Fundraising Calendar Templates

Grow Your Nonprofit Organization Throughout the Year

Building Your Fundraising Plan

Prepare to reach all your fundraising goals by creating a calendar for your campaigns throughout the year, setting goals, and ensuring you have the technology and expertise you need to have success!

Implement new technologies and communication channels to reach new donors and generate new streams of revenue. Don’t be afraid to take risks and adjust your strategies and tactics mid-campaign.

Pro Tip: Set specific goals with ambitious annual increases for campaign revenues, donors, recurring gifts, social followers, and fundraising ambassadors.

Build Your Team of Experts

Leverage relationships with individuals and agencies that specialize in the types of campaigns you are planning this year.

Invest in a team that can help you scale the impact of your campaign to reach new audiences and drive year-after-year growth.

Pro Tip: Provide opportunities for volunteers to help your organization, be it filming, implementing new technologies, or assisting in other ways with campaigns.

Equip an Army of Ambassadors

Every person that supports your organization should be empowered with the tools they need to easily promote and collect campaign donations within their community.

Create a culture within your organization of donors who do more than just give.

Pro Tip: Create a club and coordinate exclusive experiences as a reward for those dedicated to spreading the word about your organization.

Inspire Donors to Easily Give Online

Your supporters should be able to make a secure online donation at the moment they are compelled to give with just a few taps or clicks from any device.

Adjust your donation page call-to-action, suggested donation amounts, video, and recurring gift options to reinforce the impact of donations during campaigns.

Recognize and thank every donor, every time.

Pro Tip: For in-person events, Facebook Live, and Instagram asks, pair your website donation page with a text-to-give keyword on your visual elements to maximize online donations.

Television and Radio Appearance Recommended Timeline

Your fundraising calendar plan for a television and radio appearance will have a huge impact on the success of the campaign. TV and radio present huge opportunities to raise a lot of money for a great cause due to the large reach these channels have. In addition to your presentation and live appeal, it’s important to set up your online giving page and a text-to-give keyword.

The step-by-step fundraising plan below will help guide you through the days before, during, and after the broadcast to maximize your results.

Pro Tip: During the broadcast, the donate button on your website and the link in your text-to-give keyword reply message should go to the same donation page.

Runs, Walks, Swims and Ride Fundraising Timeline

These active events are a great addition to your fundraising calendar and are usually the most popular during the summer when it’s warm.

Crowdfunding and peer-to-peer fundraising are great for these events. Each participant can sign up to become a fundraiser and promote your event, which can exponentially increase the success of your event.

Pro Tip: Integrate your event sign-up form and your crowdfunding setup page to ensure that every runner has their own peer-to-peer fundraising page to share with their personal and social networks.

Golf Tournament Fundraising Timeline

Adding one of two golf tournaments to your fundraising calendar can be a fun and effective way to raise money.

The beauty of a fundraising golf tournament is that there are multiple opportunities to capture donations. Not only can you raise money through sign-ups, but you can sell mulligans, do a silent auction, a raffle, or even implement fun wager games like closest to the pin.

Pro Tip: Make it easy for golfers and dinner guests to sign up and make donations leading up to and on the day of your event.

Camps, Trips and Retreats Fundraising Timeline

If your organization is planning on sending kids to camp or people to another country to build houses, you want to do everything in your power to be successful or you risk disappointing your supporters and not being able to fulfill your mission.

Be diligent with your fundraising calendar planning so that everything goes accordingly and everyone can go to camp or on the trip. Leaving people out or having kids miss camp because of the lack of donations can be devastating for all that are involved.

Use every channel and piece of technology available to make it as easy as possible to give to your campaign from any channel online and offline.

Pro Tip: Integrate your sign-up form, payment form, and fundraising form. This makes it as easy as possible for all ages of people to participate in fundraising right from their smartphones.

Volunteer, Petition and Membership Drive Fundraising Timeline

Not every campaign’s goal is to collect donations. Your campaign can be to collect information or support, whether it’s signatures on a petition or volunteer sign-ups.

Just because you are not trying to raise money doesn’t mean it’s not important! You still want to add these campaigns to your calendar so you can collect as much information as possible.

This information you collect can be valuable for future fundraising campaigns and can supply your organization with a consistent flow of potential donors.

Pro Tip: Make it easy for all ages and demographics to participate with mobile-friendly forms and text message updates.

Dinner Galas and Fundraising Luncheons Recommended Timeline

Your fundraising calendar for a dinner gala or fundraising luncheon should have several action items before, during, and after the event in order for it to be successful and engage your supporters long after they’ve gone home.

For these events, timing is especially important since there are so many distractions around. Most people go to socialize, so getting their attention can be difficult at certain points especially when they start eating. That’s why it’s key to plan out your fundraising ask and make it easy for people to donate right in the moment they’re inspired.

Pro Tip: A text-to option should be included for all registration, sign-up, and donation forms to allow supporters to take action on their phones, leading to double participation.

#GivingTuesday and Days of Giving Recommended Timeline

#GivingTuesday is the top giving day of the year and is a must for any nonprofit organization’s fundraising calendar. It is a well-known day of giving, and if you plan it right can be very beneficial for your organization in many ways—for publicity, awareness, and donations.

Other days of giving your organization puts on can be executed similarly so you can test your plan multiple times during the year and see what works best.

Pro Tip: Encourage all your donors, ambassadors, staff, and supporters to share the same donation link and post campaign updates across all channels all day long on your day of giving.

Year-End Giving Recommended Timeline

Did you know that 12% of all giving occurs within the last 3 days of the year?

That’s not all…

50% of all giving occurs in the last 3 months of the year.

Crazy, right? This is a huge opportunity to make a significant difference in your organization if you set up your calendar the right way and grow your donor list as much as possible before October. This way you can promote your year-end campaign to as many people as possible across all your channels including email, mobile, and social.

Pro Tip: Ask every donor in your database to make an additional final donation in the month of December to ensure you reach your year-end goal, even if it’s a micro-donation. Every dollar counts!