This list of 50 church fundraising ideas gives you a mix of proven strategies and fresh approaches, from digital-first campaigns to community events that bring people together in meaningful ways. We’ve organized them into sections to help you find the right fit for your church’s size, budget, and goals.

 Easy Church Fundraising Ideas

1. Run For A Good Cause

Fun runs and 5Ks are fantastic fundraising opportunities for churches. They bring people together, promote wellness, and give the wider community a reason to participate. If you’re not in a position to join an established race, consider hosting your own route through your neighborhood. You can use peer-to-peer fundraising tools so each participant can collect donations from friends and family online.

Rise Beyond All Odds raised nearly $160k with their movement challenge.

2. Film A Video Campaign

A personal video appeal from your pastor or ministry leader is far more compelling than a web banner. Capture life-change stories from congregation members, interviews with people your church has served, and a clear call to give. Embed the video directly on your dedicated campaign page to keep everything centralized and shareable.

3. Create A Dedicated Campaign Website

A professional fundraising platform gives supporters confidence to donate online. With consistent branding and a smooth donor experience, your campaign page becomes a hub for sharing, storytelling, and tracking progress. CauseVox makes it easy to launch a polished campaign site in minutes, or include a fundraising thermometer on your website to show donors how close you are to your goal.

4. Encourage Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Personal relationships are your most powerful fundraising tool. When congregation members set up their own fundraising pages and share them with friends and family, your reach multiplies exponentially. CauseVox’s peer-to-peer features let individuals take ownership of smaller goals that add up to your big campaign target.

Active in Mission’s peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. 

5. Find Matching Grants

A matching gift challenge creates powerful urgency, it effectively doubles every dollar raised during the match window. Reach out to a major donor within your congregation or a local business with a corporate giving program. Even a modest match of $5,000–$10,000 can dramatically accelerate your campaign momentum.

Incorporate automated matching into your campaign with CauseVox.

6. Online Giving Kiosk or QR Code Station

Set up a dedicated giving station in your church lobby, such as a tablet, a printed sign, or even a simple QR code on your bulletin, that links directly to your donation page. No special equipment or technical knowledge required, just a clean, branded page that lets congregation members give in seconds right after service, while generosity is top of mind. It’s one of the lowest-effort setups you can deploy, and it works just as well for first-time visitors as it does for longtime members.

7. Coffee Morning

Set up a simple coffee booth outside your church after Sunday service and partner with a local bakery or coffee roaster for donated goods. Congregation members purchase a cup knowing their money supports a good cause. Maximize this idea by running it over multiple Sundays and promoting a giving goal on a visible thermometer.

8. Bail Out

Tie up your pastor or elder and don’t release them until their ‘bail’ has been met! This crowd-pleasing event especially resonates with younger congregants. Add costumes, a makeshift jail, and live donation updates to keep the energy high and the giving flowing.

9. Wear a Hat to Church Day

Ask your congregation to donate a small amount (say $5–$10) for the privilege of wearing a hat to the Sunday service, or something that’s normally not allowed. This low-effort, high-fun fundraiser requires zero overhead and generates goodwill alongside dollars.

10. Books for Bucks

Invite congregation members to donate unwanted books, then host a sale. Expand the idea by challenging younger church members to read as many books as possible within a set time frame, with friends and family sponsoring them per book. It raises funds while championing literacy and education.

Church Fundraising Events

11. Spread Testimonials

Nothing inspires giving like real stories of impact. Feature testimonies on your campaign page, in emails, and on social media. Video testimonials are especially powerful, a two-minute story of how your church changed someone’s life can outperform any fundraising pitch. Design them into Instagram or Facebook posts and reels to maximize organic sharing.

12. Buy One, Give One

Borrow from the TOMS playbook. If your ministry serves meals to the homeless, host a lunch sale where every purchase feeds one community member. This model ties a tangible, immediate act of generosity to each transaction and deepens donor connection to your mission.

Share impact tiers on your donation page so donors can see how their gift will create change.

13. Host A Vision-Sharing Night

Gather supporters for a dinner or dessert night where you share your church’s vision and invite people to invest in it. Enhance your presentation with video, images, and data that illustrate the impact of your work. These events often unlock significant major gifts from people who simply needed a clear invitation.

14. Offer A Community Sports Event

Sports days and neighborhood fairs bring families together and lower the barrier to participation. Sell affordable tickets, add concessions and branded merchandise, and make it a genuine community celebration. CauseVox’s event ticketing feature makes it easy to manage registration and collect donations alongside ticket sales.

Event ticketing with CauseVox

15. Giving Challenge

Tap into the viral potential of digital challenges by launching a giving challenge on social media. Create a simple, replicable action, like sharing a 30-second video of one thing your church has done for the community, and invite others to do the same and nominate friends to give. This modern take on the Ice Bucket Challenge format works especially well with younger congregation members.

16. Escape Room Fundraiser

Partner with a local escape room business, or build a DIY version in your church hall, and sell tickets to themed puzzle experiences. Groups of 4–8 pay an entry fee, with proceeds going to your cause. This is a standout idea for youth groups and young adult ministries who want a memorable team challenge.

17. Trivia Night

Host a charity trivia night with teams of 4–6 competing for prizes. Charge an entry fee per team, sell snacks and drinks, and add a ‘golden question’ that unlocks a bonus donation from a sponsor if answered correctly. Trivia nights are scalable, low-cost to produce, and generate strong word-of-mouth.

Oak Hill’s trivia competition raised over $70k with CauseVox.

18. Dance Marathon 

Host a dance marathon where participants must stay on the dance floor for a set number of hours. Each participant sets up a personal fundraising page, and the more they raise, the more dance breaks and rewards they earn. This is particularly effective for youth groups and high school ministries.

19. Face Painting

Set up a face painting booth at your summer fair or family event. Supplies are inexpensive and the activity generates steady foot traffic and donations. Pair with a bake sale or lemonade stand to maximize revenue from a single afternoon.

20. Travel Raffle

Partner with travel agencies, hotels, or airlines in your congregation to create enticing prize packages, then sell raffle tickets. A well-promoted travel raffle can stand alone as a campaign or complement a larger event. 

Small Church Fundraising Ideas

21. Sell Sidewalk Doughnuts

Krispy Kreme’s fundraising program offers a 50–60% profit margin, making it one of the highest-return food fundraisers available. Set up a stand right after Sunday service when foot traffic is at its peak. Pair with a donation jar for members who aren’t hungry but still want to contribute.

22. Community Car Wash

On a sunny weekend, host a by-donations car wash in your church parking lot. This is a great way for youth groups and families to get involved and to meet new community members. Promote it with a specific fundraising goal so donors can see their collective impact.

23. Sell Movie Vouchers

Cinema vouchers are practical, easy to sell, and have broad appeal. Partner with a local theater or use chain vouchers with long expiry dates. Bundle them with popcorn or candy donations for an easy upsell.

24. Charity Gift Cards for the Holidays

Charity gift cards allow donors to give a gift and direct the donation to your church. Spread awareness during the holiday season, particularly targeting congregation members who are shopping for people who ‘have everything.’ This is an excellent way to bring in first-time donors.

25. Service Week

Organize a week where congregation members volunteer in the community, yard work for elderly neighbors, meal deliveries, school supply drives, while also running personal fundraising pages. The combination of action and fundraising amplifies both the impact and the giving.

26. Digital Giving Day

Designate a single day as your church’s annual giving day and build a 24-hour campaign around it. Feature live donation updates, countdown clocks, and milestone celebrations throughout the day on social media. Tie it to GivingTuesday for built-in national momentum.

Giving Day with CauseVox

27. Partner With A Major Donor

Major donors require long-term relationship cultivation, but one committed supporter can transform your campaign. Identify prospects within your congregation, nurture those relationships throughout the year, and make a specific, personal ask when the moment is right. Major gifts often arrive when someone who cares deeply is clearly asked.

28. Volunteer Chore Team

Enlist church volunteers to do household chores for other congregation or community members in exchange for donations. This grassroots event builds community bonds while raising funds, and it’s especially meaningful when your team serves those who can’t afford services on their own.

29. Set A Short Deadline

Short campaigns outperform long ones because they create urgency. A 30-day window gives donors a reason to act now rather than ‘eventually.’ Use a campaign countdown on your final week as the last 72 hours of a campaign typically generate a disproportionate surge in giving.

Clearly show countdown and days remaining in your campaign with CauseVox

30. Craft Sale

Turn your congregation’s creative talents into a fundraising opportunity. Invite knitters, painters, woodworkers, bakers, and jewelry makers to set up booths and donate a percentage of sales. A craft fair atmosphere draws community members and creates a festive, connective experience.

Mission Trip Fundraising Ideas

31. Crowdfunding 

Crowdfunding is ideal for mission trips because it allows many small donors to collectively fund a big goal. Make sure your crowdfunding pages are mobile-optimized, easily shareable, and give donors a clear picture of impact. Make sure your campaign page tells a compelling story about who you’re serving and why.

32. Auctions

Collect donated items and services from local businesses and host a silent auction online or in-person. Online silent auctions through CauseVox require no physical event and can run for days, reaching donors beyond your local community. Set minimum bids to protect value and consider a live-auctioneer element for big-ticket items.

Easily run a silent auction with CauseVox where donors can bid on items seamlessly online. 

33. Host A Concert

A benefit concert doesn’t require a big budget, your own worship leaders and musically talented congregation members can headline. Sell tickets, raffle stubs, and concessions. This type of event builds excitement for your mission while creating a memorable evening that people talk about and share.

34. Outdoor Movie Night

Invite your community to an outdoor family movie night. Movie equipment rentals are widely available, and a local business may sponsor the event in exchange for promotion. Ticket and concession sales generate revenue while the relaxed setting makes giving feel natural and joyful.

35. Work-A-Thon

A full day of community service where each participant runs a personal fundraising page is a meaningful and effective way to raise money for mission trips. It shows donors that your team is willing to work for the cause, not just ask for money, which deepens respect and generosity.

36. Kickball League

Larger congregations can organize a multi-week kickball league where teams pay entry fees to compete. Sell concessions and branded merchandise throughout the season. The competition builds camaraderie and gives your mission team a fun shared experience before they travel.

37. Sponsor a Child

Rather than asking for generic donations, calculate the per-child cost of the mission trip and invite donors to sponsor one specific child. Follow up with personalized impact reports after the trip. This tangible connection between gift and outcome is one of the most powerful motivators in fundraising. Consider using donation tiers to show impact clearly to your supporters. 

Impact donation tiers with CauseVox

38. Pie the Pastor

Charge a small fee for the chance to throw a pie at your pastor’s face…younger congregation members will leap at it! Set a specific donation goal that unlocks the ‘pieing,’ and livestream it for remote donors. Simple, fun, and highly shareable on social media.

39. Adopt-A-Mile

Tie donation tiers to the total mileage of your mission trip. A donor who gives $50 ‘adopts’ one mile of your journey; $500 covers ten. The geographic connection makes the donation feel real and urgent.

40. Lock-In Fundraiser

Host an overnight lock-in for your youth group with games, movies, snacks, and prizes, all for a small entry fee. Lock-ins build team spirit before the trip, give parents a night off, and create a buzz that generates additional donations from parents and extended family who appreciate the value.

Youth Group Fundraising Ideas

41. Babysitting

Reliable childcare is always in demand. Offer scheduled babysitting nights so parents can shop, attend events, or enjoy a date night. Consider themed sessions (holiday shopping night, Valentine’s Day date night) to increase demand and set a seasonal fundraising calendar around them.

