Top Fundraising Trends of 2024 to Watch For

Is your nonprofit organization planning to implement new initiatives in 2024 that help drive more donations through your WordPress site?

To support your mission, it’s important to stay on top of the latest fundraising trends, strategies, and techniques.

In this article, we’ll share our predictions for the fundraising space and what you’ll need to do to prosper in the new year and beyond.

1. New Technology

Nonprofits will need to adapt to new technology in 2024 to be successful. With so many online fundraising platforms and tools available, it will be more important than ever for organizations to identify the right solution to meet their specific goals.

If you’re like most nonprofits, you’ve already created a WordPress site to expand your reach, grow your donor base, and accept donations. Luckily, nonprofits no longer need to hire a developer or spend a lot of time and resources to build a powerful site. There are several plugins and tools available that you can use to expand the functionality of your site without having to learn coding skills.

To help you decide on the best fundraising solution, you can check out our detailed guide on the best fundraising and donation plugins for WordPress.

It may surprise you to learn that you can create impactful email marketing campaigns, targeted popups, and even perform analytics straight from your WordPress dashboard without having to write a single line of code with the help of plugins.

When it comes to accepting donations, WP Simple Pay is the easiest and quickest way to collect donation payments. The #1 Stripe payments plugin is standalone, meaning you can use it to collect donations without having to set up a shopping cart. All you have to do is install the plugin on your WordPress site and create a donation form using one of its pre-built templates.

One of the best parts about WP Simple Pay is that it allows you to easily integrate your donation forms with your current WordPress site even if it’s been built using some of the most popular page builder plugins, including Divi and Elementor.

The plugin also offers built-in automation functionality that allows you to accomplish tasks related to your donation forms without having to do it manually, saving you time and streamlining a lot of your marketing and communication tasks. For example, you can have new donors automatically added to your email list as soon as they complete their donation.

You can also use the plugin to send your donors personalized donation confirmation emails and create recent donation notification posts on your Facebook Page.

2. Expect Younger Generations to Give

Countless nonprofits experienced revenue declines in 2020 due to fewer events, service fees, and ticket sales, but remarkably, donations increased to compensate.

From small-scale donations to major contributions, 2020 saw a surge across all giving levels.

With all of that being said, as we begin 2024, nonprofits are expected to see a lower amount of donations and fundraising dollars due to high interest rates.

To combat this, you’ll need to ensure that you’re reaching out to younger generations with more disposable income and who also have a deep passion for your cause. You can research to discover any gaps or obstacles that exist between your cause and this specific group of people.

One way you can find out more about your supporters is to reach out to your lapsed donors. Not only should you create targeted campaigns to bring them back to your cause, but you should also start collecting additional information during the donation process to help you learn more about what it is that is driving them to support your organization in the first place.

With WP Simple Pay, you can easily customize your donation forms with dropdowns, checkboxes, and text fields, to gain insight, and then use it to make adjustments to your marketing campaigns.

3. Trust is Key

With continued polarization and economic uncertainty, most people are concerned with protecting their data and their money more so than ever before. Fortunately, as trust in large corporations has taken a hit, nonprofits are still viewed as trustworthy.

You’ll need to ensure that you’re taking all the steps necessary to make your donors feel safe giving you their money.

You can add trust badges, seals, and testimonials to your site to make your visitors feel comfortable about your mission. Additionally, you should nurture a community around your cause and grow your following on social media by posting regular updates and information about how you’re using donated funds.

People will also be more motivated to give to your organization if they see that others are. A great way to be transparent with your potential donors is to display recent donation notifications on your site, as well as on your Facebook Page. You can easily do this using WP Simple Pay and its built-in automation that allows you to integrate your donation forms with several tools and apps.

4. Donor-Advised Funds

Donor-advised funds are unique financial tools that are becoming more popular every year. They don’t make up a large percentage of total giving, but their tax incentives are drawing the attention of regular donors.

