5 Ways to Personalize Your Digital Fundraising to Raise More

Today’s consumers expect personalized experiences from the brands they engage with. In fact, the McKinsey Next in Personalization Report found that 71% of consumers expect brands to provide personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.

And nonprofits are heeding the call—according to the 2025 M+R Benchmarks fundraising report, 52% of nonprofit professionals said they conducted audience research to better understand supporters' motivations, content preferences, and understanding of mission-related issues.

Adding a personalized, human touch to your donor communications is essential to strengthen supporter relationships and raise more. Let’s explore five tips to enhance the quality of your digital fundraising through personalization.

1. Create donor segments in your CRM. 

The key to personalized fundraising is treating supporters as individuals, not just random contacts in your donor database. You can use segmentation to organize donors into smaller groups and create tailored marketing and fundraising outreach based on their unique interests, preferences, and motivations. 

BWF’s digital fundraising guide outlines the following steps of the donor segmentation process: 

• Ensure the donor data in your CRM is updated and clean. Audit your donor database to ensure donors’ profiles include accurate names, contact information, and interaction histories. Use data appends as needed to supplement your internal data with the help of verified third-party data resources. 
• Evaluate your supporter data to identify trends and patterns. Look for key shared characteristics among donors, such as giving frequency, amount, donation type, and additional involvement (such as volunteering, advocacy, etc.). 
• Group donors based on commonalities. Organize donors into segments based on shared traits. For example, you could group donors based on giving level and create segments for minor, mid-level, and major donors. You could also divide donors based on donation recency, such as new donors, currently active donors, and lapsed donors. 
• Share relevant fundraising information with each group. Use donor segments to tailor your marketing and fundraising outreach strategy to each group’s needs. For example, new donors may appreciate a welcome email series outlining your nonprofit’s history, mission, and current priorities. On the other hand, lapsed donors may benefit from impact information regarding their previous donations to inspire them to give again. 

Evaluate your donor segmentation strategy every six months or so to assess each group’s level of engagement with your fundraising communications. Keep your database updated with new information you gather from donor surveys, form submissions, or marketing interactions. 

2. Leverage AI to anticipate donor behaviors.

Your donor data can do more than help you create effective audience segments. It can also help anticipate donors’ future actions through predictive modeling. 

Predictive modeling (also known as predictive analytics or predictive AI) is the process of training an AI modeling tool to predict donors’ next actions and future behaviors. The model will use your organization’s data to learn more about your donors and make accurate predictions that help you focus your fundraising efforts more effectively. 

Predictive analytics can support your digital fundraising strategies with tailored insights like: 

• Customized donation requests. Use information about donors’ past gift amounts to determine the right gift request size to send them. This specification helps ensure that each donor receives requests appropriate to their giving capacity and level of engagement with your cause. 
• Major giving prospect identification. Predictive modeling can support your organization’s prospect research by scanning your database for major donor indicators, such as high levels of wealth and a strong affinity for your cause. You can use your AI solutions to prioritize donors based on their likelihood of giving, ensuring you direct more time and attention to your strongest prospects. 
• Communication channel, frequency, and topic preferences. With the help of a predictive modeling solution or consultant, you can determine each donor’s communication preferences regarding the channels they like to use, how often they want to hear from your organization, and what types of fundraising stories resonate with them. 

Maintain donor trust by being transparent about your use of AI for fundraising. Explain how your predictive modeling solutions allow your organization to fundraise more productively to support your mission. You should also provide a privacy and data use policy on your website and allow donors to opt out from having their data used to support fundraising campaigns. 

3. Personalize your marketing outreach.

In addition to sending personalized content to specific donor groups, you can make simple adjustments to your marketing outreach that create a more customized experience for each donor. 