42. Karaoke

Karaoke has universal appeal and a guaranteed laugh track. Host a ticketed karaoke evening where the crowd votes for their favorite performers with donation dollars. The competitive element pushes people to give more, and the memories last longer than the songs.

43. Dog Wash

If your congregation is pet-loving, a dog wash fundraiser is a natural fit. Charge per dog, sell dog treats and accessories, and set up an outdoor wash station. Donors feel their generosity reflects their values, and the photo opportunities are great for social media promotion of your cause.

44. Host A Talent Show

A community talent show creates a platform for singers, dancers, comedians, and instrumentalists in your congregation. Charge ticket entry fees and offer food and drink sales. You can also run it as a hybrid virtual/in-person event where participants submit videos and audiences vote online with donations.

Talent show fundraiser hosted with CauseVox

45. Board Game Tournament

Teams compete in a multi-round board game tournament (think Catan, Ticket to Ride, or classic card games) and pay entry fees to participate. Award prizes to winners donated by local businesses. Offer bonus fundraising points to teams who collect the most donations from their personal networks before the tournament.

46. Make The Grade

At the start of a school term, youth group members sign up to collect pledges per good grade. At term’s end, they share report cards and convert pledges into donations. Offer a tiered pledge structure (e.g., $5 per A, $2 per B) so donors at every level can participate.

47. Calendar Sale

Each child or youth group member creates their own calendar page, illustrations, photos, or digital artwork, which is then compiled into a full calendar for sale. Include church events and fundraising dates to make it both artistic and useful. Perfect as a holiday gift for family members.

48. Burrito Mile

Participants eat a large burrito before running a mile, equal parts hilarious and endearing. Charge entry fees and collect donations on race day. Best for energetic youth groups who want a memorable, shareable fundraising moment. Video the event for great social media content.

49. Bake Sale

A tried-and-true fundraiser that works because it is delicious and simple. Set up a sale after Sunday service with youth-baked goods and watch them sell fast. Expand the idea by hosting a baking competition with entry fees and community judging as it turns a sale into an event.

50. Make Some Noise Fundraiser

Give your youth group permission to run through the church halls making as much noise as possible while collecting donations in buckets and jars. It’s memorable, rule-breaking in the most delightful way, and gets the whole congregation involved in cheering (and giving). A simple, zero-cost fundraiser with maximum energy.

Bonus: Capital Campaigns for Churches

A capital campaign is a focused fundraiser designed to raise a large sum for a specific purpose, a new building, major renovation, expanded ministry, or a significant equipment purchase. Capital campaigns are extremely well-suited to churches because congregations naturally rally around shared physical and spiritual spaces.

The key elements of a successful church capital campaign are:

• A capital campaign is a focused fundraiser designed to raise a large sum for a specific purpose, a new building, major renovation, expanded ministry, or a significant equipment purchase. Capital campaigns are extremely well-suited to churches because congregations naturally rally around shared physical and spiritual spaces.
• The key elements of a successful church capital campaign are:
• A clearly defined goal and timeline
• A compelling case for support tied to your mission and values
• A dedicated campaign website where donors can track progress and give online
• A peer-to-peer component so congregation members can fundraise within their own networks
• Regular progress updates to maintain momentum and celebrate milestones

Ready to Launch Your Church Fundraiser?

The ideas and insights above are just the beginning. Whatever your church’s fundraising goal, whether it be a new building, a mission trip, youth ministry, or community outreach, the most important step is simply to start. 

Choose one or two ideas from this list that feel right for your congregation, set a clear goal and timeline, and build a campaign that invites every member of your community to be part of the story.

CauseVox connects your fundraising, donor management, and communications in one platform so you can run campaigns, events, auctions, peer-to-peer, and more without juggling multiple tools.

Get started fundraising for free on CauseVox today.

If your nonprofit’s donation page still requires donors to manually type in a 16-digit card number, an expiration date, a billing address, and a CVV code (on a phone screen) you’re losing donors before they ever complete a gift. Not because they don’t care about your mission, but because friction kills generosity in the moment.

This article covers what mobile wallets are, why they matter for nonprofits more than ever, and how building them into your donation page is one of the most impactful (and underutilized) ways to increase giving.

What Is A Mobile Wallet?

A mobile wallet is a digital wallet that stores your payment information for credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, securely on your smartphone or smartwatch. Instead of entering your card details every time you want to pay, you authenticate with a biometric (like Face ID or a fingerprint) or a PIN, and the transaction happens instantly.

The most widely used mobile wallets include:

• Apple Pay, which is integrated into iPhones and Apple Watches, used at checkout with a touch or glance
• Google Pay, which is built into Android devices and available across millions of websites and apps
• PayPal, the original digital wallet, available on desktop and mobile and trusted by hundreds of millions of users worldwide
• Venmo, which is especially popular among younger donors, with an added social sharing element that can spark peer giving

Most of us already use one or more of these tools in our everyday lives, whether it be at coffee shops, on e-commerce sites, for splitting dinner bills. The question for nonprofits is whether your donation page is ready to meet donors where they already live.

Why Mobile Wallets Are Transforming the Way People Give

The appeal of mobile wallets isn’t complicated: they’re fast, secure, and effortless. You input your card information once, and every future transaction requires a simple verification. Fewer steps, less friction, more follow-through.

The numbers tell the story. Global digital wallet users are projected to reach 5.2 billion by 2026, representing over 60% of the global population. In the US, nearly 70% of online adults use digital payments. That sentiment doesn’t disappear when someone navigates to a nonprofit’s donation page.

The bottom line is simple: cash is no longer king. Mobile wallets are.

Mobile wallet and traditional methods of giving on a CauseVox make it easy for donors to give.

Use Cases for Mobile Wallets

Mobile wallets are a flexible tool that meets donors wherever they are. Here’s where mobile wallets make the biggest difference.

Donation Page: A Non-Negotiable

Your donation page is the most critical conversion point in your fundraising funnel. You’ve already done the hard work, you’ve gotten someone to care about your mission, click through your email, find your campaign, and decide they want to give. The only thing standing between them and a completed donation is the checkout process. That is not the place to create obstacles.

Recurring Giving: Removing the Friction from Long-Term Loyalty

Monthly donors have 5.4x higher lifetime value than one-time donors. Mobile wallets make it easy for donors to set up recurring gifts because their payment information is already stored and verified. The less effort required to commit to monthly giving, the more donors will say yes.

Impulse Giving: Capitalizing on Social and Real-Time Moments

Peer-to-peer fundraising, social media campaigns, and real-time giving events all share one thing: the giving impulse happens fast. When a donor sees a friend’s fundraising post on Instagram at 9pm on a Tuesday and clicks through, they are on mobile. If your donation page is difficult to navigate on a phone, that moment is gone. Mobile wallets turn that impulse into a completed transaction.

In-Person Events: Tap to Give on the Spot

Mobile wallets aren’t just for online giving. At galas, 5Ks, auctions, and church events, you can enable tap-to-donate options or display QR codes that link directly to a mobile-wallet-enabled donation page. Supporters can give while the energy of the event is at its peak, no cash needed, no card reader required.

The bottom line? Mobile wallets address the core problem: complexity kills conversion. Most people don’t decide to give, they feel it. A video moves them, a story resonates, and for a brief moment they want to do something. One fingerprint. Under ten seconds. No forms, no friction, no reason to hesitate. The impulse gets to become a donation before it becomes a memory.

Something For Every Donor

Prioritizing mobile wallets doesn’t mean abandoning your other donors. The most effective donation pages offer a full spectrum of payment options, because different donors genuinely prefer different methods  and that variance often tracks with generation.

Gen Z and Millennials are your most enthusiastic mobile wallet users. These donors are accustomed to one-tap checkout across every area of their financial lives, and they expect the same from nonprofits. 59% of Gen Z donors say social media inspires their giving, and almost all of that traffic arrives on mobile.

Gen X donors are comfortable with both digital and traditional payment methods. Credit cards and PayPal resonate strongly with this group.

Boomers often prefer credit cards, bank transfers, or even checks for their charitable giving, particularly for larger gifts. ACH (direct bank transfer) is especially effective for major or recurring donations because fees are lower and payments don’t fail when a card expires.

How to Add Mobile Wallets to Your Donation Page

With a CauseVox donation page, you can enable Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, credit and debit card, and ACH bank transfer in one place, no developer required. Mobile wallet buttons appear prominently at the top of your donation form so they’re the first option a donor sees, not an afterthought buried at the bottom.

Mobile wallet options on CauseVox donation page

Ready To Raise More With Less Friction?

The data is clear and the direction is unmistakable. Donors expect modern payment experiences, and nonprofits that deliver them raise more money, from more donors, more often. Mobile wallets are no longer a nice-to-have feature reserved for big organizations with big tech teams. They’re a baseline expectation that any nonprofit can meet today.

With CauseVox, you can create a free donation page and enable mobile wallets in just a few clicks, no developer required, no complex integrations, no excuses.

Every donor who starts the process should finish it. Mobile wallets are how you make that happen.

Get started for free and begin accepting mobile wallet donations today.

The truth is, finding and applying for grants does not have to feel overwhelming. With the right preparation and a clear sense of where to look, grants can become one of the most reliable and rewarding parts of your fundraising strategy.

Grants, which are large donations given by foundations, corporations, or government entities to support your work, are an essential income source for many nonprofits. In fact, foundation and corporate grants make up about 15 percent of nonprofit revenue on average. Whether you are brand new to the process or looking to sharpen what you already do, there is room to grow, so let’s dive in!

Grant Basics: What You Actually Need to Know

A grant is different from an individual donation in one important way: it comes from an institution, not a person, and it almost always comes with a formal application process. To receive a grant, your nonprofit submits a written proposal to a foundation, corporation, or government agency explaining what you need the money for and how you will use it. You back that up with data, documentation, and a clear plan.

Grant amounts vary widely. Some are a few hundred dollars. Others are in the hundreds of thousands. Many funders also award multi-year grants, meaning you might receive $20,000 a year over three years rather than a single lump sum. That kind of sustained support can make a real difference for programs that need time to grow.

Why Grants Belong in Your Fundraising Mix

If your nonprofit relies heavily on one or two funding sources, you are taking on more risk than you probably realize. Losing a major donor or a key event revenue stream can put your programs in jeopardy fast. Grants help protect you from that.

Here are three reasons grants deserve a spot in your annual fundraising plan.

They grow your organization. Larger grant awards give you the capacity to invest in your work at a scale that individual donations often cannot match. That might mean hiring staff, expanding a program, or finally funding that initiative you have been talking about for two years.

They diversify your income. Think of your funding sources the way a financial advisor thinks about a portfolio. Spreading your income across individual donors, events, earned revenue, and grants gives you stability. If one stream slows down, the others can carry you.

They relieve financial pressure. Most grants are significantly larger than individual gifts, and multi-year awards give you predictability that makes long-term planning a lot easier.

4 Common Types of Grants

Before you start searching, it helps to know what kinds of grants are out there. The four most common types for nonprofits are:

1. Program Support Grants

These are restricted grants, meaning the money must be used for the specific program or project outlined in your proposal. They generally do not cover administrative costs, so keep that in mind when you are building your budget.

2. General Operating Support Grants

These are the most flexible and most sought-after type of grant because they can cover almost any expense, including overhead. They are also the least common. Most foundations prefer to fund specific programs rather than general operations, but when you find a funder who offers operating support, it is worth pursuing.

3. Research Grants

These are most common for health and science-focused organizations and are often awarded to researchers affiliated with academic institutions. If your nonprofit is doing research or evaluation work, it is worth exploring whether research grants might be a fit.

