Planning a balanced fundraising journey
Author: Emma Rose
When a restaurant menu has too many choices, it makes it harder to decide what you want, and maybe like me, you panic! I can’t say I’ve ever felt to need to give up and leave a restaurant (I like eating!), but too many choices have led to me being disappointed in my choices and envying friends’ meals. This is something called “overchoice,” coined by Alvin Toffler, described as a “cognitive impairment in which people have a difficult time making decisions when faced with many options.”
Similar to a restaurant menu, when setting up any campaign (fundraising or otherwise), it’s important to be clear on what your goal is, and present your ‘customers’ with a clear, enjoyable experience, making sure not to overwhelm them.
Think about what you want to achieve. Where do you want the user to go, what do you want them to do? What outcome do you want?
There are so many things you can build using the Good Thyngs technology. You might want to use all of them, which is fab! Create your ‘journey’ to lead your supporters through the steps you want in order of importance, rather than presenting them all the options at the offset to confuse and overwhelm them.
It goes without saying that before you launch your Good Thyngs campaign, you and your colleagues should have a look at the journey from a supporter’s perspective and see how it flows. You can test all the journeys from start to finish and tweak along the way as necessary. We’re here to help and advise you too.
I spoke to Reka, our lovely Customer Success Executive who really knows her stuff. She’s shared her top tips for planning your campaign on Good Thyngs.
- Make a mind map – what would you like to include in the project? What kind of project will this be/what is the focus? (Donation-driven, fun and informal, sign-up/data capture)
- Plan out the user journey – What do you want the donors/participants to see in which order? We recommend Miro boards or Lucidchart.
- What kind of data do you need from this? Do you want opt-ins, sign-ups, questionaries, feedback forms, quizzes, etc? Also, think about what you want to make mandatory.
- Payment or Donation? It is important to understand if we are looking at a donation or payment based event, e.g., if people are receiving something in return for their transaction, including raffle tickets, and digital maps for collectables, it has to be a payment.
- Is it a free event? Do people need to register prior to this event? If yes, where will the registration forms be? Is it in our system? If yes, what level of data do you need?
- Digital or Hybrid event? (Think about the tech you would like to use – QR, URL, NFC)
- Hardware – posters, wristbands, stickers, coasters, banners, flyers, online newsletters, social media posts, collection buckets – we can enable all of these.
- Visuals – will there be any visual bits designed for this? Who will design them? (Header images, logos, special banners, collectables stickers, selfie filters).
- What’s the time scale for project preparation and building? Consider time frames and pricing.
- How long will the project/event run? Consider your timeframe.
- Data monitoring – will you do this during the event or after the event?
- Do you need custom emails? Think about how people will be in contact with you.
- How far in advance will you need training prior to the event? – Make sure everyone on your team is up to date on how to use the technology.
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