Designing Successful Fundraising Campaigns
Summary:
Forget cookie-cutter fundraising campaigns that feel forced. The most successful approach starts with your natural strengths and builds outward from there. This article walks you through a practical process for designing campaigns that energize rather than drain you, connect with the right supporters, and feel natural to implement because they're genuinely aligned with who you are.
What’s in it for you:
A fundraising approach that feels natural because it builds on what you already enjoy
A practical framework to design campaigns your team can execute with genuine enthusiasm
Step-by-step guidance to test ideas before investing significant resources
Strategies to match your communication style with the right supporter audiences
Helia’s Perspective
I remember reading an article in Stanford Social Innovation Review that completely changed my perspective on fundraising. It challenged the conventional wisdom that nonprofits should diversify their funding sources, presenting compelling evidence that the most successful organizations often focus intensely on a few fundraising approaches that naturally align with their mission and team strengths.
This was revolutionary to me! All those years of trying to do everything – events, grants, major donors, monthly giving, corporate partnerships – when the research suggested we'd be better off picking a couple of approaches and doing them exceptionally well.
The article confirmed what I'd been learning through experience: more isn't better when it comes to fundraising. Better is better. Focused is better. Aligned with your strengths is better.
As I've gotten older, I've become increasingly convinced that only doing things I love is the way to go – for me and for everyone around me. When I'm energized, I bring my best self to the work. When I'm forcing myself into approaches that don't fit, nobody wins.
What this Looks Like in Practice
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You already know what activities give you energy versus those that drain you. The key is to be honest about it and build your approach around those natural strengths.
At Think of Us, I made a crucial realization: I HATE HATE HATE events. Seriously. The idea of planning a gala, managing a speaker series, or coordinating a fancy benefit dinner made me want to run for the hills. But my business partner absolutely loved them. He thrived on the energy of bringing people together in a room, showcasing our work, and making those connections.
So we did what made sense – we split the work based on what brought each of us joy. He owned events completely, and I focused on the areas where I lit up: one-on-one relationships, strategic partnerships, and telling our story through writing and intimate conversations.
When I leaned into my strengths, I discovered that my favorite fundraising moments weren't formal pitch meetings but the genuine conversations where I could talk honestly about both our vision and our challenges. Those real connections repeatedly led to our most committed, aligned supporters.
Action step: List 2-3 communication or relationship-building activities where you consistently feel energized rather than drained. These might include public speaking, writing, hosting gatherings, one-on-one conversations, or creating visual content.
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The heart of effective fundraising isn't clever tactics or polished materials – it's building genuine relationships with people who believe in your mission. Who you spend time with matters enormously.
I watched Journey House do this beautifully with their community. Rather than chasing transactional donations, they focused on building deep, lasting relationships with supporters who truly understood their work. These weren't just donors – they were partners who showed up year after year, providing not just funding but advocacy, connections, and emotional support when times got tough.
The result? They've built a community of supporters who will be with them for years to come – and it feels good to everyone involved.
In our Fundraising Vision session, we explore how to map your funding community across three tiers:
Tier 1: Your true believers who are already deeply committed
Tier 2: People who know your work and show interest
Tier 3: People in your broader network who could become supporters
The key is to start with the relationships that already feel natural and energizing. For me, that meant focusing first on our Tier 1 supporters – having coffee, sharing updates, inviting their input – rather than cold calling new prospects or hosting large events.
Action step: Look at your stakeholder map and identify which audiences you genuinely enjoy spending time with. Where's the alignment between who energizes you and who could support your work?
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The most compelling campaigns aren't built around abstract concepts or statistics—they're centered on stories that showcase your unique work and perspective in ways that feel genuine to you.
At Think of Us, I had to find a way to help people understand what systems change looked like in practice. Our Away From Home campaign became a powerful story vehicle – I could share how we were reimagining the foster care system by centering young people's lived experiences in both the research and solutions. This wasn't just abstract theory; it was a concrete example of how we approached change differently.
When I think about storytelling in fundraising, I see so many different layers: organizational stories that share your origin and evolution, experiential stories about how your work unfolds on the ground, donor stories about why people choose to invest, and human stories from those directly impacted by your work. The magic happens when you find the types of stories that you love telling and that resonate with your supporters.
Action step: Identify which types of stories you genuinely enjoy sharing. Are you most comfortable talking about your organization's journey? Individual impact stories? Your theory of change? That's your storytelling sweet spot.
Secret Sauce & Takeaways
Build on your strengths: The most successful campaigns leverage what you and your team naturally do well. Don't try to force yourself into unfamiliar territory just because it works for other organizations. If writing energizes you but public speaking drains you, build a campaign around compelling written stories rather than presentations.
Focus on real relationships over transactions: The strongest fundraising comes from genuine connections with people who believe in your work. Journey House shows how building deep, authentic relationships creates a community of supporters who stay with you for the long haul.
Do less, but do it well: Rather than spreading yourself thin across multiple fundraising approaches, choose a few that align with your strengths and go deep. The SSIR research suggests this focused approach often yields better results than trying to diversify across too many channels.
Start small, then build on what works: Test your campaign ideas with trusted supporters before scaling. Our Campaign Design worksheet walks you through this iterative approach:
Test with trusted supporters first (usually from your Tier 1 group)
Gather specific feedback on what resonates and what doesn't
Refine your approach based on real responses
Scale gradually with clear metrics for success
Be honest about what you hate: If there's an approach that drains you (like events did for me!), acknowledge it and either find a teammate who loves it or choose a different direction entirely. Forcing yourself to do fundraising activities you dread rarely leads to success.
Align with your OKRs: As you develop campaigns, make sure they connect directly to your 1-Year & 90-Day Objectives. This keeps your fundraising focused on your most important goals rather than scattered across too many priorities.
Integrate into organizational rhythms: The best campaigns become part of your regular operations, not separate activities that compete for attention. Our Integration into Organizational Practices worksheet helps embed fundraising into your existing meetings and communication flows.
Questions to Ask Yourself
If you have 5 fundraising activities you can do in a week, which are the most fun AND highest leverage? Maybe just do those?
Which fundraising activities are the most draining? Are you staring at a computer dreading them? Can you stop immediately?
Who are the supporters I actually look forward to spending time with, and how could I engage them more meaningfully?
What stories about our work do I find myself most excited to share?
What's the smallest version of my campaign idea I could test in the next 30 days?
Want to Try This?
Templates & Guides:
Our Campaign Inspiration Guide offers a menu of campaign options you can customize to your strengths and capacity.
Use our Campaign Design Worksheet to map out each component of your approach.
Check out our Building a Beautiful Fundraising Plan article for the bigger picture of how campaigns fit into your overall strategy.
Recommended Reads:
Have a resource you recommend for designing fundraising campaigns? Tell us about it!
Connections:
Sometimes you need an outside perspective to design campaigns that truly match your organization's unique strengths. We've heard wonderful things about Sheikh Impact and Raise for Good for specialized fundraising support.
Have a person or organization you recommend for designing fundraising campaigns? Tell us about it!
This article comes from my own experiences designing fundraising campaigns across various organizations. I've learned the most from doing and from talking with other doers willing to share their wisdom. We share these stories in the Helia Library because we don't need to start from blank pages or do it all alone.
As always, take what's helpful, leave what's not, and make it your own.