4. Matching Grants

Some funders will commit to a certain grant amount on the condition that you raise an equal amount from other sources. These can be a great motivator for your donor community and a strong signal of funder confidence in your work.

4 common types of grants

4 Practical Tips for Finding Grants

1. Establish a Budget Before You Start Searching

One of the most common mistakes nonprofits make is searching for grants before they know exactly what they need the money for. Funders want to know precisely how their dollars will be used. Vague requests rarely get funded.

Start by identifying the specific project or expense you need funding for. Then build a line-by-line budget that accounts for every cost: staff time, supplies, services, travel, and any administrative expenses allowed under the grant type you are pursuing. When you know exactly what you need and why, your proposal will be far more compelling, and you will be able to quickly assess whether a given grant is even worth applying for.

2. Know Where to Search

There is an enormous amount of grant money available for nonprofits, but it is spread across thousands of foundations, corporations, and government programs. The key is finding funders whose priorities genuinely match your work.

Start local. Talk to other nonprofits in your community. Ask who they are funding, who has been responsive, and who tends to give to organizations your size. Your regional community foundation is often one of the best places to start, and building a relationship with a program officer there can open more doors than any database search.

From there, you can expand your search with free resources like:

• Candid – It is the most comprehensive database of private foundation grants available. Many public libraries offer free access, so check with yours before paying for a subscription.
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer – You can pull 990 tax filings for free. A funder’s 990 shows you exactly who they have given to, for how much, and over how many years. This is some of the most useful research you can do.
• Grants.gov – It is the go-to resource for federal grant opportunities and is relatively straightforward to navigate.

Your state’s nonprofit association often maintains a regional grant database that gets overlooked. It is worth checking.

If you want to speed up your research, AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT can help you quickly summarize a foundation’s priorities from their website or annual report, saving you time before you commit to a full application.

3. Make Sure You Actually Match the Criteria

Once you have a list of potential funders, take the time to read their guidelines carefully before you invest hours in writing a proposal. Grant criteria vary significantly from funder to funder, and applying to a foundation that does not fund your issue area, your geography, or your organization type is time you will not get back.

Look for alignment in a few key areas: the type of work they fund, the size of organizations they typically support, their geographic focus, and whether they have funded similar organizations before (which you can check in their 990).

A strong tip from experienced grant writers: look at what other nonprofits similar to yours are getting funded for. If you run a youth mentorship program, research who is funding other mentorship organizations in your region. That list of funders is your starting point.

4. Get Your Documents in Order

Most grant applications ask for a similar set of supporting documents. If you have these ready before you start applying, you will save yourself enormous amounts of time and stress.

3 simple steps to make sure you are grant ready

The documents most funders request include:

• Your organization’s history and mission statement
• A description of the population you serve and the needs you address
• A summary of your programs and how they are distinct from other services in your community
• Your major accomplishments to date
• An explanation of how you measure and evaluate your impact
• Staff and leadership bios
• A list of partner organizations
• Financial documents including audited financials, a program budget, a budget narrative, a list of other funders, and your most recent Form 990.

You will also almost always need your 501(c)(3) determination letter and your most recent annual report.

Keep all of these in a shared folder (Google Drive works perfectly for this) so anyone on your team can access them quickly. Updating them once a year takes far less time than scrambling to find them the week before a deadline.

One more thing worth doing: search your organization on Candid and Charity Navigator and make sure your profile is current and complete. Many funders check these sites as part of their due diligence, and an outdated or incomplete profile can raise questions you do not want them asking.

A Few Questions We Hear a Lot

You may be asking them to, so let’s put it out in the open! 

Question: Can I Use Grant Money for Online Fundraising?

Answer: Yes, in some cases. How you use it depends on the type of grant. Here are a few ways nonprofits often combine grants with their online fundraising:

• Donation matching: Use grant funds to match individual donor gifts during a campaign, which can significantly boost your results. CauseVox’s platform makes it easy to feature a match prominently in your campaign.
• Capacity building: Some grants are specifically designed to fund infrastructure and administrative expenses, including the cost of fundraising tools and consulting services.
• Social proof: Announcing a grant award on your fundraising page signals credibility to donors. It shows that an institutional funder has vetted and invested in your work.

Just make sure you understand the restrictions on any grant before you use it. A program grant cannot automatically be redirected to fund a crowdfunding campaign.

Question: Should I apply if I only meet some of the requirements?

Answer: In most cases, no. Every funder has specific criteria, and applying when you do not clearly meet them is rarely a good use of your time. Read the guidelines thoroughly. If you are unsure whether you qualify, call or email the program officer and ask before you apply.

Question: Should I hire a grant writer?

It depends on your capacity. A strong grant application can take anywhere from 20 to 100 or more hours from start to finish. If your team is already stretched thin, hiring a freelance grant writer can be a smart investment. If you want to build the skill in-house, make sure the person taking it on has the time, training, and tools to do it well.

Question: What if my nonprofit is brand new?

Most funders want to see demonstrated impact and a diversified donor base before they invest in an organization. That does not mean you cannot start applying, but it does mean you should be building your individual donor community at the same time. Running a peer-to-peer or crowdfunding campaign, even a small one, shows funders that real people believe in your work. That matters more than you might think.

You Are Ready to Start

Grant funding is not reserved for large, established organizations with full-time development staff. It is accessible to nonprofits of every size, and the fundraisers who are most successful at it are not necessarily the best writers. They are the most prepared and the most persistent.

Use this guide as your starting point. Build your document library now, before the next deadline hits. Research funders who genuinely align with your mission. And remember that every application you submit, funded or not, makes the next one better.

At CauseVox, we work with nonprofits every day who are building the kind of healthy, engaged donor communities that make grant applications stronger. Ready to join the unified fundraising platform so you can save time, raise more, and build deeper donor relationships? 

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Grant writing can feel like one of the most intimidating parts of running a nonprofit. You know your work is good. You know it deserves funding. But translating everything you do into a polished, persuasive proposal? That is a whole different skill, and if you are leading a small or mid-size nonprofit, chances are you are learning it while also managing programs, supervising staff, and answering emails from your board.

Here is the good news: grant writing is a learnable skill, and you do not have to figure it out alone. We will walk through every stage of the process, from getting organized before applications open to gracefully handling a rejection, with free tools and practical tips at every step. Bookmark this one. You will come back to it.

Start Grant Proposals Before the Application Opens

This is the secret that well-funded nonprofits figured out a long time ago. Grant readiness is not something you build in the two weeks before a deadline. It is something you build in the months between deadlines, so that when a great opportunity shows up, you are ready to move.

Start by creating a one-page organizational snapshot. This is a simple internal document that captures your mission in plain language, the population you serve, your key program outcomes, and your annual budget. Think of it as a cheat sheet you can pull from for any application. Once you have it, updating it once a year takes maybe 30 minutes.

Next, build a shared folder (Google Drive works great for this) with your evergreen documents. These are the files that almost every funder will ask for: your 501(c)(3) determination letter, your most recent audited financials or financial statements, your current board list, staff bios, and your organization’s logo. When these are in one place and easy to find, you eliminate the scramble that eats up hours before every submission.

Finally, commit to tracking your program data consistently. You will not be able to write compelling impact statements if you do not have recent numbers to point to. It does not have to be complicated. A simple spreadsheet tracking the number of people served, key outcomes, and notable stories is enough to start.

Pro Tip: There are free tools that can help here. If you are not already, consider using Google Drive or Notion for document organization, and the free tier of Airtable for tracking program data over time.

3 simple steps to make sure you are grant proposal ready

Finding the Right Grants to Apply For

Not every grant is worth your time, and chasing the wrong ones is one of the most common and costly mistakes small nonprofits make. Writing a strong proposal takes real hours. Make sure those hours are pointed in the right direction.

When researching funders, look for genuine alignment first. Not just “they fund nonprofits” but “they fund organizations like ours, doing work like this, in places like ours.” A local community foundation that funds education initiatives in your county is a much better fit than a national funder with a vague interest in social good.

One of the most useful research moves you can make is pulling a funder’s 990, which is their public tax filing. It shows exactly who they have funded, for how much, and over how many years. This tells you whether your organization’s size and focus are even in the ballpark.

Free tools that help here: Candid offers searches through many public libraries, so check if your local branch has access. ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer lets you pull 990s for free. And your state’s nonprofit association often maintains a local grant database that gets overlooked.

Reading the RFP Like a Fundraiser

An RFP, or Request for Proposals, is not just a list of questions. It is a roadmap. Most applicants skim it. Funded applicants study it.

Before you write a single word of your narrative, print the RFP or save it somewhere you can annotate it. Highlight every question. Note every eligibility requirement. Mark the word limits, the formatting requirements, and the list of required attachments. These details matter more than most people realize. An otherwise strong proposal that ignores the instructions signals to a funder that you may not follow directions in your programs either. Grantmakers get a large amount of applications, if you don’t follow the guidelines there is a good chance yours won’t even get looked at.

Then, before you start writing, do one more thing: map your narrative to the RFP. Each section of your proposal should clearly answer a specific question. If you cannot point to the question a paragraph is answering, cut it.

One more tip that can make a real difference: if the funder allows it, call their program officer before you submit. Introduce yourself, ask one or two thoughtful questions, and listen carefully. A 10-minute phone call can tell you more about what a funder is really looking for than an hour of reading their website.

Writing a Compelling Narrative

This is where grants are won and lost. Funders read dozens of proposals and you need to make a compelling case for support. Yours needs to be clear, specific, and human enough to stick.

Start with the problem, not your organization. Before a funder will care about what you do, they need to feel the need that your work addresses. Open with a picture of what is happening in your community that should not be happening, or what is not happening that should be. Use local data if you have it. Use a real story from someone you serve, with their permission, to make the need feel concrete rather than abstract.

Then introduce your solution. Be specific about what you will do, who will do it, and what success looks like at the end of the grant period. Vague language like “we will support youth in reaching their potential” is not a program description. “We will provide weekly one-on-one tutoring to 40 students in grades 3 through 5, with a goal of 80 percent of participants improving their reading level by at least one grade” is a program description.

Read your draft out loud before you submit it. If you stumble on a sentence, rewrite it. If it is full of acronyms or sector jargon, simplify it. Imagine reading it to a smart, caring person who knows nothing about your field. If they would understand it and feel moved by it, you are on the right track.

There are countless free tools that can help here. AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are both genuinely useful for grant writing. You can paste in a draft and ask it to “flag any jargon or unclear sentences” or “suggest ways to make this narrative more specific and compelling.” These tools will not write your proposal for you, and they should not, but they are excellent thinking partners and editors. ‘

Steps to creating a compelling grant narrative

Budgets That Build Trust

A strong narrative with a sloppy budget is a fast track to rejection. Funders look at your budget not just as a financial document but as a signal of how organized and credible your organization is.

The most important rule is simple: your budget and your narrative need to match exactly. If you mention a part-time program coordinator in your narrative, that person needs a line in the budget. If you reference a retreat for participants, that cost needs to show up somewhere. Inconsistencies between your narrative and your numbers are a red flag.

Show both the amount you are requesting from this funder and the total cost of your program. This demonstrates that you are not entirely dependent on one source of funding and that your organization is investing in this work too.

Include a brief budget narrative, just a sentence or two per line item, that explains anything that might not be self-evident. This is especially helpful for personnel costs, overhead allocations, or any expense that seems unusually high or low.

Submitting and Following Up

The work does not end when you hit submit.

First, give yourself a buffer. Aim to submit at least 24 to 48 hours before the deadline. Online grant portals have a long history of crashing or behaving strangely in the final hours before a deadline. Do not let a technical issue stand between you and a strong application.

