9 Canvassing Tips to Energize Your Political Campaigns
As a leader at your advocacy organization, you know the importance of running energetic, dynamic campaigns to build momentum and keep excitement high all the way until election day. Of course, you also know that your volunteers, while dedicated, are a limited resource and their door-to-door canvassing efforts can only cover so much ground during election season. But the right canvassing tips can make those limited interactions much more meaningful.
Effective canvassing has the power to sway elections, expand your organization’s support network, and earn donations that can help further your mission. Canvassing has also transformed over the years in response to new technology and the challenges of COVID-19.
Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Software: 15 Inspiring Platforms
Advocacy has evolved in recent years, and the most successful advocacy campaigns tend to be backed by powerful software solutions such as peer-to-peer fundraising software. Even campaigns that focus on personal, one-on-one conversations like peer-to-peer campaigns stand to benefit from the right fundraising software.
Peer-to-peer fundraising leverages your volunteers’ personal relationships to extend your organization’s audience beyond your usual network of supporters. Research has shown that donors are more likely to contribute to causes their friends and family members advocate for, and nonprofits have responded to the data by launching more peer-to-peer campaigns, up to a 31% increase over last year.
For your organization, this means there are many peer-to-peer fundraising resources available, but also that you’ll need to make the proper investments to ensure your campaign stands out from the crowd. To help your organization get started, this article will explore the basics of peer-to-peer fundraising software and recommend fifteen of our favorite platforms:
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Peer-to-Peer Grassroots Engagement: Grow Your Movement Exponentially
The more people that support your cause, the more successful your campaign will be.
The reasons are clear:
- Popular support makes it more likely that you will bring about the change you are looking for. I.e. Elected officials will sit up and take notice.
- More avenues for growth: Each supporter comes with their own circle of friends and family—AKA, more potential supporters. There are few things more convincing than the opinion of someone you know well.
Peer-to-peer marketing is a cost-effective way to spread the word about your cause, and grassroots campaigns are uniquely suited towards it.
Make Your Nonprofit Website a Tool for Advocacy
Nonprofits like yours represent the public’s perspective—if enough people support and back up your organization’s views, then key decision-makers will notice. This is where nonprofit advocacy comes in.
In fact, an important tool to bring your advocacy efforts to the next level is your nonprofit website.
This guide will walk through the basics of advocacy for nonprofits and how your own website can support your passions. Let’s begin.
Donor Management Software for Nonprofits: 3 Considerations
In today’s landscape, advancements in technology for nonprofits are constantly offering new and different ways to help charitable organizations succeed. With so many options out there, it’s important not to forget about the foundational software upon which the rest of your tech stack should be built: donor management software.
If that doesn’t sound familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard donor management software referred to by one of its other names—maybe “nonprofit CRM” or “donor database.” They all refer to the same tool: the platform that serves as your directory for donor data and the hub through which you interact with donors.
Here at GivingMail, we design and implement direct mail fundraising campaigns for organizations big and small, so we’re well-acquainted with nonprofits’ need to keep track of their donors’ information for fundraising purposes.
Over the years, we’ve learned a thing or two about nonprofit database software. And we can tell you this: the best donor management software providers have three things in common. They increase donor retention rates, facilitate peer-to-peer fundraising, and produce valuable data metrics for your organization.
How to Use The Google Grant for Nonprofit Advocacy
Nonprofits are unique in that they often mobilize funds and people towards social goods. In order to achieve their goals, nonprofits must utilize various aspects of advocacy in order to reach a wider audience and get them to take action. Advocacy is the process of raising awareness and generating support for an issue related to a nonprofit’s mission. Advocacy often directly involves the work of a nonprofit organization, but can also be adjacent to the mission of the organization. For example, an animal welfare nonprofit’s day-to-day operations may not involve much advocacy. But there may be times when they need to lobby an elected official or raise awareness of something in their community.
Advocacy can take many forms, but it’s efficient for nonprofits to use their existing tools to aid their advocacy efforts. One of the most effective tools for gaining greater awareness for your advocacy efforts is the Google Grant which provides 501(c)(3) nonprofits with $10,000/month of credit to spend on Google Ads in search results. Using the Google Ad Grant is an excellent way for nonprofits to enhance their existing marketing efforts and bolster their advocacy campaigns as well.
3 Reasons to Invest in Strategic Volunteer Training
The best training for volunteers is strategic. This might make sense from a birds-eye view, but what does it mean, exactly, for your cause?
It means that your volunteers are a critical component of your team and that their tireless efforts help you drive your mission forward. It means that without them, you likely wouldn’t be able to sustain effective and cost-efficient operations. It means that your volunteers should be well-equipped with the tools and resources they need to help, and that you should not neglect their training in pursuit of bigger and better things.
At Nonprofit Courses, we work to provide free and low-cost volunteer training programs to set your supporters—and your organization—up for long-term success. In case you’re still not convinced, here are three key reasons to invest in strategic volunteer training:
- Strategic volunteer training creates leaders.
- Strategic volunteer training provides context.
- Strategic volunteer training equips ambassadors.
Are you ready to learn more about the importance of volunteer training programs and the range of benefits they can bring to organizations like yours? Let’s jump in.
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Turn your grassroots campaign into social media magic with “Social Selfie”
Can “offline” grassroots canvassing become a resource to fill your digital and social media pipeline? Using the “social selfie” feature from Grassroots Unwired will allow you to get so much more out of the hard work you are putting in by turning support in the field into social media posts in a matter of minutes.
The “social selfie” feature allows you to effortlessly connect the grassroots support you are getting in the field to your campaign’s social media presence and connect and complement these two vital parts of your effort.
3 Tips to Conducting a Successful PIT Count
According to HUD Exchange, “The Point-in-Time (PIT) count is a count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons on a single night in January. HUD requires that Continuums of Care (CoCs) conduct an annual count of homeless persons who are sheltered in emergency shelter, transitional housing, and Safe Havens on a single night.”
This year we’ve partnered with 5 unique organizations to conduct their 2020 Point-in-Time counts, from which we have come up with these 3 tips for conducting a successful count:
The Evolution of the 4EventDay Mobile App
We get it! There are a ton of moving parts to managing a successful peer-to-peer fundraising event. It can quickly get overwhelming! Our goal? Make it easier on you, your volunteers and ensure your participants have the best day-of experience. We are transforming the interactions that non-profits and their participants have on the day of their events through our 4EventDay mobile app. And after every event, we continue to ask, “What can we do to make it even better?”