How do you continue delivering impact from your charity’s strategy when budgets are tight? As a specialist charity marketing agency with over 30 years’ experience, we suggest you begin by incorporating three basic approaches in your strategy:
Make the best use of your existing resources.
Discover resources that you may have overlooked.
And think more creatively.
Start with the data
Use your digital data to learn which of your activities are pulling their weight and which are not; this is a marketing fundamental and means that you ensure your digital skills are up to speed.
In the 2024 Charity Digital Skills report, over four in ten charities admitted they were “poor at digital fundraising” and a further 25% said they didn’t fundraise digitally.
The clear message is that digital fundraising is a serious opportunity for charities to boost their fundraising, even when working with a small budget.
Are you connecting emotionally with your audience?
The way you tell your charity’s story can make a world of difference to donations. Your charity, like every other, has its own unique personality and appeal, but whether it’s about how you began, or how you’re making a difference, you should endeavour to create an empathy that moves your audience to action.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok are where you should focus on your target audience to tell your charity’s story.
A good content strategy allows you to go beyond reactive social media and grow your channel. By planning a variety of strong story-led content that utilises video, events, testimonials, photography, infographics and helpful or informative copy, you can help build followers online and maximise your digital reach.
A great example of an emotional story is Shelter’s Brave Face advert. This plays on the idea of a young child having to put on a brave face as life continues to beat him down. The final message is that no child should have to put on a brave face because of homelessness. This particular example pulls on a bit of a tear-jerker, but connecting emotionally can also mean making the audience laugh, shocked, or angry.
Clear calls to action
Design your website with a prominent and clearly visible ‘donate’ button to make donating as easy as possible. Check out free tools like PayPal’s donation buttons and social media fundraising tools like Facebook’s donate button.
When creating ads on Google, construct clear ad text that provides a call to action but also connects emotionally with users. Make sure to optimise and experiment with different campaigns and headlines.
Google Ad Grants offer eligible charities up to £8,000 per month in free search ads via their Ad Grants programme, a great way to reach potential donors while taking some of the pressure off your own advertising budget.
Put more thought into your emails
This is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach supporters but it’s not utilised efficiently by many charities. Most users will open an email and decide within three seconds whether or not to continue reading. That means you need to get your key message at the top of your email, ensure it’s optimised for both mobile and desktop devices, think about the time of day you send, and don’t include multiple messages within one email.
Create automated campaigns that react to user behaviour. For example, someone could have been about to donate but got distracted. With some API development work you can target those users with a ‘don’t forget to finish your donation’ email.
People who have donated before are twice as likely to donate again compared with someone who has never donated. So rather than focus on new donations, schedule monthly or annual reminders asking if previous donors would be happy to do so again. Always make sure you have automated thank you emails and don’t overwork your database.
Platforms like Mailchimp offer a 15% discount for non-profit organisations if you reach out to customer services.
Make the most of your volunteers
As they’re a vital resource in supporting your charity and its aims, you could consider taking inspiration from FoodCycle’s success in creating volunteer hubs across the UK. The charity coordinates meals for people in need by empowering its volunteers to take ownership of certain projects. And you could do the same.
Your volunteers probably already have skills or could develop them, which would help your cause. It might be anything from getting more involved in fundraising events, managing local outreach efforts, or even using their tech skills to help with digital campaigns.
Diversify your funding streams
Funding streams can fluctuate, so it makes sense to cultivate alternatives, particularly as grants are becoming increasingly competitive. According to CAF’s UK Giving Report 2023, of the 44% of people who donated to charity last year, many chose smaller and more regular ways to make donations.
This is why, along with a big, highly organised campaign, it’s a good idea to implement small, community-focused appeals specially designed to engage local people with a more personal ask.
Take inspiration from the way UK charity Trussell has diversified its funding streams running food banks across the UK by forming corporate partnerships and promoting legacy giving to help with its work running food banks across the UK.
Or look at how Omaze fundraises for charities by using a raffle ticket-type lottery where money from ticket sales funds both prizes and charity donations.
To sum up
Even with a modest budget, by thinking creatively, empowering volunteers, and making intelligent use of digital, a charity can still succeed in its mission to support those in need.
Harrison Carloss can help by providing expert marketing for charities looking to increase donations in 2025 and beyond. Send us an email today to start your project or read about our charity expertise.
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