After submitting, send a brief, warm email to the program officer letting them know your application is in. This is not pushy. It is professional. It also starts building a relationship.

Whether you are funded or not, reach out to ask for feedback. Many funders will share it, and even a few sentences about why your proposal did not advance can be invaluable for your next application.

Finally, keep a simple grant tracking log on Google Sheets or a similar tool. Note the funder name, the amount requested, the submission date, the expected decision date, the outcome, and any notes. When you have several grants in motion at once, this log keeps you from letting follow-ups and reporting deadlines slip through the cracks.

Pro Tip: Set Google Calendar reminders for reporting deadlines the moment you receive an award letter.

When You Get a “No”

It is going to happen. For almost every fundraiser, rejection is part of the process, not a sign that you should stop.

When you receive a rejection, respond graciously. Thank the funder for reviewing your proposal and ask whether you are encouraged to apply in a future cycle. This brief exchange keeps the door open and shows maturity and professionalism.

Then do an honest review of your application. Was the problem clearly framed? Did your budget line up with your narrative? Were you a genuine fit for this funder’s priorities? Sometimes a rejection is about fit, not quality, and there is nothing to fix. Other times, there is something to learn.

And remember: your relationship with a funder does not have to end with a no. Stay on their radar. Add them to your email newsletter list. Invite them to your events. Share impact updates. Grant relationships, like all good relationships, are built over time.

Treat Grantmakers Like the Donors They Are

One of the simplest upgrades you can make to your grant process is adding every foundation and program officer you interact with to your CRM, the same place you track your individual donors. Grantmakers are not just transactional contacts. They are long-term relationships worth nurturing, and your CRM is the best tool you have for doing that consistently.

When you add a foundation to your CRM, include the program officer’s name and contact information, key dates like application deadlines and expected decision windows, notes from any conversations you have had, and the outcome of any previous applications. This gives you a running record of the relationship that does not live only in your memory or your inbox.

Include relevant information and notes from conversations with grantmakers in their contact on CauseVox’s CRM.

From there, treat them the way you would treat a major donor prospect. Add them to your newsletter list so they hear about your work year-round, not just when you are asking for something. Send a personal note when you hit a milestone. Invite them to a program event or a site visit. When the next grant cycle opens, you will not be starting from zero. You will be continuing a conversation.

Download the Complete Guide to Nonprofit CRMs

You Can Do This

Grant writing is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise has probably forgotten what it felt like the first time. But it is also a skill, and like every skill, it gets more natural with practice. The fundraisers and executive directors who are most successful at it are not necessarily the best writers. They are the most prepared, the most persistent, and the most willing to learn from every submission.

Use the tools available to you. Build your systems before the deadlines hit. Ask for help when you need it. And remember that every dollar you raise through a grant is a dollar that goes directly toward the work your community needs.

At CauseVox, we know that the best grant applications often come from organizations that can show funders a thriving, engaged donor community. A healthy crowdfunding campaign, a strong year-end giving push, or a peer-to-peer fundraiser does more than raise money. It shows funders that your community believes in your work, and that is one of the most compelling things you can put in a proposal.

You can bring every part of your fundraising into one seamless platform so you can save time, raise more, and build deeper donor relationships. 

Get started on CauseVox for free today.

A donation pledge is simply a commitment to give a certain amount over a defined period. But what’s changed is how easily they can be managed, tracked, and fulfilled automatically, and how strategically they can be positioned in an era when donors are thinking more carefully about how, when, and why they give.

Why Donation Pledges Matter More Than Ever

Pledges have always offered a structural advantage: they spread a large gift over time, making a $1,200 commitment feel like $100 a month. But in this evolving fundraising environment, there are new and compelling reasons to prioritize them.

1. Unlock Larger Gifts From More Donors

The giving landscape is increasingly bifurcating: total dollars raised are growing, but donor counts are declining. Larger gifts from a shrinking pool of donors are driving that growth. Pledge programs let you capitalize on this trend, enabling mid-level donors to step up into major gift territory by spreading their commitment over 12, 24, or even 60 months.

When you ask someone for $1,200 today, you may hear “no.” When you ask them to join your Sustaining Circle at $100/month, you create a path to yes.

Donors can easily see their pledge monthly gift installment with CauseVox donation forms.

2. Automated Fulfillment Removes the Friction

The old knock on pledges was the administrative burden: chasing donors to make payments, reconciling who had fulfilled what, managing awkward conversations when commitments lapsed. Modern pledge tools have eliminated most of that. 

Platforms like CauseVox automatically charge installments, send receipts, and flag failed payments, freeing your team to focus on stewardship rather than collections.

Donors can easily manage their pledge in their donor portal on CauseVox. Organizations can also see on their end how much of the pledge has been fulfilled and if any payments have been missed.

This is especially important as nonprofit burnout remains a sector-wide concern, automation isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a sustainability strategy for your team.

3. Donor Retention That Compounds Over Time

Recurring giving programs retain donors at roughly 90%. Pledge programs behave similarly, once someone commits to a multi-year gift, they are engaged with your mission for the duration. Each installment is a touchpoint. Each receipt is a reminder of the impact they’re funding. The relationship deepens naturally, and when the pledge period ends, you have a warm, engaged donor primed for renewal.

4. Meeting the Moment for Younger Donors

Millennials and Gen Z are closing the gap on Boomers as a philanthropic force, and they give differently. They prefer digital-first experiences, value transparency, and want to feel like active participants in a mission, not passive checkwriters. Pledge programs, especially those paired with clear impact metrics and progress updates, align well with how these donors want to engage. They’re committing to something real, not just making a transaction.

Pledge donations on a CauseVox giving form with impact-based giving tiers. 

Best Practices for Getting Donation Pledges in 2026

Getting the strategy right matters as much as the tool. Here’s what high-performing pledge programs look like today.

1. Lead With Specific, Concrete Projects

Vague asks yield vague results. The most effective pledge campaigns tie commitments to something tangible, a new community health clinic, three years of scholarship funding for ten students, a capital campaign with a named completion milestone. Specificity creates urgency and accountability. Donors want to know that their pledge is doing something real.

This capital campaign on CauseVox offers a pledge donation option for donors so they can contribute to building a new home together.

Use pledge tiers to make the impact even more concrete. A $500/year pledge over three years might fully fund a student’s summer program. A $2,000 pledge might cover equipment for a new initiative. When donors can picture what their commitment funds, conversion rates rise.

2. Build Urgency Without Manufactured Pressure

Countdown timers and thermometers remain effective, they also create genuine motivation. But in 2026, donors are more skeptical of artificial urgency. The most effective pledge drives connect the deadline to a real decision point: a matching gift that expires, a capital project timeline, or a grant with a deadline that requires demonstrated community support.

3. Optimize Your Pledge Form for Mobile and Frictionless Payment

Completion rates on donation pages average around 12%, meaning 88 out of 100 visitors leave without giving. Every unnecessary field, every extra click, every moment of confusion is lost revenue. Your pledge form should be:

• Mobile-first, with large tap targets and minimal typing
• Preloaded with suggested amounts and clear impact descriptions
• Offering Apple Pay, Google Pay, and digital wallet options alongside card
• Embedded on your site so donors never leave your page
• Presenting installment options clearly (monthly or annual, with total pledge amount displayed)

4. Incorporate Matching Gifts and Employer Programs

Corporate matching remains one of the most underutilized opportunities in nonprofit fundraising. A pledge paired with a matching gift doubles the impact with no additional ask to the donor, and matching deadlines create natural urgency. As workplace giving continues to grow, flagging matching eligibility on your pledge form can meaningfully increase your yield per pledge.

Incorporate automated matching on your campaign page with CauseVox

5. Use AI-Assisted Personalization in Your Outreach

The majority of nonprofit professionals have now begun experimenting with AI tools, and their use in donor communications is accelerating. AI can help you identify which donors are most likely to upgrade to a pledge (based on giving history, engagement, and capacity indicators), draft personalized pledge invitations at scale, and time your outreach to moments of highest receptivity. This doesn’t replace relationship-building, it amplifies it.

Run instant donor reports with AI, built into CauseVox’s free CRM.

CauseVox’s built-in CRM keeps every pledge donor’s history, interactions, and installment details unified in one profile, no manual syncing or data exports required. What makes it especially powerful for pledge programs is the AI-powered reporting: you can ask plain-language questions like “Who are my most engaged new donors this year?” and get an instant, auto-generated report with actionable insights. That means your team can quickly identify which pledge donors are due for a renewal conversation, flag lapsing installments, and segment outreach, all without a data scientist.

Who to Ask and When

Major Donors: The Obvious Target

Major donors are natural pledge candidates, the key is timing. Stay attuned to what’s happening in their financial world, whether that’s tax changes, market shifts, or a major life event, and frame the pledge as a forward-looking commitment rather than a transactional one.

Multi-year pledge donors are among your best prospects for planned giving conversations. They’ve already demonstrated a long-term orientation toward your mission. As wealth transfer accelerates with Baby Boomers, integrating a planned giving ask into your pledge stewardship track can open a significant new revenue stream.

Mid-Level Donors Ready for an Upgrade

If you have donors who have given consistently in a middle tier, say, $250–$500 annually, a pledge is a natural upgrade path. A personal outreach (phone call or handwritten note, not just an email) explaining that a pledge allows them to increase their impact in a way that’s manageable is often all it takes. These donors are already loyal; they just need an invitation to deepen the relationship.

Younger Donors Building a Giving Practice

For Gen Z and Millennial donors who are newer to philanthropy, a pledge program offers something valuable: structure. A two or three-year commitment lets them feel like serious philanthropists even at relatively modest giving levels. Frame it as joining a community of multi-year supporters, and pair it with transparent impact reporting.

What Happens After the Pledge is Secured?

Securing the pledge is the beginning, not the end. How you treat pledge donors over the life of their commitment determines whether they renew or disappear when it concludes.

Keep Them Informed

Every installment is an opportunity to reinforce impact. Enhanced receipts that show how much has been given and how much remains help donors track their journey. Midpoint check-ins, a brief update on what their pledge has funded, transform a payment into a moment of pride.

Segment Your Pledge Donors in Your CRM

Pledge donors should receive different communications than one-time or recurring donors. They’re in a distinct relationship with your organization. Tailor emails and calls to reflect their role: acknowledge milestones, share progress on the specific project they’re funding, and flag upcoming payments before they’re processed so there are no surprises. CauseVox’s CRM email feature makes segmenting emails using donor tags easy, ​​ensuring every touchpoint feels intentional and tied to their unique commitment.

Easily tag and segment pledge donors in CauseVox’s free CRM.

Plan the Renewal Conversation in Advance

When a pledge period ends, many nonprofits miss the window. Plan the renewal ask for 60–90 days before completion, not after. Frame it as an opportunity to continue what they started, or to step up to the next level. Donors who have fulfilled a multi-year pledge have demonstrated extraordinary commitment; treat them accordingly.

Start Taking Donation Pledges On CauseVox

Most nonprofits juggle five tools to do what CauseVox does in one unified solution. Create pledge forms, automate fulfillment, track donor commitments, and manage your entire fundraising operation, all in a single free platform. Less busywork, deeper relationships, more impact.

Get started today.

Here’s the truth: major donors and planned giving are how nonprofits break that cycle. They’re how organizations like yours build something that lasts, not just beyond this campaign, but beyond this decade.

And the good news? You don’t need a million-dollar development office to pursue them. You just need a plan, a genuine relationship, and a willingness to have a few important conversations.

What’s the Difference Between a Major Donor and a Planned Giving Donor?

Before we dive in, let’s clarify what we’re talking about because these two types of giving are related but distinct.

