Immunize Kansas Coalition Tips and Lessons Learned from Holiday Online Fundraising Campaign

January 7, 2022

In late November, Immunize Kansas Coalition (IKC) created their first online fundraising campaign for Giving Tuesday 2021. Utilizing the Giving Tuesday Guide for Nonprofits and guidance for fundraising communications from Nye & Associates, an achievable goal of $500 was set for the campaign and the messaging theme “Protect those you love this giving season” combined the coalition’s mission with a key motivation for supporters.

To share their lessons learned, IKC has put together their top three tips for promoting and creating a successful online fundraising campaign as a nonprofit. Whether you’re wanting to start a Giving Tuesday campaign or fundraise throughout the year, this guide is for you.

1. Set up multiple online donation channels. To better optimize their audience, IKC used a variety of outlets like Facebook Fundraising, PayPal, and Venmo.
   • Quick tip: Amazon Smile is a year around tool for an additional fundraising stream
2. Create an online merchandise store. This is a super fun way to promote fundraisers and for supporters to rep your organization in style! A variety of items were added in our store like mugs, sweatshirts, t-shirts, and tote bags with the IKC logo. Additional shirt colors and designs were added to optimize design printing and visibility and give supporters several options to fit their style.
   • Quick tip: When creating products make sure to optimize your profit margins, this helps you gain a profit that benefits your work. Bonfire is a great starting place for any organization, it’s easy to use and has a no-fees structure. Check out the IKC store.
3. Encourage participation through emails and social media. Sharing your campaign throughout all of your platforms helps to bring attention to your biggest supporters. We used our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to share about the campaign and also added a pop-up when visitors entered the IKC website that encouraged donating for Giving Tuesday and displayed direct buttons to donate via Facebook and Paypal. Reminder emails were sent throughout the campaign as well to reach our most engaged supporters directly.
   • Quick tip #1: Create graphics with colors that pop and or work well with your logo throughout your entire campaign.
   • Quick tip #2: Use Facebook and Instagram Ads to enhance your posts performance and gain more traction.

The total funds raised went just over $1,150, with about $650 in individual donations and purchase profits and an additional $500 goal match from UnitedHealthcare. We are so thankful for the generosity from individual supporters and UnitedHealthcare to support the work of IKC. Together, we will protect Kansans from vaccine-preventable diseases. We at IKC hope our lessons learned and quick tips help you with future online fundraising.