5 Marketing Tools Every Nonprofit Needs in the Digital Age

Your nonprofit’s digital strategy is shaped by your software. Each platform your nonprofit uses is a tool in your arsenal for connecting with donors, managing internal tasks, and spreading awareness of your cause. 

Nonprofit technology has also developed over the past years. Today’s donors have certain expectations about how nonprofits should interact with supporters digitally, conduct virtual fundraisers, and present their organizations online.

To help your nonprofit meet these expectations, this article will explore five software solutions nonprofits should consider investing in to keep their marketing strategies up-to-date. 

1. CRM

Your nonprofit’s CRM is the core of your nonprofit’s technology stack. CRM stands for constituent relationship management system, and as the name implies, it allows you to monitor your relationships with all of your nonprofit’s donors, volunteers, sponsors, program participants, and anyone else your organization has a connection with. 

Use your CRM to automatically create donor profiles when supporters take key actions, such as donating, volunteering, signing up for your newsletter, or attending an event. Then, store all data collected on each donor in their unique profile. When you reach out to them, you can leverage this data to inform your messages and build more successful relationships. 

For example, a nonprofit that uses its CRM to track each supporter’s average giving amount might use this information to tailor its fundraising asks to align with each supporter’s past donations, which would be valuable for planning an upcoming fundraising campaign. This ensures that every donation request is reasonable while also growing each supporter’s value. 

Your CRM can also be customized to accomplish a variety of other marketing needs, such as communication, automatic messaging, editorial calendar creation, internal task management, and more. 

2. Fundraising Solutions 

You can expand your options for connecting with donors online by investing in various fundraising software solutions. These solutions can provide your website with additional functionalities, facilitate new types of campaigns, and streamline your events. 

A few types of fundraising solutions to consider include:

• Peer-to-peer tools. Peer-to-peer platforms allow participating supporters to create their own online fundraising pages that they can share with friends and family. Donors can then give through these pages, enabling them to support their friend or family member directly while giving to your nonprofit. 
• Member management software. Some nonprofit organizations earn extra revenue by creating membership programs for their supporters. Donors who join these programs will have access to extra benefits and services associated with the nonprofit, in exchange for a monthly or annual membership fee. Membership management software allows you to run your membership program and create a better experience for donors by providing an overview of your members.
• Auction software. While necessary for hosting an online auction, auction software can also streamline in-person events as well. Invest in a mobile bidding platform that allows guests to scroll through your auction catalog online and make bids from their phones. This allows in-person attendees to quickly place new bids without stepping away from your event’s other activities. 

   
When exploring fundraising platforms, ensure you choose solutions that integrate with your CRM. This will allow you to connect your systems and ensure all data collected over the course of a campaign that uses a fundraising solution will be stored in your CRM. 

3. Prospect Research Tools

You can focus your marketing efforts to target your most valuable donors with prospect research tools. Prospect research is more comprehensive than wealth screening, taking into account a donor’s affinity for making a major donation along with their capacity to give. 

Nonprofits can determine a donor’s likelihood of becoming a major donor by looking at the following resources:

• Charitable giving history
• Political contributions 
• Real estate and property data
• Stock holdings
• Employment background

This information can be challenging to find and is nearly impossible to do at scale without the assistance of software. Prospect research tools compile data from a variety of databases to provide you with a profile of each donor that includes their giving capacity and affinity indicators. 

4. Text-to-Give 

Technology that allows supporters to interact with your nonprofit more easily through their phones makes marketing convenient. Ensure your website is optimized for mobile visitors, and consider investing in software solutions like text-to-give. 

Text-to-give is a method of donating that allows supporters to donate to your nonprofit entirely through their phones. A text-to-give platform will provide your nonprofit with a specific phone number that supporters can text to make donations. The process works like this:

• Your nonprofit chooses a keyword. Select a keyword that is short, easy to spell, and memorable. For example, you might set up a text-to-give number in advance of your annual walk-a-thon. Then, at the event you would share your keyword: WALK2023. 
• Supporters text the keyword to your phone number. After texting your keyword to your designated phone number, supporters will be prompted to text how much they are donating. 
• A gift is made through your supporters’ mobile carriers. The donation is processed by each supporter’s mobile carrier and will be added to their phone bills. This means your nonprofit receives the contribution immediately once the gift is made, and the supporter pays it later.

Text-to-give is an especially useful fundraising method for events, as you can announce your text-to-give number and prompt attendees to take their phones out. This will encourage other supporters on the fence about giving to follow suit. 

You can also easily feature your text-to-give number and keyword on various marketing materials. For example, you might add it to event banners or feature it prominently in promotional materials to encourage pre-event gifts. 

5. Matching Gift Software

Matching gifts are a convenient way for nonprofits to raise more without asking supporters to make additional donations. While donors can give matching gifts to nonprofits without a matching gift software solution, nonprofits that utilize a platform can more easily prompt supporters to make matching gifts and speed up the application process. 

Essentially, matching gift software is a plugin for your donation forms. The software includes access to a database of companies with matching gift programs and the ability to scan the information supporters input into your donation form. Here’s how it works:

• The donor enters their email address when making a gift. 
• If the email address is a work email, the matching gift software will automatically connect the donor with their employer’s matching gift application. 
• If the email address is for a personal account, the matching gift software will instead prompt donors to enter their employer’s name into a search bar for the matching gift database. Once the employer is identified, the donor can click on their employer and be paired with their matching gift application. 

Some matching gift software solutions even come with auto-submission features, which fill out the matching gift applications for supporters using the information they entered into their donation form.

Matching gift platforms also provide nonprofits with the ability to track where supporters are in the matching gift process. For example, you might get an alert that a donor has submitted a donation but hasn’t verified their matching gift eligibility. You could then use this information to reach out to them and share information about matching gifts and links to your matching gift database. 

New marketing solutions can provide your nonprofit with additional opportunities to connect with supporters. Explore these marketing solutions, assess your fundraising practices, and invest in solutions that will integrate with the rest of your technology stack.