A major donor is someone who gives a significant gift in their lifetime. What “significant” looks like depends on your organization. For some, that’s $1,000. For others, it’s $10,000 or more. The defining feature isn’t the dollar amount, it’s the depth of relationship and intentionality behind the gift. Major gifts are usually discussed, cultivated, and asked for directly.

A planned giving donor (sometimes called a legacy donor) is someone who includes your organization in their estate plans, whether that be through a will, a beneficiary designation, a charitable trust, or another long-term vehicle. These gifts often don’t arrive until after the donor passes, but they can be transformational in size and impact. And here’s the beautiful part: many planned giving donors aren’t your biggest annual fund donors. They’re simply people who love what you do and want to be part of your story forever.

Both types of donors have one thing in common: they’re not just writing a check. They’re investing in you.

Major Donors vs Planned Giving Donors comparison 

Why Should You Prioritize These Donors?

Because your mission deserves a future.

Annual giving is vital, but it can only take you so far. Major donors and planned giving donors provide the kind of unrestricted, substantial support that lets you dream bigger, weather hard seasons, and make long-term commitments to staff, to programs, and to the people you serve.

Beyond the dollars, cultivating major donors deepens your relationships with your most passionate supporters. These are people who want to be part of solving the problem you’re working on. They’re not passive donors, they’re partners. When you invite them in, everyone wins.

Download The Donor Engagement & Retention Playbook

How to Identify and Cultivate Major Donors: 5 Practical Steps

1. Look Closer at Who You Already Have

The best major donor prospects are already in your database. Look for people who have given consistently for three or more years, who attend your events, who volunteer, who refer friends, who open every email. Pay attention to the donors who give, say, $100 four times a year, that’s someone who is engaged and giving as much as they feel they can right now.

These are your cheerleaders. These are your people.

A CRM like CauseVox’s built-in donor management tools makes this easy, you can filter by giving history, engagement patterns, and frequency to quickly surface your best prospects without hours of manual spreadsheet work.

CauseVox’s free growth-level CRM with real-time dashboards, custom reports, and automated data entry.

2. Assess Capacity Before You Ask

Once you’ve identified prospects, take time to learn more about them before making any ask. This doesn’t mean researching their net worth online (although wealth screening tools exist). It means having real conversations. Listen for what they’re excited about, what problems they care about solving, what legacy they want to leave.

Champions Ranch created donation tiers through different levels of pavers so donors can leave a lasting legacy.

There’s an old fundraising saying worth taking seriously: never ask for a major gift unless you know the name of your donor’s dog. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a reminder that major giving is built on trust, attention, and genuine relationship. Listen more than you speak.

3. Connect The Gift to Their Vision

Major donors don’t give to your budget gap. They give to a vision of the future that excites them. Your job is to show them how their gift makes that vision possible, in concrete, specific terms.

Westonwood Ranch’s capital campaign invited major donors to invest in a shared vision. They were able to raise over $3 million dollars doing so!

Come prepared with a clear picture of the problem, your plan to solve it, and how their investment moves the needle. Think of it less like a fundraising pitch and more like problem-solving together. You’re inviting them to be part of the solution.

4. Make The Ask, Genuinely

When the time feels right, ask. Be direct, be warm, and be yourself. You’re not selling something. You’re inviting someone who already loves your mission to go deeper.

Here’s language that works well:

“You’ve been one of the most incredible supporters we’ve ever had. We have the chance to grow this part of our program and I’d love for you to be part of that goal.”

Or simply: “Would you consider making a significant gift this year to help us do this?”

Donors want to help. They often just don’t know how. Your job is to be the teacher, so walk them through exactly how their gift creates meaningful change.

5. Thank Them Like They Matter, Because They Do

After a major gift, your relationship deepens, it doesn’t end. Send a personal thank-you with no ask attached,  just gratitude and a specific update on what their gift made possible. A handwritten note is king, but if you can’t do that, call them when you’re thinking about them. Give them access, like a behind-the-scenes look, an early update, a conversation with your program director.

The simple message: “I was thinking of you when I saw this and I thought you’d want to know.” That kind of personal attention is worth more than any gala ticket.

A Word About Planned Giving: How to Start the Conversation

Planned giving can feel intimidating to bring up, but it doesn’t have to be. Think of it as an invitation, not a transaction.

Here’s how to open the door:

“Have you ever thought about including our mission in your long-term plans? A lot of our supporters have found that leaving a legacy gift is one of the most impactful things they can do, and it doesn’t have to be complicated.”

Or, if someone has been a long-term supporter: “You’ve made such a difference in what we’ve been able to build. Have you thought about the kind of legacy you’d like to leave?”

You can also invite people into a “Legacy Society”, a named group of donors who have committed to planned gifts. This creates community, recognition, and a sense of belonging that many donors genuinely value.

Champions Ranch offers a Legacy Paver tier as a legacy society for their major donors on their CauseVox campaign page.

Types of Planned Gifts (And How to Make It Easy)

Planned giving doesn’t have to mean complicated legal documents. Here are a few of the most common types:

• Bequest through a will—The donor leaves a percentage or specific dollar amount to your organization in their will. This is the most common form of planned giving.
• Beneficiary designation—The donor lists your organization as a beneficiary on a life insurance policy, retirement account, or bank account. Simple and doesn’t require updating a will.
• Charitable remainder trust—The donor creates a trust that provides income to them (or a loved one) during their lifetime, with the remainder going to your nonprofit.
• IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution—Donors over 70½ can give directly from their IRA, potentially with significant tax advantages.

To make planned giving accessible, your organization should:

1. Make Information Easy to Find

Post your tax ID number and sample bequest language on your website. Something as simple as: “To include [Organization Name] in your estate plans, our legal name is ___ and our tax ID is ___.”

2. Train and Engage Your Board 

Board members often have existing relationships with your best prospects. Equip them with simple talking points and invite them to open doors. You don’t need your board to be expert fundraisers, just willing connectors.

3. Create A Soft Landing for New Legacy Donors

When someone tells you they’ve included you in their plans, celebrate them warmly. Welcome them into your Legacy Society, acknowledge them in your annual report (if they’d like), and keep them connected to your work for years to come.

Extend The Invitation

Major giving and planned giving aren’t just for large nonprofits with big development teams. They’re for any organization with donors who truly believe in the work.

You have those donors. You probably already know who they are.

The only thing left to do is start the conversation, with curiosity, with warmth, and with confidence that what you’re building together is worth investing in for the long haul.

Ready to put this into practice? CauseVox is built for nonprofits like yours, helping you raise more, build lasting donor relationships, and spend less time on admin. Book a free demo and see how simple unified fundraising can be.

Donor-advised funds for nonprofits are one of the most powerful (and most underused) tools in the philanthropic space, and once you understand them, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start paying attention sooner!

What Are Donor-Advised Funds for Nonprofits?

A donor-advised fund is essentially a charitable giving account. A donor contributes money (or other assets like stocks or real estate) into the fund, gets an immediate tax deduction, and then recommends grants from that fund to nonprofits over time.

Think of it like a savings account, but specifically for giving. The donor puts money in when it makes financial sense for them, and then they direct gifts to the causes they care about on their own timeline.

Donor-advised funds are managed by “sponsoring organizations,” which are typically community foundations, financial institutions like Fidelity or Schwab, or faith-based foundations. These sponsoring organizations handle all the administrative and legal work, which makes DAFs surprisingly simple for donors to use.

For instance, imagine a donor named Maria has a great year financially and wants to reduce her taxable income. She contributes $20,000 to her donor-advised fund in December, gets the tax deduction right away, and then spends the next two years thoughtfully recommending grants to organizations she loves, including yours. It’s a win for her financially, and it’s a win for the causes she cares about.

Why Are Donor-Advised Funds Such a Big Deal Right Now?

Donor-advised funds have been around since the 1930s, but they have exploded in popularity over the last decade. According to the National Philanthropic Trust, there are now over 1.9 million individual DAF accounts in the United States, holding hundreds of billions of dollars in charitable assets!

That is a lot of money sitting in accounts specifically designated for giving to nonprofits. And a significant chunk of it could be heading toward organizations just like yours.

One reason donor-advised funds have grown so quickly is that they are genuinely useful for donors. They allow people to give appreciated assets (like stock that has gone up in value) and avoid capital gains taxes. They simplify charitable giving at tax time. They let families create a shared giving practice across generations. And they make it easy to support multiple organizations without writing a dozen separate checks.

From a purely practical standpoint, donor-advised funds remove a lot of the friction that gets in the way of giving. When it’s easy to give, people give more.

Why Donor-Advised Funds Matter for Your Nonprofit

Here’s where things get really interesting for fundraisers.

Donors who use donor-advised funds tend to give more generously than average donors. Research from Fidelity Charitable has found that DAF donors give significantly more to charity overall compared to donors who don’t use a DAF. When someone opens a donor-advised fund account, it often signals a deeper commitment to philanthropy, not just a one-time gift.

Grants from donor-advised funds also tend to be larger than typical individual gifts. Because donors have already set aside the money specifically for charitable purposes, they’re not weighing whether they can “afford” to give. The decision to give has already been made. The only question left is where.

That means if you can position your organization in front of DAF donors, you have a real shot at larger, more intentional contributions.

How Nonprofits Can Start Attracting Donor-Advised Fund Gifts

You don’t need to overhaul your entire fundraising strategy to start benefiting from donor-advised funds. A few simple steps can open the door.

1. Make It Easy To Give Via A Donor-Advised Fund 

Many donors don’t realize their favorite nonprofits accept DAF grants, or they’re unsure how to initiate one. 

Add a short note to your donation page explaining that you accept donor-advised fund gifts, and include your organization’s EIN (Employer Identification Number), which donors will need when recommending a grant from their fund.

Make it clear your organization accepts DAF’s on your donation page.

2. Mention Donor-Advised Funds In Your Donor Communications

You don’t need to dedicate an entire email newsletter to the topic. A single line in a year-end appeal, something like “Did you know you can recommend a grant to us directly from your donor-advised fund?” can plant a seed with donors who already have DAF accounts.

3. Identify Your Existing DAF Donors 

Some donors are already sending your nonprofit donor-advised fund grants without much connection to your organization. 

Look for gifts that come through Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, or similar sponsoring organizations. Those donors are worth cultivating. Reach out, thank them personally, and build the relationship.

4. Talk To Your Major Gift Prospects

If you’re having conversations with donors who are considering a larger gift, donor-advised funds are worth bringing up. For donors who are charitably inclined and financially savvy, a DAF might be a natural fit that makes a bigger gift much easier for them to execute.

A Few Things Nonprofits Should Know About DAFs

Donor-advised fund gifts do come with some nuances worth knowing. Because the sponsoring organization technically owns the assets in the fund, the donor is technically making a “recommendation,” not a direct gift. In practice, grants are almost always approved as requested, but it does mean there’s a middleman involved in the process.

Donor-advised fund grants also can’t be used to fulfill personal pledges or to receive goods and services in return (i.e. no gala tickets paid for with DAF funds). For most standard charitable giving, this isn’t a problem, but it’s good to have clarity when you’re talking with donors.

One more nuance worth noting: because donors take their tax deduction when they fund the DAF (not when they recommend a grant) your organization is not required to provide a tax receipt for DAF gifts. The sponsoring organization handles that documentation. 

That said, sending a warm acknowledgment is still best practice for relationship-building. Just make sure your receipt language is accurate: avoid stating that “no goods or services were provided in exchange” in a way that implies tax deductibility, since the donor’s deduction has already been handled elsewhere.

3 key things your nonprofit needs to know about DAFs.

