5 Smart Ways to Raise Funds Fast

Five tips to raise the funds you need now.

Depending on your cause, raising funds fast may be necessary. Quickly raising funds requires careful planning and execution. This article shares five tips to raise the funds you need now.

How to Raise Funds Fast

Whether your school has an emergency or wants to save time, you may be interested in learning ways to expedite the fundraising process. Below are five tips to help hurry things along.

1. Choose Quick Fundraisers

Some fundraisers inherently take longer than others. For example, a door-to-door product fundraiser takes longer than a one-time virtual event.

Simple events that don’t require much preparation are typically the fastest fundraisers to execute. Text-to-give campaigns, crowdfunding, and direct sale fundraisers follow these.

2. Set Milestones and End Dates

When fundraising fast, it helps to set milestones and an end date. This encourages participants to donate or purchase now instead of waiting until later. Milestones can include a dollar amount raised or an item successfully purchased.

To speed things along, pick a reasonable but quickly approaching end date.

3. Create Smart Giving Forms

There are three ways smart giving forms move your fundraiser along quickly. First, they encourage donors to give now by ensuring the process will be simple and convenient. Second, they prevent donors from getting frustrated with the form and choosing to return to it later. And third, smart forms typically process funds immediately.

Creating a smart giving form leads to faster access to funds and prevents many headaches while executing your campaign.

4. Automate Your Processes

Automation saves time. Automate emails to reach donors to ask for donations, provide the next extra steps, and thank them for their support. You may also consider automating the processing of funds so donations are accessible at the time of donation instead of later. Automating processes saves time and labor and keeps remembering to execute crucial fundraising steps!

5. Match Gifts

Matching gifts automatically double every donation size, leading to more funds now. Ask local businesses and other sponsors to enroll in a matching gifts program. When a donation is made, for example, $100 is made by a school alum, the enrolled business or individual donates an additional $100. This instantly doubles your raise to $200 with little extra work.

Virtual Fundraising Events

As mentioned above, virtual fundraising events are the fastest source of donations. They take less planning and setup than in-person events, and contributions are made during ticket sales, meaning the event launch receives all funds.

Virtual Fundraising Event Ideas

We’ve listed a few virtual fundraising events below to help you get started.

• Cooking class
• Exercise class
• Auction
• Online gala
• Casino night
• Keynote talks
• Online gaming tournament
• Virtual battle of the bands
• Talent show
• Trivia night
• Crafting night

Choose from the above or create your own unique online event fundraiser.

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.