Free Guides for Nonprofits & Fundraising
The 2025 Fundraising Calendar
Generosity can bridge any divide! Even during giving declines, your donors are eager to make a difference. That’s why our free 2025 Fundraising Calendar includes monthly inspiration to welcome more people into your mission, reimagine your donor connections, and treat yourself with compassion. Now let’s start fresh!
Finish Line Fundraising: The Year-End Playbook for Nonprofit Executives
Over one-third of all giving occurs in the last three months of the year. With the right coaching and play calling, you can lead your team to victory during the generous year-end giving season and set yourself up for success in the year to come.
Donor Connection Guide: Why Engagement Isn’t Enough
Take your donor relationships from alive to thriving. In this free guide, certified nonprofit coach, author, and speaker Mallory Erickson explains why traditional donor engagement isn’t enough, shifting your perspective with practical insights for deeper, more genuine connections.
Donor Engagement Models
for the Digital Age
Is your engagement strategy resonating with modern supporters? Make sure with our free guide! We reimagined traditional fundraising models (like the donor pyramid) to align more closely with the expectations and preferences of today’s donors. Learn how to build meaningful connections, increase participation, and sustain engagement.
Building a Board of Ambassadors:
A 6-Step Guide
This comprehensive guide, written by nonprofit leadership expert Joan Garry and created by DonorPerfect, includes everything you need to assemble a vibrant board of ambassadors. From recruiting diverse members to facilitating engagement with your staff, this guide provides the proven strategies you need to empower your nonprofit.
Nonprofit Growth Kit
Starting a nonprofit is more than just paperwork and fundraising. We know you’re feeling a mix of determination, pride, and maybe some stress as you grow your organization, but you’re not alone. We’re here to help you get started! The Nonprofit Growth Kit includes must-have best practices, tips for developing efficient workflows, and advice to secure funding for your mission. We can’t wait to see what you accomplish!
Your Guided Growth Plan
Built in partnership with Dana Snyder, this plan provides beginner, intermediate, and advanced steps to help you find (and keep!) new donors who are passionate about your mission and its projects. With these strategies in hand, your nonprofit is primed to cultivate lasting relationships, drive sustainable growth, and make an enduring impact in the communities you serve.
AI for Nonprofits: The Comprehensive Guide to Enhancing Fundraising Communications
Many of today’s nonprofit employees remain stretched thin, struggling to keep up with everything that’s asked of them. Generating fundraising communications with Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides your organization with an extra set of hands – and has been proven to increase return on investment. Our free guide explores how you can use AI tools to support your mission (and beneficiaries) with abundance!
The Monthly Giving Success Kit
Creating and growing a monthly giving program sets you up for success in donor retention, accurate budget projections, and total annual gifts. DonorPerfect and fundraising consultant Erica Waasdorp joined forces to create the free Monthly Giving Success Kit so you can take the first step toward building or boosting your recurring giving program with confidence.
The Nonprofit Leadership Workbook for Women: Second Edition
Today, women are still at a disadvantage when it comes to career opportunities and support. This interactive guide calls on established women leaders in the nonprofit industry to share their wisdom and experiences. Through self-led exercises, you can forge a career path that is authentically and unapologetically you – no matter where you hope to go.
The Clean Data Checklist for Nonprofits
Messy data causes mistakes that your organization can’t afford. Meet the companion that nonprofit CRM users have been waiting for! Download the Clean Data Checklist to create a framework that keeps your team members on the same page.
The Year-End Fundraising Cheat Sheet
This interactive guide invites you to plan your year-end strategy around the donor engagement cycle. By thoughtfully planning and engaging with your donors in the months leading up to December, your ask won’t come as a surprise, and your supporters will be primed and ready to give generously before they even see your solicitations.
The Giving Tuesday Cheat Sheet
Start your Q4 journey today! First, break your Giving Tuesday strategy into three bite-sized pieces – goal-setting, communications, and stewardship. Then, start the year-end giving season with new relationships, new insight into your retention strategies, and new ideas to engage your community online! The Giving Tuesday Cheat Sheet makes it that simple.
Your download includes a print version and an online guide.
Crisis Fundraising Templates: A Nonprofit Guide to Emergency Communications
When your nonprofit is called upon for urgent support, it can feel overwhelming to launch an online fundraising campaign in such little time, especially when you need to reach as many potential donors as possible. First, you will need time to breathe and possibly reach out to your emergency beneficiaries, so we’ve done most of the writing to get you started.
Design Tips for Nonprofits
Jumpstart your nonprofit’s branding and visual appeal – no experience needed!
Gain donors’ trust and attract new supporters with free, practical, DIY design tips from the DonorPerfect team and design expert Abby Guido. With this guide, you can reap the benefits of strategic design and consistent branding, without needing experience, special software, or room in your budget to hire an agency.
The Nonprofit Social Media Content Planner
Julia Campbell, a nonprofit digital consultant, speaker, and author, shares her wisdom on how to create and sustain an effective social media strategy for nonprofits. This free planner is full of tips and exercises to help build and grow your organization’s social media presence, so you can get your mission in front of a wider and more engaged audience.