The Bottom Line on Donor-Advised Funds for Nonprofits

Donor-advised funds represent a massive and growing pool of charitable dollars. They are used by some of the most committed philanthropists in the country, and they make it genuinely easier for people to give more generously over time.

For nonprofits, the opportunity is real. You don’t have to be a large institution or have a dedicated major gifts team to start tapping into donor-advised fund giving. You just need to make your organization easy to find, easy to give to, and worth investing in.

Start simple. Add a line to your donation page, mention donor-advised funds in your next appeal, and keep an eye on where your gifts are coming from. The donors who are already giving through DAFs might be your best partners for the long haul.

Get started building your donation page with CauseVox today!

As fundraising becomes more and more digital, creating sustainable and predictable donations takes on new importance. That means your recurring donors deserve more of your time.

Yes, we all love our recurring donors. But how do you get recurring donors? And even more importantly, how do you get them to give more each month? 

Let’s take a look at some of the best practices for making recurring donors a part of your fundraising strategy.

Optimize Your Donation Form For Recurring Donations

One of the best ways to push your donors to become monthly donors is by creating a donation form that subtly tells them what you want. If you take nothing else away from this article, here’s your #1 tip:

Make recurring donations the default option on your donation form.

Of course there’s a lot more to your donation form than that. Donation tiers in particular are a great way to help your donors see the importance of becoming a monthly donor. To optimize for recurring giving, you’ll want to create customized donation tiers that help drive more recurring gifts.

CauseVox allows you to create one set of donation tiers for one-time donors, and another set for recurring donors.

Customizable donation tiers on a CauseVox donation form.

To create donation tiers that convert, take a look at the average gift your monthly donor gives. Add $5 or $10 to that amount and make it your second option (people are most likely to choose the second-lowest tier). Add one amount that’s lower and two that are higher.

A few general principles can also help you if you want to deviate from that formula. You don’t want to offer people too many options in your donation tiers. One of the benefits of donation tiers is that it minimizes the number of decisions the donor has to make, removing the friction that comes with contemplating how much they should give. Adding too many options adds that decision-making paralysis back into the equation.

Keep in mind that your monthly donation tiers will look different from your one-time donation tiers. If someone is giving every month, they’re less likely to make a large donation. Offer them lower options because you know that over time it will add up to more.

Pro tip: The ideal number of tiers is between 3 and 6.

Show Monthly Donor’s Impact

Donation tiers move us nicely into our next tactic for converting recurring donors: showing impact. Donors want to know where their money is going and why it’s important for them to give.

Using descriptive donation tiers helps donors see the impact of their gift, encouraging them to give more. 

One clear way to do that is to include information about impact in your donation tiers. 

There are so many ways to describe impact. Possibilities include:

• Person to person (ie: $10 feeds one unhoused person for a day)
• Item based (ie: $20 provides 3 meals for a single mom)
• Time based (ie: $30 provides a counseling session to someone in need)
• Recognition and rewards (ie: $15 gives you access to email updates and a bumper sticker) 
• Titles (Ie: $20 is a Mental Health Supporter, $50 is a Mental Health Advocate)

Descriptive, impact driven donation tiers with CauseVox

But there are other ways you can show impact. Once someone has already made a donation it is a great time to tell them about the impact of their donation and show them how beneficial recurring donations can be.

Consider sending a regular email to your donors to share success stories from your organization, and note the ways that regular donations make those successes possible.

You can even create a specific email that goes to monthly donors letting them know how their donation impacted the organization and encouraging them to increase the donation. Include testimony from the people your organization impacts.

One particularly effective way to show impact is to connect your monthly donor to a specific client or recipient. Show them the exact person they are helping and give them a name and a face.

Alameda Point Collaborative gives donors the opportunity to see the result of their recurring monthly gift with clear impact levels and great donor follow up.

Add A Match Or Other Special Perks For Recurring Donors

Donors don’t know what they don’t know: if they aren’t aware that your organization sees recurring donations as important, they won’t make that donation. It’s up to you to show that recurring donations hold a special place in your fundraising strategy.

How do you tell your donors that recurring donations are important? You create hype around them.

One great option is to add a match that’s just for recurring donations. According to Amperage, 84% of potential donors are more willing to give if a match is being offered!

Utilize the automated matching feature with CauseVox so donors can see their gift doubled in real time.

If a matching grant isn’t on the table for you, you can create other ways of making the recurring donation important. Some of this is in the marketing: maybe you create a special name and thank you program for donors who give monthly. But you can also offer additional perks to monthly donors that go beyond titles. 

Perhaps your monthly donors get an annual thank-you luncheon with your executive director. Maybe they gain access to certain educational materials your organization creates. Think about what you have that is of value to donors and offer it to those who give monthly.

Market, Market, Market

Speaking of making your campaign stand out, let’s talk about marketing. Whether you’re working on a short-term campaign or an ongoing drive to increase recurring donors, you want it to be focused and clear. Think about how you can separate this ask from your other giving programs. Create a brand for your recurring gifts and carry it through the program’s landing page, social media posts, emails, and any physical materials.

A good place to start with your branding is to consider the name. From the get-go, ensure your campaign title includes a long-term focus, so that donors have an inkling of what to expect from the campaign the moment they see it.

You might include words like “recurring” or “monthly” to help indicate to donors what the campaign is all about.

When creating your own recurring campaign, find a prominent spot on your page to feature your recurring campaign and include details about what the added benefits of giving monthly entail. 

Don’t forget to tell donors how to make their donation recurring either. You want the process to be as easy as possible. Luckily CauseVox makes the process quick and intuitive.

Download The Complete Guide to Recurring Donations

Utilize Your CRM

Your CRM is one of the most underutilized tools in your fundraising toolkit, especially when it comes to recurring giving. Most nonprofits use it to store donor data, but the organizations seeing the biggest jumps in monthly giving are using it to act on that data.

Think about it: your CRM already knows who gave last spring, who’s donated three years in a row, and who upgraded their gift after receiving a personal thank-you. When you use those signals to identify your best recurring gift prospects, personalize your upgrade asks, and time your outreach strategically, you stop guessing and start growing.

Run custom reports with CauseVox’s CRM to help you understand and steward your donors well.

The good news? You don’t need a massive donor database or a dedicated major gifts officer to make this work. Even a modest, well-tended CRM can help you convert more one-time donors into monthly supporters, and nudge your existing recurring donors toward a gift size that better reflects their capacity and commitment to your mission.

Create A Recurring Giving Campaign

If you want to get started in building up your recurring donors right now, a short-term sprint to a targeted audience could be the perfect campaign for you.

While many of the strategies we’ve already shared can be incorporated throughout the year, there are also some specific tactics you can use to create a recurring gift campaign.

This recurring gift campaign built with CauseVox has raised almost $2.5 million dollars!

If you want to give your recurring donation program a kickstart, you’ll want to design a campaign to entice people to become monthly donors.

The best place to start is by deciding which of your existing donors would be a good fit for a monthly program. Here are some good ideas:

• Donors who give annually
• Donors who recently made a smaller one-time gift.
• Donors you acquired during year-end (to help support throughout the year).
• Donors who have strong ties to a particular program (think program alumni, former staff, etc) that are poised for ongoing support.
• Donors 35 and under.

By targeting your existing donors, you’re developing a relationship with that donor and retaining them at the same time. Another bonus is that your existing donors are folks you already know something about. That lets you send really targeted messaging that’s more likely to convert.

Now you’ve got your audience and you’re ready to create the campaign. Simply adding the option to your donation form doesn’t communicate to your donors. Instead, try some of these strategies to create a monthly giving campaign that looks enticing to your donors.

• Build an email campaign explaining the benefits of monthly giving
• Create a donation page focused on monthly giving
• Share quotes from current monthly donors
• Create a special name or program for monthly donors
• Give solid impact statements on why monthly giving is important
• Ask across all channels
• Share a due date to communicate a sense of urgency

With these tips, you’ll have a monthly giving campaign that gets people excited.

Increase Recurring Donors With CauseVox

Need a solution that makes monthly giving easy?

CauseVox is a digital fundraising platform for nonprofits that helps you raise more with less effort through our fundraising software.

Typical fundraising software is clunky, complex, and contract-bound, but CauseVox actually tidies up your digital fundraising. Run donation pages, crowdfunding, and peer to peer fundraising in less time, without hassle. Donors can set up recurring gifts in no time, and manage their preferences any time.

Power up your digital fundraising for free with CauseVox.

To make sure you’re getting as many donors as possible, your focus should be on increasing your donation form conversion rate, which is the percentage of people who actually complete a donation once they’ve landed on your site. How easy it is to give makes a big difference: if your donation form is too long, too confusing, or not mobile-friendly, many potential donors will navigate away.

However, when your donation form makes it as easy as possible to give, you can actually raise up to 2x as much, without any additional asks. For example, CauseVox users typically raise 82% more when they switch from a generic donation form, to a custom one helping organizations raise nearly 2x as much through their website.

A significant part of driving conversions on your donation form has to do with your suggested levels of giving, aka your donation tiers. The average gift sizes on CauseVox generally range between $78 and $109, with higher averages often driven by the use of impact-driven donation tiers and peer-to-peer campaigns.

Optimizing your conversion rate and average gift size isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between your organization growing and your organization barely scraping by.

Here’s how you can use donation tiers to increase your donor conversion rate and drive up gift size.

How Donation Tiers Drive Donor Conversion

One of the simplest ways to grow your donor base? Give people a clear path to follow. 

When donors land on your giving page and see a well-thought-out set of donation tiers, something clicks. Instead of wondering what to give, they’re choosing which level feels right for them. By anchoring each amount to a concrete impact you remove the guesswork and make the decision feel meaningful rather than arbitrary.

With some careful social science, you can use your donation tiers to subtly signal to your donors how much you really want them to give. This can increase gifts overall. Let’s take a look at how you can use your donation tiers to increase giving.

5 Top Tips for Donation Tiers To Convert More Donors

1. Don’t Offer Too Many Options

One of the benefits of donation tiers is that it minimizes the number of decisions the donor has to make, removing the friction that comes with making a decision of how much they should give.

If you have a big list of 10 different options, the decision making process becomes longer. They have to think, should I give $15, or $25, or $35, or $50? 

For most people, it’s likely that someone that could afford to give $15 could also easily give $25. If you have both options, it’s just unnecessary clutter. If you only provide a $25 tier, you can pull some of those $15 donors up, and allow all donors to quickly find the amount that works for them.

At CauseVox, we’ve found that the optimal donation experience has between 3-6 donation tiers. Any more, and your donor will feel overwhelmed by the number of choices they should make. And, if you use descriptive tiers (ie: $10 feeds one child a day): they should be short and easy to digest.

4 purposeful, impact driven donation tiers on a CauseVox campaign

Especially if you know folks will be giving on mobile (as we’ve seen 65% of them do), you want the form to be as short and simple as possible. One great option for mobile giving is to use CauseVox’s compact tiers. 

Compact tiers give you:

• A shorter form, no descriptions required!
• Enhanced UI for the easiest donor experience, especially on mobile devices.
• Flexible tier options so you can tailor your donation page for your needs.
• A faster, simplified process so you get more donors completing their donation.

With shorter and simpler donation tiers, you remove friction, and therefore help them get onto the next step faster.

2. Tailor It To Your Needs

Each nonprofit is different, and any good donation page is customized to your needs.

Maybe compact tiers are the right choice for you, but you may also want to tell your donors a little bit about what each amount will do. 