A donor-advised fund is when a person creates a “personal charitable savings account.” They deposit their contributions of cash, stock, or other assets into the account, but don’t choose a specific recipient right away. Donors get the tax benefit of donating right away, but the money can grow in the account until they choose a charity.

Donor-advised funds offer several benefits:

• Donors can begin contributing before they know who they want to fund.
• The money grows on its own, which means higher contributions for charities.
• Financial firms like these funds, so they tend to push clients toward them.
• Some of the most generous donors have these kinds of funds, and they are some of the best prospects.

5. Artificial Intelligence

It seems that AI is invading just about everything, including nonprofits. More specifically, organizations are using AI to better communicate with supporters and make their campaigns smarter and more efficient.

With all of that being said, you’ll want to make sure that your nonprofit is still maintaining authenticity. You can optimize your site’s pages and content with smart SEO, as well as share stories and experiences to make your visitors feel more connected to your organization and its mission.

Here are just a few examples of AI use cases:

• Intelligent: suggested donation amounts. Instead of offering fixed donation amounts, AI can predict what a donor is most likely to donate based on demographic information, geography, and donor history.
• Data cleansing: Instead of manually sorting thousands of entries, AI can cleanse donor lists of cold leads. This allows you to spend more time on the leads that matter.
• Automated donor interaction: AI-powered chatbots can interact with potential donors to answer their questions and point them toward the right information.

Those aren’t the only uses for AI, of course. It’s a valuable tool that helps countless nonprofits and other organizations with backend processes like recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and management.

6. Diversifying Income Sources

It’s no surprise that most donors are 50 years or older, as this demographic tends to have more expendable income to devote to causes that they care about.

Statistically, these donors in particular tend to pay by check or cash, but all age groups actually prefer check or cash when it comes to large gifts. Why? To avoid high processing fees.

However, that’s slowly changing because there are more ways to pay these days. Third-party platforms like Stripe and PayPal are on the rise due to their ease-of-use and widespread availability, while traditional debit and credit card transactions are down.

What’s causing this change?

For starters, younger donors are playing a bigger role across the giving landscape. In fact, Generation Z is far more generous with their donations than any previous generation.

For another, we’re a far more tech-savvy society than ever before, opting for payment methods that suit our lifestyles, needs, and preferences.

WP Simple Pay offers multiple payment method options, including Cash App Pay, Apple Pay / Google Pay / Microsoft Pay, GrabPay, in addition to ACH Direct Debit, and Bacs Direct Debit.

7. Giving Tuesdays

Giving Tuesday, often used on social media with the hashtag #GivingTuesday, is a day of global generosity where people and organizations are encouraged to improve their communities through philanthropy.

It began in 2011 as a way to influence more people to donate to charity after finishing their Cyber Monday shopping. Of course, Giving Tuesday has evolved since then, becoming massively successful.

As an example, 2020’s Giving Tuesday yielded 25% more than the previous year, with 29% more donors participating.

This idea will continue to work because it adds the elements of community and gamification to the event. Donors get to feel like they are part of something bigger than just themselves or the particular cause they support. They become part of a global movement.

In 2024, be prepared to ramp up your site for this opportunity to boost donations and grow your donor base. You can create marketing campaigns, send newsletters, create popups, share the event on your social media platforms, and more.

8. Generation Z

Generation Z is loosely defined as people who were born near the turn of the millennium. The oldest of Generation Z were born in 1996, which means many are recent college graduates and new to the workforce.

This generation is often referred to as the “philanthro-kids” due to its devotion to global philanthropic causes like climate change, world hunger, and civil rights.

You need to be ready to reach out to this new generation of potential donors by getting involved with their campus and local organizations, engaging with them on their mobile devices, and promoting monthly giving programs (they grew up in an environment full of monthly subscriptions).

There you have it! We hope this article has helped you learn more about some of the top fundraising trends to watch for in 2024.

Remember to keep adapting, trying new ideas, and running experiments. You never know what will turn out to be an effective tool to support your cause.

If you liked this article, you might also want to check out our guide on how to create the perfect online donation experience.

What are you waiting for? Get started with WP Simple Pay today!

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