Fundraising During or Following an Emergency

The experience of COVID–19 and the rise of campus and climate events has often called on fundraising professionals to develop thoughtful but inspiring strategies for connecting donors with opportunities for impact.

As a GiveCampus partners, your have many tools to keep your community connected, informed, and supported during difficult times. We’ve compiled some thoughts, ideas, and practices for campaigns and fundraising in general based on emerging industry trends.

Of course, only you will know the context of your community, what's too much, and what's just right. Here are some ideas to consider.

Give donors the option of supporting emergency/aid funds

Times of uncertainty can feel really scary. Consider providing options for donors to give to ‘cause based’ initiatives on campus. These are areas where we see donors actively looking to direct their dollars already and but they often forget that educational institutions are places where there is need and where their dollars can make a real difference. 

Remind them that your community has very real needs and needs their support to navigate this now and in the future. Your schools will all have unique needs and funding priorities so we’d encourage you to speak to leadership and determine what those student needs might be, but common campus causes that need support during emergencies:

• Student food pantries
• Student Emergency Scholarships
• Emergency Travel Funds for those studying abroad or being displaced
• Funding for pro-rated housing for students that can’t travel during the emergency
• Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
• Virtual Learning Resources
• Example campaigns/Forms
  • Oberlin Student Support (COVID-19)
  • Rollins College (Hurricane Ian)

Adjust your messaging

• Lead with empathy and transparency. Acknowledge that people are anxious and worried, and share how the emergency is impacting the greater campus community. 
• Share how their donation can make an immediate impact, as well as provide sustainable, long lasting support for students, staff and faculty.
• Your messaging should not be all doom and gloom, but instead focus on rallying together as a community to provide the support that students need now, and in the future. Remind them that students are always the #1 priority, and right now is no different -- whether that be their health and safety, emergency funding, or scholarships down the line.
• If you typically have big, in person initiatives, be transparent about having to cancel those or move that to digital formats. Encourage your community to come together online and bring some hope, joy, and fun to peoples’ newsfeeds! 
• When appropriate, remove goals from emergency-specific campaigns to help build a sense of community and add a more delicate touch. 
  • Checkbox on the Basics page of a campaign's Settings

Consider whether in-person and digitals events would aid or detract from what your community needs

• During COVID-19, recreating digital versions of in-person gatherings were essential to return fun and energy to the community
• After a natural disaster, however, in-person events may not be possible, and focus may need to remain on cleanup/recovery 
• That said, members of your extended community may be looking for ways to engage, ways to help
• If you are running a campaign, consider personal videos as a way of creating authentic voice
• Consider your social media strategy to keep people updated and engaged from afar! 
  • Create content and visuals that differ in tone and medium
  • Use Gifs, Videos, Photos, Plain Text, Live Streams, memes -- try it all!
    • (Check out the free version of Canva)
  • Embed a social media aggregator in your about section to generate more interactive engagement on your page. Services like TagBoard, Juicr, and Walls.io are good options -- and some have free versions! 

Emphasize advocacy and volunteerism

• People want to be helpful and often don't know how
• If you had advocacy training and recruitment planned, consider how you might replace it. 
  • You can pre-record a training using free tool like ScreenPal.
  • You can also use pre-made GiveCampus advocacy training materials
  • When in doubt, ask GiveCampus Partner Success if they can help lead a training
• Be transparent about how you wanted to do this in person, but hope the community can still come together online!
• Offer your volunteers a way to get involved and connect with your community even if you're not in an active campaign! Hearing from volunteers would be a great way to stay connected with the school community and hear updates from their alma mater