

• Stand out and get noticed.
• Define your unique mission and impact.
• Set campaign goals and objectives.
• Create a proven communications calendar.
• Get people excited to rally for your cause.
• Optimize your donation form to convert more donors.
• Customize first-draft appeals and emails with our communications templates.

Discover what’s inside…

The 3-Part Year-End & GivingTuesday Fundraising Toolkit

• The Comprehensive Year-End Fundraising Plan: Navigate the Year-End maze with expert insights and strategies that work. You’ll learn the importance of Year-End, get inspired with different campaign and marketing ideas, learn how to set goals, create a communications calendar, get donor matches, acquire more major donors, engage your community, create a donor experience that shines and more!
• The Comprehensive GivingTuesday Campaign Plan: Use this step-by-step roadmap to success. Craft a campaign that’s not just noticed but cherished by your donors. You’ll learn how to craft a compelling story, fundraise using our proven GivingTuesday timeline and gain inspiration with our GivingTuesday campaign examples!
• Free Marketing and Communications Templates: Start writing your Year-End and GivingTuesday appeals, emails, receipts and social media posts from a first draft, not from scratch! You can customize our communications templates and tailor them to your voice. Bonus: customizable social media graphics included!

Our Generous Partners

This free guide is made possible through our partners listed here. Big thanks for their dedication in equipping nonprofits for successful Year-End and GivingTuesday fundraising. Check them out below!

Premium Sponsors

Featured Sponsors

Media Partners

It means they saw something in your mission, something worth believing in. But now comes the most important part: making them feel seen, appreciated, and inspired to stay connected.

What you do next—how you welcome, thank, and follow up—sets the tone for your entire relationship.

In this resource, you will receive practical tools to turn new donors into lifelong supporters through thoughtful, strategic engagement.

What Is a Welcome Series?

A donor welcome series or journey, sometimes called a donor onboarding process, is a sequence of intentional touchpoints that helps guide new supporters from their first interaction into a deeper, more lasting connection with your cause.

These touchpoints can include things like thank-you emails, impact updates, and personal notes. They all work together to show appreciation, build trust, and help donors feel like part of your community.

Instead of leaving donors wondering what happens next after they give, a welcome/onboarding journey walks them through the next stage of their relationship with your organization. From the initial touch point, to engagement, to nurturing, and more donation asks, each stage offers a unique opportunity for your donors to see their impact, understand your mission, and feel inspired to stay involved.

A strong welcome journey, especially for your first time and recurring givers, is more than just good manners. It nurtures your relationship and lays the foundation for long-term engagement, whether that’s through future donations, volunteering, advocacy, or simply staying connected over time.

Why Your Welcome Series Matters

Let’s face it: donor retention is tough. In fact, most nonprofits lose more donors each year than they keep. But the good news? A strong welcome series can make a huge difference.

In fact, research shows that first-time donors who receive multiple thank-yous and personalized engagement within the first 30 days are far more likely to give again.

A well-crafted donor welcome series helps you:

• Increase donor retention and loyalty
  
• Reinforce the value and impact of each gift
  
• Build long-term relationships, not one-time transactions
  
• Turn passive givers into active supporters
  

What To Consider When Creating Your Welcome Series

Every nonprofit is different, but there are a few key things to keep in mind as you build your donor welcome series:

Your Audience

Think about who you’re welcoming. Is it a first-time donor? A recurring giver? Someone who gave through a peer-to-peer campaign? Tailor your messages accordingly.

Timing & Frequency

Don’t let too much time pass after a donation. Your first thank-you should go out right away (ideally automatically), followed by 2–4 engaging emails spaced over a few weeks.

Tone & Voice

Keep your tone warm, conversational, and mission-focused. Avoid jargon and speak like a real person. You’re welcoming someone into your community, not delivering a corporate update.

Tools & Tracking

Use your CRM to keep track of these interactions and automate where it makes sense. A good CRM helps you organize donor data, schedule follow-ups, and personalize content based on giving history or interest. 

If you’re using CauseVox, our built-in CRM makes it easy to set up and manage your donor journeys with less time and hassle.

In This Resource You Will Find

• Donor journey map examples: sample paths showing you exactly what to say, at what point, and to who, so you can welcome and nurture new donors
• Email series outlines: email topics and timing to use as a starting point for your own communications to both first-time and recurring givers
• Best practices for converting email subscribers into donors
• Considerations for using multiple channels to connect with donors, including email, SMS, and phone calls 
• Strategies to onboard, engage, and ultimately upgrade your donors to higher levels or more frequent giving 

Whether you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your current process, these tools will help you build a donor experience that feels personal, impactful, and aligned with your mission.

Make Your Welcome Series Count

You only get one chance to make a first impression, let’s make it count!

A thoughtful welcome series can be the difference between a one-time gift and a long-term champion of your cause. 

Download the free Donor Welcome & Onboarding Journeys Template now and start building donor relationships that last.

Nonprofit CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems are designed to help you organize your supporter data, streamline your fundraising, and build lasting, meaningful relationships with your community. Whether you’re a small team juggling a hundred tasks or a growing organization looking to level up, a robust nonprofit CRM can be the game-changer you need.

In This Guide You Will Find:

• What a CRM is—and why a nonprofit-specific CRM matters for your mission.
• Why nonprofit CRMs are essential for building stronger donor relationships and scaling your impact.
• The top features to look for when choosing your CRM—including donor tracking, revenue reporting, automations, and more.
• Proven best practices to implement your CRM successfully and get the most out of it.
• Why CauseVox’s CRM stands out—and how it makes fundraising, stewardship, and donor management effortless.

