Kickstart Fall Fundraising – GiveSmart

Crunchy, colorful leaves. Pumpkins. Football. Bonfires. Fall is in the air, and with it comes many opportunities to finish up this calendar year strong. Your fiscal goals are within reach. What is your nonprofit doing to creatively expand your audience and steward your donors with your fall fundraising?  

We have some ideas (and tools) that can help! Request a demo to learn more.

Looking for ideas for what you can build your upcoming fall fundraiser around? Keep reading! 

September 

Do you host a large annual event in the fall? Whether your answer is yes or no, you should consider adding more fundraising and outreach opportunities to your fall calendar. Consider a text-to-donate campaign, a run/walk, or a giving day.  

From September to December, the possibilities are endless!  

September has many designated days and weeks to commemorate and raise awareness. Here are a few that your nonprofit could use for your wrap-around event(s).  

• Childhood Cancer Awareness Month 
• Back to School 
• Labor Day 
• Suicide Prevention Week 
• International Day of Peace 
• End of Summer 
• And more!  

October 

Carnivals, hayrides, and trick-or-treat events—October is a fantastic month to get creative with your fall fundraising. Consider a scavenger hunt or implement a virtual peer-to-peer social fundraising event to network for new donors. Host a hayride, have an apple-picking contest, or sponsor a corn maze challenge. Have your supporters vote for the best costume, jack-o’-lantern, or scarecrow.  

Gamification in your fundraisers adds to the fun of participating, and fall provides easy ways to get creative with your games! 

Celebrate and raise awareness in October with these days in mind: 

• Domestic Violence Awareness Month 
• Yom Kippur 
• Indigenous Peoples’ Day 
• Diwali 
• Halloween 
• And more! 

Want to make sure you have all of your event planning boxes checked? Download our Essential Fundraising Event Checklist on Implementation. 

November  

Whether or not your nonprofit participates in #GivingTuesday or creates its own giving day opportunity, consider including a text-to-donate campaign. Not only does text-to-donate expand your reach, but it also provides a fast, easy way for your donors to participate.  

Keep your donor experience in mind during check-in and check-out as well for any of your fall events.  Self-check-in can provide a seamless experience for your donors and allow them to skip lines. And offering alternative payment options and digital wallet payments allows your donors to feel secure during a fast, simple check-out. 

Outside of #GivingTuesday, you can come up with many November fundraising ideas around these awareness days: 

• Military Family Month 
• Anti-Bullying Week 
• Election Day 
• Veterans Day 
• Thanksgiving 
• And more! 

Giving days, holidays, anniversaries, and more. Make sure your organization is using every opportunity to fundraise and celebrate. Learn more in our Giving Days guide.  

December  

Year-round, and especially at the end of a calendar year, practice stewardship with your sponsors, volunteers, board members, donors, members, and more. Provide impact reports or statements, thank you letters with personalized signatures, hand-written notes, or whichever method your donors prefer. Don’t know? Ask them! 

Celebrate with them and nurture those relationships to improve retention rates and boost your networking efforts into the new year. 

Celebrate and raise awareness in December with these seasonal fundraising days: 

• Human Rights Month 
• Volunteer Day 
• Hanukkah 
• Christmas 
• Kwanzaa 
• New Year’s Eve/Day 
• And more! 

Want more inspiration for each month of the year and how you can take advantage of more fundraising opportunities? Take a look at our Annual Fundraising Calendar. 

Trying to plan for next year’s fundraising goals? Download our Goal Planning Worksheets now. 

GiveSmart for Your Nonprofit 

With GiveSmart, you can: 

• Personalize and brand customer forms and landing pages, equipped with options your donors will love 
• Provide easy text-to-donate and digital wallet payment options 
• Grow your fundraising audience with a robust peer-to-peer feature set 
• Host auctions and galas of any size featuring live and silent items, raffle items, instant items, and more 
• Manage seating arrangements and ticketing, self-check-in, bidder numbers, and more for a donor experience unlike any other 
• Allow your donors to attend off-site with in-event live streaming 
• Intuitively track and search for your donors with custom tags, indexed searching, and householding 
• Keep track of your donor scores and steward your donors from your database 
• Acknowledge your accomplishments with user gamification and celebrations

Learn more about GiveSmart’s all-in-one solution for your organization. Schedule a demo today!