According to Nonprofit Pro’s recent trust research, people have more confidence in local nonprofits and community organizations than in large national institutions, making it more important than ever that your donors can see exactly where their money is going. Descriptive tiers are a bite-sized way to provide that clarity.

This can give some donors the final push to make a donation. You can use descriptive tiers to share specifically about the impact of a donation at each giving level.

Compact tiers vs. descriptive tiers on CauseVox

There are so many ways to describe impact. Possibilities include:

• Person to person – $25 gives one student access to an after-school tutor for a week
• Item based – $40 stocks a hygiene kit with everything a shelter resident needs for a month
• Time based – $50 funds one hour of legal aid for a family navigating the immigration system
• Recognition and rewards – $20 unlocks our quarterly insider newsletter and a handwritten thank-you from our team
• Titles – $30 makes you a Community Builder, $75 makes you a Change Maker

Summit Assistance Dogs uses impact-driven tiers

Title-based donation tiers with CauseVox

What’s really important here is knowing your organization and your donors. 

Maybe you don’t have a clear description (ie: $20 or $50 both go towards cancer research), or you know your donors are ready to give by the time they hit your donation page. If you want a short and clean process, stick with compact tiers. But if you want your donor to see the impact of every donation amount, descriptive tiers may be right for you. 

3. Customize Your One-Time Donation Tiers For Your Audience

Ready to build tiers that work for your audience? Start by looking at your average gift size.

When you pull the average gift size, including the median gift size, you’ll have a great jumping off point to help you create your list of 3-6 customized tiers that fit your own audience.

Better yet, take a look at your existing median gift amount, and start moving it up a bit to help push donors to give more.

Is your median gift $50? Instead list $55 as your donation tier.

If you don’t know where to start, the average donation on CauseVox is about $78. If we were to create a site-wide set of donation tiers, we’d start by building one right at about $75. Next, we’d fill in one below and one above, and add in at least one that’s over double. 

4. Customize Your Recurring Donation Tiers

You can take it one step further by customizing recurring donation tiers to increase giving.

Recurring donors typically give 42% more over the course of a year, and have a 90% donor retention rate. This means that your recurring donors give nearly twice as much, and stick around for longer.

To maximize recurring giving, you’ll want to create customized donation tiers that help drive more recurring gifts.

Let’s say your first one-time donation tier is $30, but your first recurring donation tier is $10. Sally comes to your page, initially thinking to give a $30 one-time donation. But instead, she also sees the option to give $10/mo to provide ongoing support. It’s less money out of her pocket in the moment, and she’s excited about what you’re doing, so it’s a nice alternative. 

Sally chooses the $10 option, and you’ve just increased Sally’s gift size 4x times over the course of a year, with no more effort on Sally or your organization’s part.

You can segment out your recurring donor average/median gift amounts, and use recurring donation tiers to drive up recurring gifts too. With CauseVox’s built-in CRM, you can take that a step further, filtering donors by giving history and frequency to send targeted upgrade asks to exactly the right people at the right time. Instead of blasting your whole list, you’re reaching out to your $25/month donors with a personalized nudge toward the $40 tier, making the ask feel thoughtful rather than transactional.

Easily tag and segment donors on CauseVox’s CRM

Pro-tip: If you want more recurring donors, make sure “monthly recurring” is your default, so it’s the first option your donor sees.

One-time and monthly recurring donation tiers on CauseVox Donation Page

4. Use Multiple Pages For Different Audiences, With Custom Tiers

The same set of donation tiers isn’t going to make sense everywhere. If you’re running a high-end gala with your top donors, you’ll want a set of donation tiers that matches the depth of their pockets. If you’re running a school fundraiser with local parents, you want amounts that will feel accessible to everyone. 

This might mean creating different pages or campaigns to be used in different settings. Segment your donors based on the data you have about them, and provide each segment with tiers that fit in their budget. 

The same logic applies to pledge campaigns, if you’re asking donors to commit to a gift over time, your tiers should reflect realistic installment amounts rather than a lump sum that feels out of reach. A donor who hesitates at a $5,000 ask might gladly commit to $500 a month over 10 months, so building pledge-friendly tiers into your campaign pages can open the door to major gift-level commitments without the sticker shock.

Donation tiers for pledge donations with CauseVox

5. Think Design

When restaurants create their menus, they often use principles of design to push diners to certain items. You can do the same with your donation tiers. For example, out of all the donation tiers, most people will choose the second option on the list.

This little factoid relies on a quirk of human psychology: we don’t want to spend too much, but we don’t want to seem like we’re giving the least. If there’s one amount that you really want your donors to give, place it second.

Another trick is called anchoring. You’ve probably seen some donation pages that have one amount highlighted. This makes that number seem more important than the others on the page, and will pull donors to give that amount.

CauseVox builds these design principles into our donation form, helping you create tiers that match your needs. 

Raise More With Free Customized Donation Forms

Your donors are already out there; they just need a clear, compelling reason to commit. Donation tiers give them that reason, and with CauseVox, setting them up takes minutes, not days.

The best part? It’s completely free to get started. 

Are you ready to raise more with less effort? Schedule a demo today.

Here is why it works so well. When your board member, volunteer, or longtime donor asks their network to give, that ask carries a level of trust your organization can never manufacture on its own. People give to people. A personal fundraising page from someone they know and respect will always outperform a cold email from an organization they vaguely recognize. Peer-to-peer fundraising takes that human connection and scales it across your entire community at once.

The numbers back it up too. Peer-to-peer campaigns consistently bring in new donors that your organization would never have reached through traditional channels, and those donors, acquired through a personal relationship, tend to stick around. You are not just raising money for one campaign. You are building a pipeline.

We have rounded up 25 peer-to-peer fundraising examples to show you what is possible, spark some ideas, and give you a clear starting point no matter where you are in your journey.

A Quick Recap of Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

You give $50. You share the campaign with a friend, who gives $100. She tells her coworker, who gives $30, and her cousin who gives $20. Suddenly, that single supporter has generated $200 and four new donor relationships for your organization.

That’s peer-to-peer fundraising in action. Individual supporters create personal fundraising pages, share them with their own networks, and their smaller gifts stack up into something significant. The beauty of it is that it scales naturally: the more engaged your community is, the more powerful it becomes.

This model is especially well-suited for small and mid-sized nonprofits. You don’t need a massive budget or a full development team. You need enthusiastic supporters and the right tools to set them up for success.

25 Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Examples

1. Honorary Fundraiser

People love fundraising when it feels personal. Whether it’s a birthday, a special holiday, or a memorial tribute, honorary fundraisers give supporters a meaningful reason to ask their network for support, and that authenticity translates into higher conversion rates.

Empower does this brilliantly by using running as a vehicle for purpose. They encourage supporters to run in honor of someone they’ve lost, which makes every ask feel deeply personal rather than transactional.

 Empower’s peer-to-peer fundraising campaign with CauseVox

The key is making it easy for supporters to self-launch. Give them a template, a pre-written appeal, and a simple way to set up their page then let them run with it (no pun intended). 

A peer-to-peer fundraiser’s page for Empower, sharing who she is running in honor of.

2. Outdoor and Active Events

Not every supporter wants to walk a 5K, some want a real challenge. Outdoor peer-to-peer campaigns work because they create experiences people actually want to talk about, and that word-of-mouth is fundraising gold. 

Take Orangewood Foundation’s annual challenge: teams of four tackle a multi-sport obstacle course, combining a physical and fundraising challenge to enter. The 2025 event raised over $538,000 to support vulnerable youth, proof that when you make participation memorable, the donations follow.

Consider adding a fundraising toolkit for your peer-to-peer fundraisers to help them feel confident in their fundraising efforts.

3. Giving Day

A single focused day of giving creates urgency that spreads fast. When your supporters know the clock is ticking, they are far more likely to share their fundraising pages, follow up with their networks, and push toward the finish line. GivingTuesday alone raises hundreds of millions of dollars every year, but you don’t have to wait for a cultural moment to make it work. 

Pick a date that resonates with your community, whether it’s your organization’s founding anniversary, a mission-related awareness day, or simply the end of your fiscal year, and build a peer-to-peer campaign around it. 

COHS activated their supporters for a giving day around honoring what made their school special (in honor of a teacher, program, etc).

Give your fundraisers a goal, a deadline, and a reason to act today, and you’ll be surprised how much a single day can move the needle.

4. Sleep Out/Overnight Challenge

A sleep out is one of those fundraising formats that does double duty: it raises money and it builds empathy. Participants spend a night sleeping outside, often in a parking lot, a park, or a school gymnasium, to raise awareness around issues like homelessness, poverty, or housing insecurity. 

Their personal fundraising pages become part of the story, with supporters sponsoring them for every hour they tough it out. What makes it so shareable is the visibility. Participants are posting from their sleeping bags, updating their networks in real time, and creating a night’s worth of content that keeps donations coming in. It connects the act directly to the mission in a way that a standard donation ask never could, and that emotional resonance is exactly what turns a one-time donor into a long-term supporter.

5. Golf Tournament 

Golf tournaments are a nonprofit staple for good reason. They attract corporate sponsors, bring in higher-dollar donations, and create a relaxed social environment that is genuinely fun to be part of. What makes a golf event shine as a peer-to-peer format is the team structure. Each group becomes a fundraising team with their own fundraising page, competing against other groups to see who can raise the most. 

Golf tournament peer-to-peer fundraiser hosted with CauseVox

That friendly rivalry between the finance team and the marketing crew can do wonders for your final total. Pair your tournament with event ticketing where you can easily set up a customized registration form that captures all of the information you need from registrants, including things like t-shirt sizes and sponsorship packages in one place. 

6. Cook-Off 

Everyone thinks their chili is the best. A cook-off fundraiser turns that friendly rivalry into real dollars for your cause. Participants register and spend the weeks before the event rallying donations from friends, family, and coworkers. 

On the day itself, attendees pay to taste and vote, adding another revenue stream on top of what fundraisers have already raised. It is warm, social, and incredibly easy to rally a community around. 

Local restaurants or grocery stores often jump at the chance to sponsor ingredients or prizes, which keeps your costs low. The competitive element does a lot of the heavy lifting too. Nobody wants to show up with the least-funded chili, which means your fundraisers are motivated to keep pushing their personal pages right up until the ladle drops.

7. Storytelling Campaign

The most powerful fundraising tool your organization has is not a matching gift or a deadline. It is a story. A storytelling campaign invites your supporters to share their personal connection to your cause on their individual fundraising pages, whether that is a short video, a written reflection, or a photo with a caption. 

When donors hear directly from the people who care most about your mission, in their own words, the ask becomes almost unnecessary. The story does the work.

This peer-to-peer page built with CauseVox shares a powerful story from the fundraiser

Encourage your fundraisers with a simple prompt like “tell us why this cause matters to you” and you will be surprised how many compelling narratives surface from your own community. Those stories live on their pages, get shared across social media, and keep bringing in donations long after the initial post goes up.

8. Pickleball Tournament 

Pickleball is having a moment, and your nonprofit should be taking advantage of it. It is the fastest growing sport in the country, it spans every age group, and it is social by nature, which makes it a natural fit for peer-to-peer fundraising. 

On the day itself, teams compete in a bracket format while supporters cheer, donate, and share the leaderboard in real time. Local courts, gyms, and recreation centers are often eager to partner on events like this, which keeps venue costs low. The best part is that because pickleball is still fresh enough to feel exciting, it gives your campaign a built-in talking point that older tournament formats simply do not have anymore.

Pickleball tournaments peer-to-peer campaign for Volo Kids hosted on CauseVox

9. Social Media Takeover 

A social media takeover flips the script on traditional peer-to-peer fundraising. Instead of just asking supporters to share a link, you hand them the keys to your organization’s Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook for a day and let them tell your story to their audience and yours at the same time. 

