{"id":54953,"date":"2025-06-04T13:50:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T17:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.canadahelps.org\/?p=54953"},"modified":"2025-09-29T23:16:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T03:16:55","slug":"diversifying-your-fundraising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadahelps.org\/en\/charity-life\/diversifying-your-fundraising\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversifying Your Fundraising in Uncertain Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent years, there have been a lot of \u201cunprecedented\u201d events; from the pandemic, to postal strikes, and even whispers of recession. This climate of uncertainty has challenged the charity sector to make multiple pivots, often at very short notice. While there\u2019s no way to predict what happens next, there are ways charities can prepare for uncertain times so the next time we are asked to pivot, we can rise to the challenge in stride.<\/p>\n

One way to do this is through diversifying your fundraising. Instead of focusing all-in on one or two channels, ensuring your fundraising mix provides would-be donors with multiple ways to give or engage provides more predictable funding, minimizes issues if a funding source, like a government grant falls through, and future-proofs your charity against changing giving trends.<\/p>\n

This blog discusses some of the many ways you can diversify your fundraising and donor engagement to future-proof your organization and is filled with statistics, examples and tools you can leverage to diversify your fundraising.<\/p>\n

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Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
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1. Online-Offline Fundraising Mix<\/a><\/h5>\n
2. Cultivating Your Monthly Donors List<\/a><\/h5>\n
3. Building Your Planned Giving Program<\/a><\/h5>\n
4. Make Your Tribute\/In Honour Of Giving Prominent<\/a><\/h5>\n
5. Aim High with Donations of Securities<\/a><\/h5>\n
6. Run a P2P<\/a><\/h5>\n
7. Encourage Third Party Fundraising<\/a><\/h5>\n
8. Bonus: Think outside the box! – Donate your vehicle<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n

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1. Online-Offline Fundraising Mix<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

The first place to look in diversifying your fundraising efforts is your overall online and offline fundraising mix<\/strong>. While the importance of each will vary depending on the nature of your charity, there will always be certain demographics that are more comfortable with providing cash and cheque donations, either in-person or mailed in and others who will find the convenience of online donation easier and don\u2019t have cash or cheque books to hand. Looking to the past, we can see that online fundraising has typically grown in times of crises with its most rapid growth during 2020; during that time, online giving close to\u00a0doubled from 563,000 to roughly 1.1 million donors giving $412 million.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Offline Fundraising e.g. in-person, cash, cheque, credit card, events, P2P<\/th>\nOnline Fundraising e.g. customizable donation forms, monthly, securities, crypto<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Primarily local, relying on face-to-face or mail in donations\u2014can be particularly important for charities with a strong community presence.<\/td>\nNot limited by physical networks. Can reach a wide audience easily – can be great for national causes e.g. environmental programs<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Traditional, more popular with older donors<\/td>\nIncreases in times of crises<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Can have stronger retention due to the in-person interaction.<\/td>\nA greater variety of types of online fundraising<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Potentially limited growth<\/td>\nShows steady growth though we see more increases in donation size than explosive growth in donor numbers.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hard to track and report in real time but purpose-built software can make aspects easier to manage<\/td>\nIt can be easier with platforms that manage donation processing like CanadaHelps<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

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One is not necessarily better than the other; by providing channels for both online and offline donation, you can be prepared when things like postal strikes happen and quickly communicate and encourage donors to use a different method if something prevents them from donating using their preferred method.<\/p>\n

For online donations:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can create a customizable donation form<\/a> and embed it directly onto your website, as well as share it as a link, from your social media, email signature, and wherever else it makes sense. CanadaHelps is Canada’s largest online giving platform,<\/strong> and since 2000, we have been used by over 5 million Canadians to give over $3 billion dollars. Our online donation forms take care of the tax receipting automatically and disburse the donation to your charity promptly. Our solution still gives you control over the donation experience and data – you can check out donation records and thank your donors by logging into your CanadaHelps Charity Account.<\/a><\/p>\n

For offline donations:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Ensure you have a process to keep track of gifts so you are still able to provide a tax receipt when appropriate and thank the donor for their contribution. It can be hard to get all the information when you receive both cash and cheque at irregular cadences. Upgrade from a spreadsheet and use a purpose-built system like CanadaHelps Ensemble<\/strong><\/a>. Whether you process tax receipts for offline donations when you get them, or once a month, a system can help you organize their donation details and issue a CRA-compliant tax receipt at the click of a button.<\/p>\n

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