Top 5 Management Tips for Running Multiple Campaigns
- Nonprofit Learning Lab
- 11 hours ago
- 5 min read
This is a guest blog by 99Pledges.
If you want your nonprofit to hit your revenue goals for the year, running multiple fundraising campaigns might be worth considering. After all, having multiple fundraisers at once helps you diversify your revenue and reach new possible donors.
But though hosting several fundraising events has its advantages, running them all at once can be quite stressful. In fact, it might actually lead to volunteer and employee burnout, donor fatigue, and confusion.
Running multiple fundraisers at once is possible, but it requires thoughtful planning and management. In this article, we’ll offer five actionable management
strategies to help you successfully plan and execute overlapping fundraisers.
1. Keep a centralized calendar
While running overlapping initiatives, having a centralized calendar is important. Everyone in your organization should be able to see all the event dates to prevent internal bottlenecks and donor fatigue. If you have a shared, constantly updated timeline, the organization can multitask successfully.
While creating your calendar, keep these tips in mind:
Stagger your start and end dates. This way, you never have two major pushes asking the exact same segment for money or volunteers in the same week. A good rule of thumb is spacing major campaigns 8–12 weeks apart.
Hold regular check-in meetings with all stakeholders. This is their opportunity to review upcoming deadlines and adjust timelines if one project starts cannibalizing another.
Factor in breathing room. This includes planning periods, wrap-up days, and nonprofit budgeting sessions. If you consider all these events and activities in your calendar, you prevent your team from becoming overwhelmed. Plus, having some breathing room ensures that the staff has prepared all the necessary resources (e.g., equipment and documents) for all the upcoming fundraisers.
By mapping out every phase of your fundraising efforts in your organization’s centralized calendar, you give everyone the time they need to execute each task effectively without feeling bombarded with sudden deadlines.
2. Diversify your campaign offerings
Asking your supporters for the same type of contribution repeatedly quickly leads to donor fatigue and diminishing returns. Diversifying your funding strategy ensures that even if fundraising events overlap, they appeal to different interests or giving capacities of your supporters.
Consider these strategies to diversify your campaign offerings:
Mix passive and active giving opportunities. Simply put, passive giving requires very little effort, while active giving might include participation in an event or campaign. For example, buying something from the organization’s merch store is passive, whereas joining a walk-a-thon is active.
Alternate your target audience. You can do this by segmenting your donors depending on certain characteristics (e.g., age, gender, income, education, occupation, location/region), then plan possible events that would appeal to each segment. For example, supporters with higher incomes might be interested in attending a silent auction, while the younger crowd might prefer a live concert or sporting event.
Vary the financial commitment. Don’t just host events like a high-ticket holiday gala that require your supporters to spend cash. Instead, add some free initiatives in the mix, such as awareness events.
When your overlapping events feel distinct and offer unique ways to get involved, your supporters will view them as exciting new opportunities rather than repeated solicitations.
3. Appoint dedicated campaign leads
Assigning a clear point person for each specific fundraiser ensures that no detail falls through the cracks. It also adds a level of control and organization; without a clear leader, your event might flounder because there’s no one to lead the staff in the right direction.
To choose the right campaign leads, be sure to follow these tips:
Match leaders to projects based on their strengths. For example, if one of your staff members has exceptional organizational skills, you can have them oversee the complex logistics of an upcoming event.
Empower your leads to make day-to-day decisions independently. This takes some of the load off the executive team’s plate, allowing them to focus on high-level strategy rather than micromanagement.
Create a clear communication system. This way, the volunteers and external partners know exactly who to contact for each distinctive initiative.
Clear leadership delegation is important because it not only ensures that projects stay on track, but it also provides a warm, supportive environment where your staff members feel trusted and valued.
4. Maintain consistent branding
While each of your initiatives should feel unique, they must all clearly tie back to your organization’s core identity. If your overlapping campaigns look and sound completely different, you run the risk of confusing your audience and diluting your overall mission.
To prevent this from happening, you must stick to the following guidelines:
Develop a unified style guide. This should include information on logo usage, your organization’s color palettes, and fonts.
Create a core messaging document. This document should connect the specific goal of each fundraiser back to the broader nonprofit.
Optimize landing pages and donation forms. Doing this ensures that these pages will sit on your main website or prominently feature your branding to build trust.
A cohesive brand presence reassures your donors and volunteers that their contributions are going to the organization they know and love, no matter which specific project they choose to support.
5. Leverage dedicated technology
Trying to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously with basic spreadsheets is nearly impossible, and it puts your organization’s data at risk.
That’s why you must implement modern software solutions into your planning. These solutions are designed to handle the heavy lifting, allowing you to run complex, overlapping campaigns with ease.
Here are a few tips to make the planning process seamless:
Use specialized peer-to-peer fundraising platforms. 99Pledges’ guide to fundraising platforms explains how these tools help you streamline campaigns, save time through automation, reach more supporters, and ultimately grow your revenue.
Keep organized with volunteer management systems. These systems help streamline tasks, thus saving you time and boosting volunteer engagement.
Automate your communication workflows, such as donation receipts and thank-you emails. This will guarantee a positive donor experience, even during your busiest seasons.
By investing in the right tools, you allow your team to spend less time on administrative data entry and more time building meaningful, knowledgeable relationships with your supporters.
Conclusion: Managing concurrent fundraisers is possible
Through proactive planning and deliberate organization, your nonprofit can host multiple fundraisers simultaneously without unnecessary stress. As a result, you can achieve greater impact for your nonprofit because not only will you have a diverse array of funding sources, but you’ll also be reaching new audiences who might be interested in becoming supporters.
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