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Getting Personal: 5 ways to customize your fundraising efforts

Fundraising is the lifeblood of any organization, and with NationBuilder's powerful tools, you can discover strategies to customize your online fundraising approach and maximize donations.

November 15, 2023
6 min read

In the dynamic world of fundraising, personalization is crucial for engaging supporters and reaching fundraising milestones. At NationBuilder, we recognize the significance of tailoring your approach to align with the distinct interests and actions of your audience. 

Whether you you lean towards visual insights in our webinar above or prefer diving into expert tips through reading, we have you covered with five impactful strategies and a robust fundraising platform. Unlock the full potential of NationBuilder tools to customize your fundraising efforts to raise funds: 

1. Understand Your Supporters: Consolidate and Conquer

We understand that your supporter community is the lifeblood of your mission. Without an active, committed community in your corner, advancing your initiatives would be impossible. NationBuilder helps you build meaningful, sustainable relationships with your supporter base to grow your effective reach, move people to action, and create more leaders.

With the tools in your hands, you can centralize all your donor base’s data—from major donor contributions to fundraising events to social media engagement—into one cohesive hub. By delving into a deeper understanding of your supporters you can craft meaningful initiatives based on their interests and actions. 


NationBuilder filters provide a powerful toolkit for understanding your donor base by labeling and consolidating data, creating meaningful segments, offering financial insights, and enabling precise targeting. This data-driven approach enhances your ability to engage effectively with your supporter community and drive the success of your donor relationships.

Pro tip: Use the Finance section filters for specific transaction data, and find additional insights in the Dashboard > Annual Report.

2. Build Sustainable Support with a Recurring Donor Program

Maximize your fundraising efforts by focusing on recruiting recurring donors. When defining benefits to encourage recurring donations, it's essential to create incentives for your supporters. NationBuilder allows you to tailor exclusive benefits that make donors feel appreciated and connected to your cause.

Recurring Donor Program Checklist: 

  • Encourage donor retention with exclusive benefits, moving beyond financial perks. Offer experiential, physical, or digital opportunities like in-person event access, acknowledgments, webinars, newsletters, aligning with your mission
  • Utilize NationBuilder's supporter portal for transparent updates to donation forms and build trust by allowing donors to manage their information.
  • Craft a donation page or pop-ups with tracking, auto-response, and tagging features, employing tracking codes in the Finance section for goal-setting and performance analysis.
  • Implement an auto-response email expressing gratitude and reinforcing the impact of the donor's contribution and retention. Set up a personalized email outreach workflow using NationBuilder's Automations, including smart fields for a customized touch.
  • Automatically categorize donors using tags based on their interactions, creating a historical reference and aiding future communication strategies.
  • Create a dedicated post-donation landing page to emphasize impact by sharing success stories and stewardship for additional calls to action

Pro tip: Before launching your recurring online donation program, thoroughly test the user experience. Ensure that the page is user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and functions seamlessly across devices.

3. Create a Peer-to-Peer Strategy: Mobilize Your Supporters

No matter how advanced your stewardship or donor acquisition efforts may be, there’s a chance you’re missing out on an entire group of potential fundraisers for your cause: your existing supporters. 

92% of Americans trust friend referrals over any other form of marketing. Peer-to-peer fundraising ideas turns the tables on traditional fundraising ‘asks’ and puts your donor base in the position to tell your story on your behalf to their pool of new supporters and potential donors.

Level up your approach to crowdfunding fundraising strategies with NationBuilder’s tools. You can create a peer-to-peer campaign that empowers your top advocates and reaches audiences you may never have encountered through your existing channels with powerful tools like personal fundraising pages and leaderboard templates introducing gamification.

Pro tip: Explore our insightful webinar on peer-to-peer fundraising to unleash the potential of your supporter data. Learn how to harness NationBuilder's tracking capabilities to identify and mobilize key supporters, gaining valuable insights into donation patterns, social media impact, and past contributions during Giving Tuesday.

4. Tailor Your Approach: Segment Your Asks Using Liquid

The secret sauce to fundraising campaigns equip you to tailor your approach and precisely target your audience through the innovative use of Liquid within NationBuilder. With this dynamic tool, you can segment your ask based on individual preferences and engagement history, allowing for personalized calls to action. 

Customize your calls to action based on various factors, such as donation amount, online donations or in-person donations, new donor or major donor actions, donation recurrence, or specific fundraising outreach requests, all seamlessly integrated into your CRM. By incorporating Liquid into your strategy and leveraging CRM capabilities, NationBuilder ensures a customized approach in your communication strategies, fostering deeper connections with your supporters and maximizing the impact of your fundraising campaigns.

Pro tip: Dive into our comprehensive visual series for an in-depth exploration of leveraging Liquid into your fundraising events, guided by the expertise of the NationBuilder team.

5. Show Gratitude Year-Round: Cultivate Connection

Your supporters are the heartbeat of your organization, the driving force behind its success and the key to its future. Expressing gratitude to tens, hundreds, or thousands of supporters might seem like a daunting task, but the solution is elegantly simple—effective supporter data management that enhances donor experience.

With an integrated database, you gain the precision to thank each supporter genuinely and specifically. Smart fields elevate this process, enabling you to effortlessly incorporate personalized information into your emails within seconds.

Refugee Council of Australia triples fundraising through the power of story and food

Establish a thank-you template and series with personalized wait times using NationBuilder Automations. This involves creating a sequence of automated emails or messages that are triggered based on specific actions or time intervals. By customizing the wait times between these messages, you can ensure that your donor base receives a thoughtfully spaced series of appreciation, enhancing the impact of your gratitude gestures and donor relationships. Whether acknowledging donations, volunteer efforts, or other contributions, this automated approach allows you to express thanks in a strategic and timely manner.

Pro tip: Express gratitude that goes beyond email. Get creative with your thanks—consider handwritten notes, personal acknowledgments, incentives like a special raffle or social media shoutouts.

Your journey to mastering fundraising begins by understanding your supporters, embracing recurring donor programs, implementing peer-to-peer strategies, segmenting your asks, and showing gratitude year-round. You're not just fundraising – you're building a community.

Now that you’re a fundraising professional, you’re ready to elevate your fundraising goals. Dive into the power of NationBuilder and watch your donations soar. Not plugged in yet? Join a live demo with the NationBuilder team to explore additional ways your organization can leverage the power of customization for enhanced fundraising efforts.


Annette Hauswirth

Annette Hauswirth

Customer Success Training and Enablement Manager

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