You’ll walk away with clear, actionable insights you can apply right away, whether you’re choosing your first CRM or upgrading from a system that just isn’t cutting it anymore.

Why Nonprofit CRMs Matter More Than Ever

Today’s donors expect a personal touch. They want to feel seen, known, and valued—not treated like just another name on a list. A nonprofit CRM makes that possible by helping you track every interaction, personalize your communications, and create a stewardship journey that truly resonates.

With a nonprofit CRM, you can:

• Centralize all your donor data in one easy-to-access place.
• Send targeted, meaningful communications that increase engagement.
• Save hours of admin work with smart automations.
• Understand exactly what’s working with powerful reporting and analytics.

It’s about working smarter, not harder, to create relationships that last a lifetime.

Why CauseVox’s Nonprofit CRM Is a Game-Changer

At CauseVox, we believe your CRM should work for you, not against you. That’s why we’ve built our nonprofit CRM to be easy-to-use , and designed specifically for nonprofit fundraising.

With CauseVox’s CRM, you get an all-in-one solution: donation forms, fundraising sites, email marketing, donor tracking, stewardship workflows, reporting—all under one roof. No integrations needed. No messy imports. Just everything you need to deepen your donor relationships and grow your impact.

We make it easy for you to capture donor information, steward supporters at every stage of their journey, and raise more with less stress.

Download the Free Guide Today!

Ready to make donor stewardship simpler, smarter, and more personal? When you know your donors, you can serve them better. Nonprofit CRMs give you the tools to listen, track, engage, and grow relationships in meaningful ways.

Make every donor feel like your only donor—get to know your donors, track their engagement, and deepen your interactions. Download our free Complete Guide to Nonprofit CRMs today!

The Fundraising Campaign Communication Templates resource is your plug-and-play toolkit for what to say, when to say it, and how to say it across email, social media, and SMS. Whether you’re prepping for your first campaign or refining your tenth, this guide saves you time, keeps your team aligned, and helps you show up with messaging that motivates action.

Why Use This Guide?

You’re undoubtedly busy juggling campaign logistics, donor outreach, and a hundred other things. Crafting well-timed, engaging messages for every channel and audience shouldn’t add to your stress. This guide gives you a head start with customizable templates and a structured timeline so you never have to start from scratch.

We created this with one goal in mind: to help you stay focused and show up strong throughout your campaign, from pre-launch to final thank you.

What’s Inside?

Here’s a quick look at what you’ll find in this free downloadable resource:

• Week-by-Week Campaign Timeline: A sample plan to guide your communication before, during, and after your campaign.
• Email, Social, and SMS Templates: Messaging for each phase of your campaign including recruitment asks, launch announcements, impact stories, thank yous, and more.
• Channel Breakdown: A quick reference guide showing which communication tools are best for which messages and how often to use them.
• Segmentation Tips: A cheat sheet on tailoring your messages for donors, volunteers, and general audience.

Best of all, the content is customizable, so you can adjust the tone, impact statements, and calls to action to match your organization’s voice.

Why CauseVox?

CauseVox is a free fundraising platform built to make campaigns easier and more impactful. With tools for peer-to-peer fundraising, donor management, campaign storytelling, and automated communications, it’s designed to save you time and help you raise more. Use our modern platform to build your next campaign with branded donation pages, easy setup, and real-time reporting, no coding required.

How to Use This Checklist:

This checklist is curated to streamline your fundraising campaign from start to finish. Here’s what you’ll find inside:

• Detailed planning guidelines, from choosing a campaign type to selecting the perfect date and setting fundraising goals.
• Proven marketing practices to amplify your fundraising strategy through targeted outreach across various channels.
• Insights for creating a compelling and engaging campaign page.
• Practical approaches to inspire supporters and boost donations.
• Essential next steps for post-campaign engagement, including thanking participants and sharing the impact achieved.

What are you waiting for? Get started with this checklist to effectively plan your fundraising campaign, connect with your supporters more deeply, and increase your fundraising success.

Fundraising: It’s About More Than the Money 

At its core, fundraising is about securing financial support for your mission, but it’s so much more than just asking for money. It’s about sharing your story, igniting passion for your cause, and building a community of supporters who believe in your vision and want to help make it a reality.

What You’ll Find in This Guide

Now, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all fundraising strategy. Every nonprofit is unique, and your strategy should reflect your mission and audience. Here’s what this guide will cover:

• Defining your fundraising needs: Preparation is everything. Learn how to define your mission, vision, and target audience to build a focused, effective fundraising plan.
• Building a strong fundraising foundation: A well-organized campaign starts with the basics. We’ll guide you through the steps to create achievable goals, understand your audience, and develop a plan to set your campaigns up for success.
• Key fundraising strategies: What works for one nonprofit may not work for another, so we’ve got you covered with tips on digital fundraising campaigns, grants, corporate partnerships, and more.
• Communicating with and retaining donors: Building strong relationships with donors is critical for long-term success. Discover how to keep your donors engaged and ensure they feel valued.
• Measuring your fundraising efforts: Without a baseline to track progress over time, you won’t know if your efforts are paying off. We’ll discuss different key performance indicators (KPIs) you could consider tracking.
• Common pitfalls: Fundraising isn’t easy, and it’s important to be aware of common pitfalls that even seasoned fundraisers can run into. By being prepared, you can avoid some of these challenges and increase your chances of success.

Ready to Level Up Your Fundraising Strategy? Download Fundraising 101.

By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly how to take your fundraising to the next level. Whether it’s nailing your next event, diversifying your revenue streams, or improving donor engagement, you’ll leave with a clear roadmap for success.

Download Fundraising 101: How to Fund Your Mission and Bring It to Life for free today and start turning your vision into reality!