DonorPerfect Brochure
Learn how DonorPerfect’s comprehensive set of features and integrations can help your organization exceed your growth in giving goals and get organized, while saving your team time and reducing errors.
DonorPerfect Insights Beginner’s Guide
DonorPerfect Insights supplies you with the information you need to find new supporters and relate to your donors on a deeper level – building a relationship that feeds off good feelings and improves their immediate surroundings. This positivity ripples out to recruiting other donors and increasing regular contributions.
Your Data-Driven Donor Persona Checklist
It’s time to move on from the “Dear Friend” letter. Speaking to who your donors are as people will inspire the close connection to your organization that they crave. With this checklist, you can approach your communications like a marketing professional by creating personas for your donor community.
How to Create a Monthly Giving Donation Form That Converts
These monthly giving donation form tips help you build a strong sense of community, encourage larger donations, show donors their impact, quickly reconcile payments, and promote your monthly giving campaign in style.
The Digital Fundraising Makeover for Nonprofits
Give today’s donors the engaging, intuitive experience they crave. With this timely guide, you’ll learn how to “tidy up” your online donor engagement collateral, share impactful stories that highlight your mission, assemble a strong welcome series for new donors, and more.
Your Digital Donor Thank-You Kit
Though online communication can feel a bit impersonal, Your Digital Donor Thank-You Kit is packed with email templates, video scripts, and donor-thanking tools and best practices to help you express your utmost appreciation, even from behind a computer screen.
How to Discover Major Donors in Your Database Today
Fundraisers have new barriers to overcome. The in-person networking that lends to finding major donors is no longer, and hyper-personal engagement strategies must adhere to social-distancing measures.
The 2020 DonorPerfect Fundraising Benchmarks Report
This report traces the decline of giving. Discover how nonprofits of various sectors and sizes fared in a pandemic year, along with the strategies your organization needs to thrive in 2021.
Your Nonprofit Crowdfunding Kit
In this quick-start guide to crowdfunding success, you and your nonprofit team will learn the ins and outs of setting up a crowdfunding campaign. Contents include crowdfunding campaign ideas, promotional templates for your campaign, and templates crowdfunders can use to solicit family and friends.
Your Virtual Auction Planner
Put on a polished virtual event and auction that maximizes your nonprofit’s revenue and keeps donors entertained. With guidance on event prep and easy-to-use tech, creative ideas to involve participants in your program, and helpful tips from experienced fundraisers, Your Virtual Auction Planner is sure to set you up for success.
A Guide to Fundraising in the New Normal
This collection of resources is designed to see your mission through. Packed with advice from nonprofit peers and the strategies, tools, and templates to fundraise from home, your team will be equipped to connect with your donors in new ways and feel closer than ever to your community of support, even while you’re apart.
The New Donor Welcome Series Email Template Kit
Give new donors the ultimate first impression with a welcome email series that spotlights your organization’s unique community. From creative ways to share your upcoming events to a timeline that advises when to send, The New Donor Welcome Series Email Template Kit can help you set up a winning engagement strategy in no time!
How to Discover and Engage Major Donors
Find out how major donors give and how you can engage them so they choose to fund your next big endeavor in this quick and insightful guide. Uncover data that reveals the latest trends in major giving, learn the 5 markers of philanthropy that predict major giving potential, and adopt tried-and-true best practices for major donor engagement.
4 Strategies to Build Multichannel Donor Relationships
Always giving and engaging with your nonprofit, multichannel donors are interested in all the ways they can support your cause. From can’t-miss fundraising events to inspiring website content, learn what makes these valuable donors tick and how to retain them for the long run in this quick and essential read packed with stats and tips you’ll definitely want to know.
Your Donor Retention Toolkit
A common misconception is that it’s the quantity of donors that matter when really, it’s that smaller percentage of recurring donors that are your nonprofit’s most reliable source of revenue. Discover the metrics to determine your retention rate and learn from fundraising expert, Pamela Grow, what it takes to turn your one-time donors into lifetime supporters.
5 Ways Philanthropists Use Donor Advised Funds and How Fundraisers Can Benefit
While it may seem like a no-brainer, many nonprofits pass on pursuing grants from donor advised funds (DAF). 5 Ways Philanthropists Use Donor Advised Funds and How Fundraisers Can Benefit is designed to equip you with the information you need to move forward in making donor advised funds a reliable source of revenue for your mission.
How To Use Data To Manage Your Nonprofit
Learn how data and reporting can help you operate more like a business while staying true to your organization’s mission.
7 Ways to Start Growing Your Nonprofit Today
Learn 7 ways your nonprofit can follow the lead of a rapidly expanding organization to achieve growth of your own!
Your Virtual Fundraising Event Communication Checklist
Communicating with donors about your virtual fundraising event is an ongoing effort to maximize awareness, participation, and donations. DonorPerfect partnered with Givecloud – a leading virtual event platform in the nonprofit space – to provide a free checklist that ensures your event communications are organized, clear, and engaging.
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