Campaigns and gift references
Keep a campaign plan, pledges, externally confirmed gifts and acknowledgment records distinct.
A shared body of practice · Editorial draft
Make generosity
easier to sustain.
Ads, events and appeals are only part of fundraising. Connect the ask to the acknowledgment, the relationship and the next thing your team learns.
Choose
Start with the mission, the audience and the time your team has.
Test
Make a specific prediction and decide when to stop or revise.
Follow up
Give each promised acknowledgment and update an owner.
Learn
Keep the costs, limitations and disappointing results too.
There is already knowledge worth sharing
Fundraisers share benchmarks, experiments, training and professional discussions. The source guide below explains what each can tell you. This hub adds a proposed route from reading to planning, follow-up and a reusable learning note. To find a peer community or founder program, explore the charity networks directory.
A benchmark describes its participants. An experiment tests an approach in a particular setting. Neither establishes the best method for every charity. The playbooks here are untested editorial starting points; adapt them and keep a record of what you find.
Choose the job
Ten methods. One learning habit.
Each guide covers preparation, full costs, measures, follow-up and an idea to test.
Email appeals
Plan one clear request to people who can appropriately receive it, then follow gifts through reconciliation and thanks.
Read the playbookPaid advertising
Treat advertising as a bounded spending decision with a defined audience, a tested destination and an honest attribution limit.
Read the playbookFundraising events
Design an event around a clear purpose, realistic capacity and a full account of the work before committing to the venue.
Read the playbookRecurring giving
Offer a clear continuing commitment with straightforward changes, cancellation and stewardship, then measure actual payments by cohort.
Read the playbookPeer-to-peer fundraising
Help willing supporters make an accurate invitation to their own networks without collecting friends’ details or promising results.
Read the playbookMajor gifts
Build a permission-based conversation about a substantial commitment, with clear terms and boundaries around donor influence.
Read the playbookGrant seeking
Check fit before writing, cost the full commitment and keep application, award and delivery records distinct.
Read the playbookDirect mail
Plan a permission-aware mailing with separate audience groups, a realistic print budget and traceable response routes.
Read the playbookCorporate partnerships
Define a mission-aligned exchange, review the obligations and record both cash support and the work needed to deliver it.
Read the playbookDonor follow-up
Make thanks, questions, preferences and promised updates part of a reliable process instead of an improvised next appeal.
Read the playbookPut a plan beside the reading
Count the cost. Assign the follow-up.
Compare cash and time costs, then prepare a campaign brief and calendar entries. Choose your own timing. The example intervals are a planning aid, not a tested email schedule. Your calendar controls its own notifications.
Plan costs and follow-up
Page only · choose what to downloadPut the full cost beside the money received, then assign a role to four follow-up tasks. These are planning estimates. They do not measure impact or establish causation.
Budget calculations
Unknown inputs stay unknown.
Enable JavaScript to prepare a plan on this page.
Review the exact plan
Check the inputs, calculations, owner role and all four dates. Calendar files contain tentative all-day events with no invitees or automatic updates. Generating another plan creates new calendar identifiers. Reimports may create duplicates.
Review the exact calendar text and identifiers
This is the calendar file, including its task identifiers, device timestamp and exclusive next-day end dates. The file uses CRLF line endings; lines beginning with a space continue the preceding line. Calendar format reference.
For shared work, open Giving and fundraising in Charity OS. You decide what to enter there; this planner does not transfer its fields.
Carry the work into Charity OS
A task needs an owner.
Use the shared workspace when several people need to keep the same commitments visible.
Owners and due dates
Create a task for each follow-up, assign its owner and review completion. Recurring successors are generated deliberately.
Templates and communication choices
Review message text and purpose-specific consent. Keep provider suppression and delivery references beside the work.
Evidence and learning
Write the question and method, record the findings and decide what the next campaign should change.
Sign in and choose an organization to use these records. The planner does not import a campaign, create OS tasks or send donor emails. Record a delivery only after checking your sending provider. The OS’s reviewed templates and consent records do not themselves send a campaign.
Read the OS capabilities and implementation plan · Compare external tools · Find nonprofit benefits
Fundraising evidence
Results from practice
See who was included, what changed and when the team measured it. Each result describes one setting.
Editorial draft Randomized field experiment
Thank-you calls and repeat giving
New donors to U.S. public television stations between 2011 and 2016.
Comparison. Donors were assigned a thank-you call or no call. Both groups continued to receive the usual renewal mail. The calls came five to seven months after the first gift and expressed thanks without asking for another gift.
Observation window. One year after donors were assigned to a group.
| Group | Donors | Gave again |
|---|---|---|
| Assigned a call | 439,510 | 27.97% |
| Assigned no call | 54,606 | 28.06% |
These figures come from Table 2, Panel A of the authors’ 2019 draft. The published 2023 paper reported no detectable increase in donor retention.
Costs. Unknown
Limit. This comparison covers calls made months after a first gift. A prompt thank-you, a call from a volunteer or a follow-up email would answer a different question.
Editorial draft Randomized field experiment
A match offer in a mailed appeal
Past donors to one U.S. civil liberties nonprofit.
Comparison. Recipients were assigned a mailed appeal with a matching offer or an appeal without the offer. The match group includes the different match ratios tested.
