Using Your Nonprofit Blog to Support Fundraising: 5 Tips

Your nonprofit’s blog plays many roles — marketing device, awareness tool, and educational resource are just a few. Did you know that your blog can also be a crucial fundraising tool to drive revenue for your nonprofit’s campaigns?

According to Kanopi’s roundup of top nonprofit websites, the best sites are updated with campaign information and offer supporters plenty of ways to get involved in fundraising, whether as a donor or a fundraiser. By using your blog to support your fundraising campaigns, you’ll take advantage of every opportunity to bring awareness to your critical revenue-driving activities. 

In this guide, we’ll review five tips to turn your blog into a better fundraising resource: 

1. Demonstrate donor impact. 
2. Highlight the benefits of getting involved. 
3. Share educational content. 
4. Promote transparency.
5. Express supporter appreciation. 

Improving your blog to become a more effective fundraising tool starts with reviewing your data. How much traffic does your blog currently have? How many donation conversions can you attribute to your posts? Use your data to establish a baseline and continue monitoring your blog metrics as you adjust your content to better highlight fundraising opportunities. 

1. Demonstrate donor impact. 

Your fundraising campaigns require donor support to succeed. That means your blog posts should be donor-centric and appeal to donors’ motivations and interests.

Use your blog posts to highlight donors’ impact and what their gifts were able to achieve. For example, recap your year-end giving campaign by letting donors know how many endangered animals they helped save. Or, explain how donors’ support for a recent giving day allowed your nonprofit to accept 50 new students to your afterschool enrichment program. 

Bring these impact recaps to life by including the following elements in your posts: 

• Beneficiary stories. Interview those who have been positively impacted by donors’ support. Include audio clips, videos, images, and direct quotes in your blog posts to create an emotional connection. 
• Charts and graphs. Showcase data trends, such as increases in how many people you’ve been able to help, using visualizations like infographics and charts. This helps put donors’ support into context, allowing them to see how their individual gifts add up to a major impact. Kwala’s nonprofit branding guide recommends keeping all of your infographics and visuals uniformly branded to promote cohesion and make your brand more identifiable. 
• Timelines. A timeline is another helpful visual tool to show donors how their support has helped your nonprofit grow over the years. Include significant milestones, such as when you first reached $1 million in donations and how that helped propel your mission forward. 

When current and prospective donors see the difference that donations make for those in need, they’ll be more compelled to give in the future to help reach your goals. 

2. Highlight the benefits of getting involved. 

When donors get involved in your fundraising efforts, they don’t just bring benefits to your nonprofit. They can also experience the advantages that come with being part of a group that’s working to improve the world. 

Create blog posts that highlight the benefits of getting involved as a donor or peer-to-peer fundraiser, such as: 

• Being part of a community. When someone supports your organization’s fundraising efforts, they join a community of like-minded people all working together to further your mission. Make donors feel a part of this group by using your blog to showcase donor meetups, social events, networking opportunities, and stories about supporters forging personal connections through a shared love of your mission. 
• Having the opportunity to participate in multiple ways. Show donors that there’s more to being part of your nonprofit than just giving. Highlight volunteer opportunities, annual events like your gala or silent auction, or opportunities to advocate for your cause. 
• Receiving tangible perks. Create donors-only blog content that offers tangible perks, such as free downloadable coupons or deals for local businesses. Send donors an email with a special code to unlock your donors-only blog deals. 

Becoming a donor or peer-to-peer fundraiser should be celebrated at your nonprofit. By welcoming new supporters with opportunities to participate in activities that appeal to them, you can increase the likelihood that donors will stick around for the long haul. 

3. Share educational content. 

An essential part of increasing support for your nonprofit is educating the public about what your mission involves and why it matters. 

Your nonprofit’s blog is the perfect resource to share educational content such as: 

• Background information audience members should know about your cause.
• The history of your organization and its mission
• Current news updates or research in your field

Educational, well-organized blog content also has the potential to perform well for SEO. When your content is SEO-optimized, you can drive more traffic to your blog from organic search, increasing visibility for your fundraising efforts. 

To improve your SEO rankings, ensure your educational content uses a readable format, with hierarchical headings and bulleted lists. Include links to authoritative resources or research that your organization has conducted to add value and credibility to your content. 

4. Promote transparency.

Donors seek transparency and accountability from the nonprofits they support. In return, nonprofits with a high level of transparency tend to be rewarded with higher donations. In fact, researchers found that nonprofits with the GuideStar Seal of Transparency earned 53% more in contributions than those without the Seal. 

Ensure your nonprofit’s blog reflects your efforts to provide greater transparency for stakeholders like your donors, grant funders, and corporate sponsors. Offer transparency indicators such as: 

• An annual report breakdown. If you publish your annual report as a lengthy PDF, it can be helpful to highlight the most important insights in a blog post that supporters can skim more easily. Pull out top metrics such as the number of people your nonprofit was able to help or how much you raised throughout the year. Be sure to also highlight your expense breakdown so supporters understand how you allocated funding. 
• Recent accreditations. Share when your nonprofit receives a new or updated accreditation, such as the GuideStar Seal of Transparency or a high Charity Navigator rating.
• Recent challenges your organization is facing. It can come off as disingenuous if your nonprofit overemphasizes its wins without addressing its challenges. Your blog is a useful outlet to discuss current challenges, exploring why these challenges exist and the steps your nonprofit is taking to address them. This gives supporters greater confidence that your nonprofit is always seeking to improve. 

If you’re looking for more ideas to showcase your transparency efforts across your blog and website, meet with a nonprofit web design professional for support. These professionals can figure out the best ways to showcase your transparency credentials on high-traffic pages so that your stakeholders see your efforts to remain accountable. 

5. Express supporter appreciation.

Recognizing donors through appreciation efforts goes a long way toward retaining their support. In addition to your appreciation emails, phone calls, and direct mail messages, your blog can be another helpful channel to foster donor appreciation. 

Express supporter gratitude by including these elements in your blog content: 

• Donor spotlights. Interview long-time donors to learn more about why they’re committed to your organization and what your mission means to them. 
• Virtual donor wall. After a fundraising campaign or event concludes, create a virtual donor wall on your blog by listing all of the names of donors who contributed. 
• Appreciation videos. Invite beneficiaries, staff members, board members, and volunteers to take quick selfie videos expressing gratitude for your donors. Compile the clips into an appreciation video for your blog. 
• Calls for feedback. Create a blog post to share a link to an online feedback survey. Ask questions about donors’ motivations, satisfaction levels, and any suggestions they have to help improve your organization. 

Donor appreciation is a self-sustaining cycle — when donors know that their efforts are appreciated, they’ll feel more positively about your nonprofit, encouraging them to continue giving. 

Keep in mind that your blog’s content management system (CMS) should be easy for all staff members to use, even those with less experience. This ensures that all team members can make updates as needed to continue promoting fundraising through your blog.

If you’re looking for a new CMS with a user-friendly administrative system, consider switching to a top platform like WordPress. WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS and is often considered the best platform for blogging. 

With a flexible CMS on your side and the help of these tips, you can transform your blog into a powerful resource for fundraising support.