Digital Donor Deep Dive: How to Build a Donor-Centric Online Fundraising Program

In this jam-packed 3-hour intensive fundraising workshop, you’ll learn the ins and outs of engaging donors online – and raising way more money in the process!

We’ll open by exploring how to make your fundraising communications feel human and authentic, in line with today’s neuroscience, to connect more deeply with donor hearts.

With that foundation of donor-centricity, we’ll dive into building your digital fundraising ecosystem. We’ll unpack how all the pieces fit together – from email to ads to website to donation forms – to create a seamless journey for your digital leads and donors. Here, we’ll take a particular focus on email, which remains the core of digital fundraising success, and give you the best-practices that are proven to work.

Last but not least, we’ll put pen to paper together to make those fundraising emails shine! I’ll lead you through hands-on workshops to practice crafting subject lines and hooks that drive opens and action. You’re even invited to submit your own emails for us to edit as a group – and those brave souls will walk away with their Good Works-edited copy as a bonus!

Session Outcomes

1. Overview and examples of how the same thing is communicated differently when an organization lens is applied vs a donor lens.
2. Importance of fundraising communications that are human, personalized, and compelling.
3. Overview of various tools in the digital world (website, landing pages, social media, social/search/display advertising) and how they fit together when you’re creating a donor journey.
4. From design and purpose to structure and copywriting, review of everything that makes email a most effective fundraising tool.
5. Fundraising copywriting workshop where we’ll complete a series of exercises that will have participants craft various aspects of email copy (notably, subject line, header, hook and ask). Participants will be invited to bring in copy they’ve drafted that we’ll edit it together as a group on the spot.

Collecting Email Copy Samples

We invite you – our wonderful session attendees – to submit your writing. We’re looking for email copy (but also happy to looking at landing page or donation page copy). Holly will pick a handful at random, hit the ‘Share Screen’ button, and edit them for you live, in real time.  It’s an amazing opportunity to get specific feedback you can use!

Event Details

Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Time: 9:00am-1:00pm (includes lunch and snacks!)
Location: Burlington Golf and Country Club, 422 North Shore Blvd. East, Burlington
Cost: $175 for members, $200 for non-members
CFRE Credits: 3 Education Points (category 1.B)

REGISTER NOW

Holly Wagg, CFRE and MA
Partner and CEO, Good Works

Holly Wagg is Partner and CEO at Good Works. She has more than 25 years of experience in the charitable sector, with a particular strategic and tactical expertise in direct mail, legacy and digital giving. She’s also a co-author of You Can’t Take It With You: The Art & Science of Legacy Fundraising (the second edition of Iceberg Philanthropy). This is the go-to book on planned giving that shows fundraisers how you can persuade ordinary donors to make an extraordinary charitable gift through their will.

Holly leads both the business and people at Good Works. As a leader, she strives to bring out the strengths and cultivate the talents of every team member. She is committed to being a hands-on fundraiser and makes sure every charity we work with benefits from best-practices, as well as new ideas and research as it emerges.

At Good Works she has had the privilege to work with clients like WWF-Canada, Kids Help Phone, Ontario SPCA, SOS Children’s Villages Canada, Save the Children, Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Ottawa Hospital Foundation and many more.

Holly is a member of AFP and CAGP. She holds a BA in Communications and English from Wilfrid Laurier University and a MA in Media Studies from Concordia University.

Holly co-founded the Ten Oaks Project in 2004 for which she was honoured with a lifetime achievement award in the queer community before she cracked 30. She’s a widowed, and re-married, mother of six (two adopted, one bio and three step-children) who does handstands inside the office to warm up for all the CrossFit, yoga and outdoor adventure that she does outside of the office.