Use these strategies to make donors feel seen and recognized as individuals: 

• Personalize messages with donors’ names and references to past interactions. Use automation software to add donors’ preferred names to all communications, such as emails, letters, and texts. Also, make specific references to donors’ previous engagements with your organization. For example, you could reach out to a lapsed donor to your healthcare nonprofit with a message saying, “We wanted to update you on the wide-reaching impact of your previous donation. Your $1,000 gift allowed us to purchase three new learning tablets for the children’s wing at the local hospital.” 
• Use dynamic online content. Dynamic content is personalized website content based on users’ past browsing habits. For example, let’s say a user visits your website and spends a lot of time on your volunteer program information page. On their next website visit, you could serve them a dynamic call to action button inviting them to volunteer their own time or donate to support your efforts. 

We would be remiss if we didn’t issue a gentle warning to not overpersonalize your digital content. A Gartner survey found that 38% of consumers will stop doing business with a company if they find personalization efforts too “creepy.” Use personalization sparingly throughout your web content to meet audience needs without making them feel spied on. 

4. Plan fundraising campaigns and events for different donor segments.

Through your predictive analytics and audience research, you’ll likely discover that different types of supporters are drawn to different fundraising initiatives. What works best for one group might not work for another, so offer a variety of fundraising campaigns and events to meet various donor needs. A few ideas include: 

• Peer-to-peer campaigns: These fundraisers are well-suited for supporters with an active social media presence and broad personal networks of family and friends. They’re also tailored to supporters who want to take a more active, independent fundraising role. 
• Galas and auctions: These events work well for engaging mid-level and major donors who often have the giving capacity necessary to make a big impact. 
• Crowdfunding efforts: Smaller and less frequent donors are often drawn to crowdfunding campaigns. These fundraisers are easy to contribute to from any device, and donors can have an impact by facilitating fast, tangible results. 
• Matching gift drive: These initiatives are highly effective if many of your donors work for companies that offer matching gifts for employee donations. Use a matching gift database to help donors research their eligibility and complete necessary forms. 

By offering a variety of campaigns and events tailored to different donor preferences, you create more entry points for engagement and deepen your supporter relationships. Analyze past participation trends or survey your donor base to understand their interests. Then, design your event calendar with those insights in mind to maximize turnout and fundraising potential.

5. Ask for and incorporate donor feedback.

If you’re not completely satisfied with your initial data research, go back to basics by asking donors about their interests, preferences, and motivations through feedback surveys. Your surveys might include different types of questions, such as: 

• Personal questions about donors’ interests and giving motivations
  • What drew you to our organization?
  • What other philanthropic causes have you supported in the past?
  • What are your preferred methods of showing support for nonprofits? (donating, volunteering, advocating, etc.)
• Feedback questions about the giving process
  • Please rate the ease of use of our online donation process.
  • What is your preferred giving method? (credit card, cash, check, ACH payment, digital wallet, etc.)
• Inquiries about communication preferences
  • What is your preferred communication method? (email, social media, phone, direct mail, etc.)
  • How often would you like to receive updates from our nonprofit?

Send tailored surveys with questions relevant to different donor groups, such as major donors, new donors, or donors who also volunteer. This will allow you to better understand the unique preferences of each primary donor segment. 

Final Thoughts

As you can see, personalizing your digital fundraising efforts doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Spending the time necessary to build donor segments, investigate donors’ preferences, and tailor your outreach to their needs will pay off in the long run when you can create genuine relationships with them. 

Choose one strategy to focus on first, whether segmenting your donors to personalize interactions or creating a donor survey to gather feedback. Then, pay attention to how your donors respond and make adjustments to refine your approach.

Allison Gannon, Head of Revenue Operations at BWF

With over eight years of experience, Allison engages with current and prospective clients to identify the best solution to achieve their goals, partners with the BWF team to ensure they are successful in all their endeavors, and coordinates with industry partners to develop the best services for our clients and the sector. With innovative vision and passion, Allison leads a team focused on client experience, marketing, business development, and strategic partnerships.