Observation window. One month after the direct mail appeal.
| Group | Donors | Gave again |
|---|---|---|
| Assigned a match offer | 33,396 | 2.2% |
| Assigned no match offer | 16,687 | 1.8% |
More recipients gave when offered a match. Donor gifts averaged $0.97 per letter with a match offer and $0.81 without one, excluding matching funds.
Costs. Unknown
Limit. This was one appeal to people who had already given. New donors, online appeals and different match terms need their own evidence.
Editorial draft Randomized field experiment
Facebook video ads and gift revenue
The analysis covered 7,686 postal codes across Germany.
Comparison. Postal codes were assigned to a fundraising video ad campaign on Facebook or to a control group without those ads. Researchers counted gifts to the featured charity across donation channels and adjusted for past donations and local characteristics.
Observation window. 52 days, including the 14-day campaign and 38 days afterward.
| Comparison | Gift revenue |
|---|---|
| Average in control areas | €129.30 |
| Adjusted difference from control | +€17.65 |
The authors estimated €47,726 in extra gifts across the areas assigned ads. Their 90% confidence interval, a measure of uncertainty, ranged from €4,892 to €90,571.
Costs. The authors reported €33,700 in direct campaign costs. Full cash and staff-time costs are unknown.
Limit. The estimate is imprecise. The study also found signs that some giving shifted away from similar charities. This comparison covers one campaign and its 52-day window.
Share a de-identified result. The form opens a public GitHub issue. Include only aggregate results you have permission to publish, with the comparison and limits. Disappointing and inconclusive results are welcome.
Research, guidance and peers
Start from the original source.
Source pages checked October 28, 2026 UTC. These summaries remain editorial drafts; access and programs can change.
Descriptive benchmark
M+R Benchmarks 2026: email messaging
Reports email fundraising measures across participating nonprofits, including response and revenue relative to delivered messages.
Read with care. Participating organizations and their definitions describe a cohort. They do not establish what a particular charity should expect or which message caused a gift.
Descriptive benchmark
M+R Benchmarks 2026: advertising
Describes nonprofit advertising budgets, channels and measurement practices, including the difficulty of attributing fundraising results.
Read with care. Advertising budget relative to online revenue is not return on advertising spend. Platform attribution and reported channel revenue do not establish incremental or causal return.
Descriptive benchmark
M+R Benchmarks 2026: fundraising
Separates online one-time giving, monthly giving and donor cohorts, with explicit retention definitions.
Read with care. Online cohorts may omit gifts through other channels. One-time annual retention and monthly-giver survival use different denominators and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Descriptive benchmark
M+R Benchmarks 2026: direct mail
Describes direct-mail fundraising separately for active donors, lapsed donors and prospects.
Read with care. Reported audience results are descriptive, with different starting relationships and costs. They do not prove that changing channels will produce the same return locally.
Measurement definitions
M+R Benchmarks 2026: glossary
Defines benchmark measures and denominators, including delivered messages, click-through rates, fundraising response and donor categories.
Read with care. A shared label does not guarantee that a provider export uses the same definition. Check the numerator, denominator, time window and exclusions before comparing.
Descriptive benchmark
Fundraising Effectiveness Project
The AFP Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday project publishes quarterly donor, giving and retention benchmarks.
Read with care. The project index was read; no individual quarterly effect estimate is used here. Sector trends are context, not a causal comparison of fundraising methods.
Provider experiment library
NextAfter: fundraising experiments
A provider-run library organizes fundraising experiments by the element and outcome tested, alongside its research overview.
Read with care. The library includes negative and inconclusive results. Individual designs, sample sizes, validity and effects were not independently reviewed here; a headline is not a transferable result.
Learning resource
Candid: introduction to fundraising planning
The indexed course description covers a case for support, diversified funding and an action plan, with planning resources.
Read with care. The official indexed description was read; direct access returned 403. The recording and linked handouts were not reviewed. This is a learning route, not evidence that this playbook works.
Learning resource
Candid: introduction to individual giving
The indexed course description introduces an individual-giving program and planning within a diversified funding strategy.
Read with care. The official indexed description was read; direct access returned 403. The course was not completed or evaluated, and no fundraising effect is inferred.
Peer community
NTEN: nonprofit peer community
Offers nonprofit technology community groups and local connections; the community platform requires a free account.
Read with care. Peer discussions can help frame implementation questions. They are not controlled fundraising evidence, verified vendor performance or a guarantee that advice fits your organization.
Research and discussion index
Rogare: fundraising publications
Indexes research and discussion about fundraising ethics, relationships, stakeholder engagement and professional practice.
Read with care. The publications index was read, not every linked report. It identifies questions and further reading; it does not validate the proposed workflows or rank fundraising methods.
Practice guidance
National Council of Nonprofits: gift acknowledgments
Discusses prompt thanks, donor recognition preferences and the distinction between appreciation and formal gift documentation.
Read with care. This hub does not generate tax receipts or state legal requirements. Use current official rules and qualified review for your jurisdiction and the particular gift.
Practice guidance
National Council of Nonprofits: corporate sponsorship
Discusses sponsorship readiness, mutual expectations and written obligations, while flagging tax and private-benefit questions.
Read with care. No tax classification, deductibility or model agreement is supplied here. The exact arrangement needs appropriate organizational and professional review before commitments are made.
Professional principles
AFP: the Donor Bill of Rights
Sets out professional expectations concerning donor information, intended use, acknowledgment, confidentiality and questions.
Read with care. These are professional principles, not an effect study or a substitute for applicable law. Read the original; this hub does not reproduce the declaration.