The secret to a successful fundraising for a non-profit organization

Almost every organization lives by what it does. And it puts most of its energy in that direction. Marketing, social media, and content creation are often not the main focus. But when you have a goal, capable people, and one simple ingredient, you can literally change the world. As we did with the nonprofit The Kukang Rescue Program.

The secret to a successful fundraising and almost $5000 in donations

The greatest success we have achieved during our cooperation was the successful collection for the construction of Kukang School.

The key was the cooperation of the entire team, including the teachers and students of the Kukang school. And because it was possible to document the entire construction and tell people exactly what Kukang used their contribution for, we also communicated it on social media. But something else played a major role.

Look for a story behind everything

I am increasingly convinced that story is one of the best “weapons” not only for non-profit organizations. And the more captivating, original, or moving your story is, the better. People make most decisions based on emotions. And these are the ones that are best evoked by a story. That is the main, yet completely simple ingredient that you use to spice up every piece of communication.

So I decided to base my strategy for raising money for the school building on the story of Kukang, which was not only true, but also met all three of the adjectives mentioned above (bold). We also increased the frequency of posting and focused on the fundraising collection. I interwoven the story with every image or text. Whether it was text on the collection website, on social networks or in e-mails to partners and potential sponsors of the collection.

It worked. We managed to raise the amount before the end of the collection and even exceeded our target number.

How and where it started

Our collaboration also has its own story. Before I started marketing, I studied at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague a program called Exotic Animal Breeding. There I met Frantisek, the founder of Kukang and decided to help them raise the visibility of their activities. Thanks to this, I was able to combine marketing and my knowledge from both fields with animal protection and help a good cause. But it was a little harder than I imagined.

The “What are we going to post again?” problem

I learned one thing very quickly: When you have one foot outdoors in the field and the other on a plane or at educational events, it is almost impossible to think about what to post on social media. The result is that you post something on Facebook once every month or two, when someone has time. There's no time for catchy graphics or thinking about the CTAs.

And if you manage to recruit a marketing volunteer, they are usually not experts. But you can still achieve a lot of amazing things.

I took responsibility for their social media, specifically Facebook and Instagram, which had around 500 followers at the time. (We also tried to launch TikTok, but we eventually put it to sleep due to the limited time.)

My job was to create uniform graphics, write texts in Czech and English, plan posts for social networks, interact with followers and most importantly to make Kukangs activities visible. Before I started working, I asked a lot of questions and set simple goals:

• increase the reach of posts at least 10 times
• attract a relevant target group (donors)
• have an active Instagram and Facebook where people can see what we are doing
• create educational content and highlight issues we deal with

Paths that lead to the goals

Consistency

The main goal was to give content creation some order and consistency. To make Kukang remembered and liked by the algorithms again, consistency was key. That's why I created my first table for planning content (a simpler version of the one I still use today).

Type of content

The next task was to fine-tune the type of content that worked best. Of course, this was videos (reels). To them I added uniform design, brand colors, catchy headlines and CTA (call to action). At the same time, in addition to the content itself, we also experimented with posting time and other metrics.

Thanks to this content, in a few months I accomplished my first two boldest goals. We went from the low hundreds of views to the high thousands, and the number of followers almost doubled. In addition, the feed had an unified look and we were also able to engage followers in discussions and sharing posts.

Relevant target group and communication channels

The point of marketing is not to sell something or to grow at any cost. In the case of non-profits, it is more true than ever that the main thing is to create a community of people with the same interests or problems. Thanks to our careful documentation and publication of all activities within the organization, we managed to gather such people around us.

It was a great success for us when Netflix documented these activities as part of their series Our Great National Parks with Barack Obama. We tried to make the most of it and introduce people to Kukang from a different angle. Videos with the Netflix link and others showing the main message of Kukang were really successful. We also gained more donors or supportive messages. All of this came into even greater use during the fundraiser for Kukang School.

Summary

Finally, I would like to summarize important points that can help you with promotion, whether you are a non-profit or a company.

• Be consistent, have a plan and goals and stick to them!
• Make sure people recognize you (e.g. have consistent graphics).
• Don't sell. Build a community of people with the same interests or problems.
• Use stories in your content and focus on emotions.
• Don't waste your energy and get help (especially with marketing).
• Get to know your followers / ideal clients and talk to THEM.
• Don't just talk about yourself but highlight those activities that bring value to your followers.

I know. It's easier said than done. Especially when your entire team is busy. But when you can delegate your marketing tasks to someone who shares your values ​​(and also knows a thing or two about marketing), it can go a long way.

This will give you more time to do what you really want to do, and your work will have a much greater impact. Thanks to the Kukang School fundraiser, the next generation of Indonesians will understand nature a little better and know how to protect it.

Is this your goal too? I'd be happy to help you achieve it.

You can contact me here: adel@adelapro.com or contact form.

Testimonials