Best Practices for Fundraising: Free Tools, Guides, and Trainings for Nonprofits
- Nonprofit Learning Lab
- Jan 29
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 31
Table of Contents
Activity Sheets: Donor Management & Planning
Fundraising Blogs
At the Nonprofit Learning Lab, we offer daily online nonprofit training on training, facilitation, fundraising, strategic planning, communications, volunteer management, and free resources to help you lead your organization. These resources are designed to help executive directors, c-suite staff, development directors, program directors, volunteer managers, operation directors, and board members.
We offer a variety of free nonprofit resources from downloadable guidebooks to webinars to blogs!
We’ve compiled a list of all our internal resources relating to fundraising along with highlighting some of our favorite external resources. Keep reading to learn about fundraising strategies, best practices for fundraising, and more.
Guidebooks
We offer many free downloadable guidebooks to get ideas for fundraising plans, budgeting, board development and more. View our volunteer and board-focused guidebooks below.
A comprehensive guide to creating a case statement, this resource includes activities and worksheets designed to help leadership and staff define an organization’s mission and fundraising goals. Perfect for staff meetings, training sessions, and retreats.
This guidebook outlines the process of developing a fundraising plan, with fundraising strategies and sample fundraising plan to help organizations set and achieve their fundraising goals effectively.
This guidebook offers insights into building a sustainable major gifts program, from identifying prospects to stewarding donors. Major gift strategies and fundraising ideas to support nonprofit leaders in building relationships with major donors.
A detailed guide to planned giving, legacy societies, how to talk to donors about planned gifts and donor cultivation strategies to find unanticipated planned giving donors.
Essential guide for donor retention, offering strategies to strengthen relationships and maintain long-term contributions for nonprofits.
Free Webinars & Past Free Webinar Downloads
Join us for live free webinars, covering topics from data analytics to fundraising & our diversity, equity and inclusion webinar series. Participate live to ask questions and learn from our expert speakers!
In addition to our live, upcoming free webinars, we provide access to all our previous free webinars! You can download both the recording and slides for our free webinars.
10 Free Fundraising Webinars You Can Access Today
How to Improve Your Fundraising and Communications with Better Donor Data
Annual Report: Is it a Burden or a Call to Action for Donors
Fundraising Event Marketing Tips to Bridge the Generational Divide
Leveraging Corporate Matching Gifts to Reach Your Fundraising Goals
Fundraising Made Simple: Simplified Donation Management to Amplified Donation Results
How to Start a Major Donor Program
The Art and Science of Major Gift Fundraising
Fundraise Smarter, Not Harder- How to Identify High Value Fundraising Tasks
How to Cultivate and Manage Donors Remotely
Crafting Year-End Donor Engagement Surveys
To gain access, just fill out our short form and you’ll receive an email to browse them all!
Upcoming Free Webinars
This webinar explores how organizations can leverage high-fidelity data to accelerate every stage of the donor journey, from initial discovery to the final ask. We will dive into how precision intelligence allows your team to validate existing research. Participants will learn how to drive greater fundraising progress by identifying new prospects at all levels and optimizing portfolios to ensure gift officers are spending their time where it matters most. Beyond individual donor management, we'll discuss how to use these insights to secure new foundation proposals and execute bigger asks with total confidence.
The day of your golf tournament is the culmination of months of planning, and for nonprofits, it’s a prime time to boost revenue. This free webinar will dive into how to execute a seamless, professional, and profitable tournament day. Learn how to stay organized, engage golfers and sponsors, and maximize fundraising with creative day-of strategies. Walk away with actionable strategies to save time, reduce stress, and boost revenue, leaving you confident and ready to deliver an exceptional event that raises more for your mission.
This practical webinar will walk through foundational Excel strategies that help managers structure their data for clarity, reduce common mistakes, and quickly surface key insights. Participants will learn essential formulas and tools that make reporting faster, cleaner, and more decision-ready — without requiring advanced technical expertise.
Workshops
We offer online nonprofit training on supervision, facilitation, fundraising, strategic planning, communications, volunteer management, board management, and more! Check out our trainings related to fundraising below.
You know your organization is making a difference, but too often, funders don’t respond in the way you hope. When you have only a few minutes—or sometimes just seconds—to introduce your work, it’s easy for funders to miss the heart of your mission or overlook the real impact you’re creating in your community. In this interactive session, nonprofit leaders will develop a clear and compelling 90-second pitch that communicates the essence of their organization’s work.
Has figuring out your cash flow been on your to-do list but always getting pushed aside by more urgent matters? If so, you're not alone. It’s easy to deprioritize financial clarity when other fires keep popping up. If you're finally ready to bring this conversation to the forefront, this workshop is for you. I’m here to help you navigate the process with clarity and support.
Corporate sponsors can play a vital role in helping nonprofits grow. Join us to learn how to secure and sustain strong corporate sponsorships. We’ll explore what sponsors look for, how to meet their expectations, and the impact these partnerships can have—from raising funds to expanding your reach and reputation. Walk away with practical tips and proven strategies to land and maintain meaningful corporate support.
