3 Tools to Empower Your Fundraising Messengers

We all have an incredible fundraising resource right in front of us: our Board member, colleague, and loyal volunteer ambassadors.  These people have the potential to be eager and effective fundraisers. Our job during this busy season is to give them the tools and support they need to succeed!

Use your donor management software to identify supporters and volunteers most likely to jump on board as ambassadors.

The first step is developing a team of fundraising messengers that will help spur #GivingTuesday and year-end giving. Here’s how to ask for participation, train support, and thank your messengers.

The next step is empowering your ambassadors to succeed. Their reach, engagement, and donation impact is directly related to saying the right thing at the right time. The trick is it can’t be a script, repeated from everyone to everyone. That’s just not genuine or relevant. Their messages must be tailored to reach and resonate among their networks.

That’s why I am encouraging using these three tools to empower your messengers. They’ll ensure your team’s comfort and confidence, which means they’re more likely to talk with more donors and prospects. These tools also increase the odds prospects hear the kind of consistent, yet personal, messages that spur engagement and giving!

1) Ready-to-use email signatures: This tool is both powerful and easy to implement. Imagine the reach you’ll get if your ambassadors end their emails with something like this:

2) Graphic badges: Badges are a great way to build emotional connection through images. Plus, they are easy  for ambassadors to cut-and-paste into your their emails, tweets, and Facebook posts.  Who can resist a face like this?

Or a funny photo like this one?

 

3) Cut-and-paste email templates. Your ambassadors are busy people. Templates like this one for teacher fundraisers from DonorsChoose.org make it easier for ambassadors to reach out to more people in less time.

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You can also share these fill-in-the-blanks tweets and Facebook posts in Canine Partners for Life’s Social Media Toolkit for #GivingTuesday.

Before you develop the templates, don’t forget to ask your ambassadors which ones they will use most frequently.

Your team of fundraising messengers has so much potential! Start training your ambassadors ASAP for #GivingTuesday and year-end giving. Then, give them these three tools so they generate the greatest amount of support possible. I can’t wait to hear how it goes!

 

P.S. For more tips on #GivingTuesday and year-end success, download Network for Good’s newest eGuide.