How to promote your fundraiser

Even the most compelling campaign needs visibility to reach its full potential. By actively promoting your fundraiser, you expand your reach, connect with new supporters, and inspire existing ones to take action.

Effective promotion doesn’t just increase donations, it builds awareness for your cause, strengthens community engagement, and creates a ripple effect as donors share your fundraiser with others. Without a strong promotional effort, even a great fundraiser can struggle to gain the momentum it needs to succeed.

Link from your website

Create a menu item, usually connected to your ‘Donate’ or ‘Support us’ menu. For maximum impact, also add a section to your website homepage highlighting the opportunity to donate via GiveMatch - with a call to action to find out more. Link to a new landing page with a brief introduction of your partnership with GiveMatch and tell your supporters how they can get involved.

For example:

We’ve partnered with GiveMatch to make each of your generous donations go even further! To double your impact today, all you need to do is:

1) Donate to our fundraiser

2) Share your unique referral link

3) Ensure two or more friends donate to your unique referral link

4) GiveMatch will double your original donation!

Your friends will also get unique links to spread the word and increase the impact of their own donation - and so it continues. This creates a ripple effect of giving; the more donations we can double, the bigger the impact we can have together!

Don't forget to use our ready made web banner, too - see our Assets library for downloads.

Here's a couple of examples showing banners in situ:

Email promotion

Emails are a powerful and cost effective way to drive donations. Remember that people want to engage with you, otherwise they wouldn’t have signed up to receive your communications. However, there is a short window to grab your reader’s attention so keep it to the point with a clear call to action.

On that note - there should only be one call to action per email: one email, one ask! Supporters are more likely to do nothing if there is more to one CTA in an email (or anywhere else). If an ask doesn’t stand on its own, don’t send the email. If it does, send a separate email.

Segmenting your donors and personalising your communication based on how people have interacted with you is key - even if, to start with, you can segment one off donors, regular donors + those that are yet to donate.

To help get your fundraiser promotion started via email, check out our suggested email templates here.

Social media promotion

Making a donation to charity is not a task or chore that’s done in work hours: it’s done on personal devices, in personal time. The opportunity to engage is when your prospective donor is casually browsing online. Therefore, charities with target audiences that spend time on social media must connect with potential supporters and meet them where they are.

Tap into your community by sharing your GiveMatch fundraiser on social media. 84% of donors say they’re more likely to donate if their donation could be doubled and through the encouragement of sharing, you will also broaden your reach to new donors.

To help get your fundraiser promotion started via social media, check out our suggested social media templates here.

WhatsApp

People spend an average of 5-6 hours per day on their phones - connecting with them where they are will make it easier for them to contribute to your fundraiser.

• WhatsApp is one of the most widely used messaging apps in the world, with 2.78 billion users and 100 billion messages sent daily.
• It has a 98% open rate and 90% read rate within 3 seconds.
• Users spend on average 38 minutes per day on WhatsApp.
• It’s easy to use and provides a direct link to your community of supporters.

Check out our article on how to use WhatsApp as part of your fundraiser promotion here.

Using AI to support your messaging creation

If you use specific prompts to guide ChatGPT, Microsoft Co-Pilot, Gemini, Claude (or your favoured tool), it can save you a lot of time creating messaging for your campaign. Here's how you can prompt AI to support your messaging creation.

1) Give the context of your charity, it's mission and fundraising goal:

I am running a fundraising campaign for The London Food Hub, a non-profit organisation that operates a community kitchen in London. Our mission is to provide nutritious meals to those in need, fostering a sense of belonging and hope within our community. We believe that access to healthy food is a fundamental human right, and that everyone deserves to live with dignity and without the constant worry of hunger. The goal is to raise £15,000 to expand our services and serve 500 meals per week to individuals and families experiencing food insecurity.

2) Ask for responses in a specific tone that aligns with your brand voice:

Please craft the responses in approachable and easy to understand language.

3) Once you've shared the context, create specific asks depending on what kind of content you'd like to create:

• Can you help me craft a compelling mission statement that highlights the impact of our work on the community?
• Compose a short, impactful tagline for the campaign that will resonate with potential donors.
• Suggest 3-5 potential email subject lines for fundraising appeals that are concise and attention-grabbing.

Further asks may include:

• Please generate 3-5 unique and engaging social media hashtags for the campaign.
• Please create a ‘save the date’ Instagram post.
• Please create a ‘save the date’ email for my mailing list.
• Please advise me on how to create a TikTok video to launch the campaign.
• Create a short, personalised thank-you message for donors that expresses sincere gratitude and highlights the impact of their contribution.

4) Ask it to rephrase if you would like the tone amended, or something added/removed:

For example:

• Make post 2 shorter for Instgram
• Make post 3 a bit friendlier and include our mission statement [….]

5) Here's some key considerations for you:

• The more information you give, the more relevant and helpful the output will be.
• Try rephrasing your prompt to explore different creative angles.
• AI is a tool, not a replacement for human creativity. Review the generated output and refine it to match your organisation's unique voice and style - let the tool know the tone and type of language you prefer.

By using AI in this way, you can leverage its capabilities to:

• Overcome creative blocks and explore a wider range of messaging options.
• Quickly generate a variety of content options, saving you time and effort.
• Create more impactful and engaging content that resonates with your target audience.

If you have any questions, just let us know via customer.success@givetree.com - next, check out our email templates, social media templates and WhatsApp templates to get you started.