Followers are far more likely to engage with a real person sharing why they care about a cause than a polished organizational post. It also gives your most passionate supporters a meaningful role beyond just asking for money, and that sense of ownership tends to produce your most motivated fundraisers.

Download the Ultimate Guide To Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

10. Live Crowdfunding

Live crowdfunding combines the power of peer-to-peer with the energy of an in-person event. The idea is simple: while your guests are gathered in the room, you open up the campaign to remote supporters watching a livestream or following along on social media, giving everyone a chance to participate in real time. Use a tool like a fundraising thermometer so people can see how close you are to your goal and the impact of their gift.

Free fundraising thermometer with CauseVox

This format works especially well when paired with a silent auction running alongside your event. Guests in the room can bid on auction items while remote supporters donate through personal fundraising pages, creating two revenue streams running simultaneously from a single event. Whether you are hosting a gala, a community gathering, or an intimate donor dinner, live crowdfunding turns a one-night event into a moment your entire community can be part of, no matter where they are.

11. Corporate Gift Matching

Did you know that corporations around the country offer matching gift programs for nonprofits? It’s true! You can access these programs to maximize your fundraising with your next peer-to-peer campaign. The best part of this strategy is that it can be incorporated into any of the peer-to-peer fundraising examples listed here.

Use CauseVox’s automated matching to help fundraisers and donors see the impact of their gift in real time.

Many corporations prefer to donate to nonprofits that their employees also support. As such, most companies prefer to have someone who works at the company submit a matching gift request. While this may seem like a difficult barrier to entry, it can actually work in your favor with a peer-to-peer campaign.

If you have a large community of professionals in your network, consider asking them to start fundraising pages and solicit corporate matches through their work. This type of peer-to-peer fundraising campaign can raise a large amount in a short time with the right level of engagement. Some companies will match only those gifts submitted by their employees, while others will match all gifts made during a certain time period.

12. Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt is one of the most underused formats in peer-to-peer fundraising, and that is exactly what makes it stand out. Teams register and set up personal fundraising pages, rallying donations from their networks before the hunt begins. On the day itself, teams race to complete a series of challenges and clues across your city, campus, or community, turning your cause into an adventure people genuinely want to show up for. 

The format is incredibly shareable too. Teams are posting photos and updates throughout the entire event, which keeps your campaign visible across social media for hours at a time. It works for all ages, requires minimal equipment, and can be themed around your mission to make the connection between the fun and the cause feel natural and intentional.

13. Volunteer Engagement

Volunteers are among the most important community members for every nonprofit. You may feel uncomfortable about asking them to fundraise for you in addition to all the other work that they do to support your mission. But you shouldn’t. Volunteers have been proven to be an invaluable asset for peer-to-peer fundraising.

The best part about signing your volunteers up as fundraisers in your next peer-to-peer fundraiser is that they can do double duty for your nonprofit. In other words, they can serve the community and your mission while they raise funds. You can even tie these two efforts together by having your volunteers challenge themselves to complete a certain number of volunteer hours while their community supports them with donations per hour worked.

Chances are, your volunteers are among the most knowledgeable and most engaged community members in your network. They will likely leap at the opportunity to spread the word about your organization to their friends and family.

Volunteer peer-to-peer fundraising team using CauseVox

14. Talent Show

A talent show fundraiser is exactly what it sounds like, and that simplicity is what makes it so effective. Ask your supporters to set up personal fundraising pages, record themselves doing something they are genuinely proud of, and share it with their networks. It could be a piano performance, a stand-up routine, an impressive cooking skill, or something completely unexpected. The more personality the better. 

Because supporters are sharing something personal and entertaining, they are far more motivated to blast it across every channel they have, and every view is a potential donor. The format also translates beautifully to short-form video content on Instagram Reels and TikTok, where a compelling clip can take on a life of its own and pull in donors your organization would never have reached through traditional outreach.

Talent show fundraiser hosted with CauseVox

15. Pledge Campaign

A pledge campaign is one of the simplest ways to increase the average gift size across your entire peer-to-peer fundraiser without asking donors to give more upfront. Instead of a single lump sum donation, supporters commit to giving in a series of smaller installments over time. 

The psychology is straightforward: a donor who might hesitate at a $500 ask will often say yes to $50 a month without a second thought, even though the annual total is the same. For your personal fundraisers, it also gives them a more compelling pitch. Rather than just asking their network for a donation, they are inviting people into an ongoing relationship with your cause. 

Ask your fundraisers to set clear giving tiers on their personal pages so donors can see exactly what each pledge level makes possible. That tangible impact framing is what turns a maybe into a yes.

16. Board Fundraiser

Your board members are some of your most credible advocates, so why not put that to work in a peer-to-peer campaign? A board fundraiser asks each board member to set up their own personal fundraising page and reach out directly to their professional and personal networks. Because board members carry genuine weight with donors, their ask tends to land differently than a general appeal from the organization. It also creates healthy internal accountability. 

When board members can see each other’s progress on a shared leaderboard, a little friendly competition tends to bring out their best fundraising instincts. It is a low-cost, high-trust campaign format that works especially well as a year-end push or ahead of a major organizational milestone.

Volo Kids board member peer-to-peer campaign helped raise over $22,000.

17. Walk-a-thon

Walk-a-thons can be localized, such as a local high school service group, or nationwide, occurring simultaneously in many cities. Like other activity-based events, supporters raise a set amount of money to participate. 

Beyond this, walk-a-thons can layer in additional revenue through corporate sponsorships, matching gifts, and branded merchandise, while team-based competition and milestone incentives help keep participant energy high throughout the campaign. With relatively low upfront costs and high engagement potential, walk-a-thons consistently rank among the highest-ROI activity-based peer-to-peer fundraisers available to nonprofits.

Make it easy for supporters to sign up and become a fundraiser for your walk-a-thon.

18. Bowl-a-Thon

Bowl-a-thons have been a nonprofit staple for decades, and for good reason. They are accessible, social, and naturally built for team fundraising. The format is simple: participants form teams, set up personal fundraising pages, rally donations from their networks, and then come together on the lanes to compete. 

That combination of online fundraising and in-person fun creates a level of energy and accountability that is hard to replicate with a standard donation campaign. Partnering with local businesses and corporations to field employee teams is a particularly effective strategy, since it expands your reach well beyond your existing donor base and brings in a competitive crowd who are motivated to out-raise each other. Whether you run one event or many, the bowl-a-thon format scales surprisingly well and tends to bring in a wide range of gift sizes from a wide range of donors.

Bowl-a-thon hosted with CauseVox

19. Build-a-thon

A build-a-thon flips the traditional “thon” format on its head in the best way. Instead of running, walking, or biking, participants build something, and their community sponsors them for it. 

Record Robotics Build-a-thon peer-to-peer fundraising page with CauseVox

The format works beautifully for schools, maker communities, and mission-driven organizations whose work involves creating something real in the world. Supporters fundraise through personal pages, donors see exactly where their money goes, and everyone gets to celebrate something being built together.

20. Bike-a-thon

A bike-a-thon is one of those formats that works as well in person as it does virtually, which makes it incredibly versatile for any size organization. Participants set up personal or team fundraising pages, share their story, and raise funds from their networks before they ever clip into their pedals. 

Rise Beyond All Odds bike-a-thon with CauseVox

The format is flexible by nature. You can organize a group ride along a scenic route, a point-to-point challenge across multiple days, or give supporters the option to ride virtually on a stationary bike at home. By removing the barrier of location you open the campaign up to a much wider pool of participants, which means more fundraising pages, more sharing, and a bigger final total. It is also a natural fit for team fundraising, where groups of riders compete to see who can cover the most miles and raise the most money for your cause.

21. Gifts for Grades

If you’re looking for peer-to-peer fundraising examples that can engage a younger audience, look no further! A Gifts for Grades campaign will inspire your young supporters to raise funds for your nonprofit.

Gifts for Grades campaigns involve having the students in your network ask for donations that correspond to the grades that they receive in school. For example, they could request $10 for every A, $5 for every B and so on. 

Everyone wants to see children excel in school. So why not introduce a fundraising element and incentive to this desire. The added bonus is that you can use this event as an opportunity to show your community that you care about education and literacy. 

22. Giving Circles

When it comes to fundraising, sometimes it’s best to keep it as simple as possible. When it comes time for your organization to choose from this list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples, it’s important to select one that is easily achievable. Why not return to the oldest form of peer-to-peer fundraising, the Giving Circle?

Giving circles are groups of philanthropic individuals who meet to pool their resources and support nonprofits. Before the Internet, these groups were responsible for the peer-to-peer element of nonprofit fundraising, since they would share information about organizations and bring in new donations.

Despite their more traditional format, giving circles are still alive and well today. If anyone in your community is a part of a giving circle, you can make an appeal to see if they will consider supporting your cause. 

23. Livestream Fundraiser 

If your supporters are on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok, there is a fundraising opportunity sitting right there waiting to be activated. Livestream fundraising lets your most enthusiastic supporters broadcast to their own audiences in real time, whether that is a gaming marathon, a cooking session, a workout, or simply a candid conversation about why your cause matters to them. 

Each streamer sets up a personal fundraising page and links to it throughout their stream, so viewers can donate without ever leaving the moment. The real time energy is what makes it work. Donors can see the total climbing, leave comments, and feel like they are part of something happening right now. It also reaches a younger donor demographic that traditional fundraising formats rarely touch. The barrier to entry is low too. All a supporter needs is a phone, an internet connection, and something genuine to say.

24. Trivia Night

Trivia nights are a consistently underrated peer-to-peer fundraising format. They are competitive, social, and appeal to a segment of your supporter base that might not show up for a 5K or a golf tournament. Teams register through personal fundraising pages, rallying donations from their networks before the event, and then compete on the night for bragging rights. 

The team structure does a lot of the heavy lifting, since nobody wants to be the person who let their team down on the fundraising leaderboard. It is also one of the most flexible formats on this list. You can run it in person at a local bar or community space, fully virtually over Zoom, or as a hybrid event that brings both audiences together in real time. Local businesses make great sponsors for prizes, which keeps your costs low and adds another layer of community involvement to the night.

25. Double Dog Dare Fundraiser

You may have noticed that several of the entries on this list of peer-to-peer fundraising examples involve a predetermined challenge. As we’ve mentioned, challenges introduce a competitive element to your fundraising and help drive engagement. With a Double Dog Dare fundraiser, you can shift the power of the challenge to your donors.

Your supporters will set up personal fundraising pages, asking their friends and family for donations. But there’s a catch. In order to receive the donations, they will have to complete a dare submitted by that potential donor. The dares should be easily achievable, such as eating a stack of saltine crackers in under a minute, or running through a sprinkler. If your supporters are tech savvy, you can ask them to film these dares and post them on social media.

A Double Dog Dare fundraiser allows your fundraisers to have fun and connect with their communities while raising money for a great cause. The best part is that they can share their passion for your nonprofit both on their personal fundraising pages and in the videos that they make as they complete the dares.

Try One Of These Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Examples Today!

Did you happen to notice a similar theme in most of these fundraising events?

When you add a fun, funky, creative element, people come out of the woodwork to participate.

Another common denominator behind all of these peer-to-peer fundraising examples is that they all emphasize a quality user experience. Make sure you are set up for success with an optimized website.

Take these peer-to-peer fundraising ideas and incorporate them however you see fit to extend your reach and meet your goal. To use a cliché, you’ll be successful if you keep the “fun” in your fundraising.

Start your own peer-to-peer fundraiser today with CauseVox!