With federal funding freezes and shifting donor behaviors, nonprofits must diversify their revenue streams to maintain financial stability. This session provides actionable strategies for identifying, cultivating, and securing major gifts – even in small shops with limited resources. Participants will leave with a customized roadmap to grow their major gifts portfolio and a deeper understanding of how to engage major donors in uncertain times.
Are you struggling with how to capture and translate data to help effectively tell your story and secure additional funding? In this workshop, you will acquire practical tips and easily applied strategies for effectively collecting and using data to strengthen your fundraising and communications efforts. Gain insight into how to create an organizational culture of growth and learning that supports data collection and usage, low-cost, effective ways to systematically track and manage data, and common pitfalls faced when collecting, reporting, and using data.
This two-part accelerator helps nonprofit leaders strengthen their fundability and build a focused, realistic fundraising strategy. Session One introduces what funders look for and helps participants assess their organization’s readiness for funding, including alignment between mission, programs, and outcomes. Between sessions, participants will complete a fundability-focused homework assignment that receives facilitator review. Session Two explores the 12 nonprofit revenue streams and supports participants in identifying and prioritizing their top three revenue strategies based on organizational capacity and funding readiness.
Nonprofit Learning Library
Our nonprofit library contains hundreds of recordings and slides for nonprofit professionals on a variety of topics from marketing, fundraising, program management, diversity equity and inclusion, volunteer management and more.
Membership provides you with access to our previous nonprofit workshops. Interested in seeing what's in the resource library but not a member? Click here to see an abbreviated list of resources in our library.
Working on your continuing education credits and looking to get CFRE or CVA credits? Our library is filled with hundreds of sessions pre-approved for CFRE and CCVA credit! Additionally, as a CAE registered provider, many of our workshops qualify for ASAE credit as well!
Activity Sheets: Donor Management & Planning
We offer free downloadable, printable worksheets to help you brainstorm on nonprofit topics such as strategy & planning, fundraising, and volunteer management.
This worksheet focuses on several guiding questions, fundraising challenges, and organizational goals, which is important to the process of developing a fundraising plan. Staff members and fundraising committee members should be able to answer most of these questions prior to developing a yearly fundraising plan.
This worksheet focuses on determining strategies for donor cultivation and stewardship. These strategies provide an opportunity for organizational leaders to determine cultivation and stewardship methods that they would like to implement or improve upon.
This worksheet helps staff members and board members prepare for donor solicitations. Understanding where donors are, in terms of affinity and capacity to an organization, is essential before a direct solicitation.
Tip Sheets: Direct Mail & Annual Reports
Download tip sheets on topics from nonprofit fundraising, board development, nonprofit marketing & volunteer management.
This tip sheet offers guidance on crafting effective direct mail appeals by being clear, specific, and action-oriented. Use the included checklist to ensure your message resonates with donors and makes giving easy.
This tip sheet guides the creation of clear, visually engaging annual reports that highlight your nonprofit’s impact. Use the checklist to plan content, design, and format decisions that best connect with your audience.
Blogs
Weekly blog posts on fundraising, nonprofit marketing, donor management software, nonprofit storytelling, volunteer management, social media, and more!
Quick Link to all Fundraising Blogs
10 of our favorite blogs for fundraising:
Diversify Your Nonprofit Funding Streams: Fundraising Strategies for 2025
Technology Tools to Support Fundraising, Donor Management & Donor Stewardship
Maximizing Giving Tuesday: A 5-Step Guide for Nonprofit Success
How to Secure In-Kind Donations for Your Nonprofit's Auction
How to Build a Legacy Society to Cultivate Planned Giving Donors
5 Essential Grant Writing Tips to Secure Funding for Nonprofits
Using Technology to Transform Your Nonprofit’s Next Fundraising Event
External Resources
The CFRE certification is a globally recognized credential awarded by the CFRE International organization. It signifies that a fundraiser has met high standards of professional achievement and possesses the knowledge, experience, and ethical grounding necessary for successful fundraising. This certification is designed for professionals in a variety of roles across the nonprofit sector, including development officers, major gift officers, planned giving professionals, and even fundraising consultants.
If you are working on becoming CFRE certified, the Nonprofit Learning Lab is an approved provider and most of our workshops qualify towards your education!
Other Helpful Resources
Continue Learning…
Job Boards
A central hub for national, international, Canadian, and local job boards
Nonprofit Learning Lab Job Board
Featuring jobs posted by our members, all over the U.S.
Browse volunteer job boards and get involved in your local community or in national volunteer leadership opportunities.
Provides high-impact jobs at nonprofits, social enterprises, CSR, B Corps, government, and other mission-focused organizations and positions.
The world's largest social-impact job board, featuring paid & volunteer roles from 150,000+ organizations
Comments