5 Time-Saving Hacks to Improve Your Fundraising Efficiency and Gain ROI

As a nonprofit, you know how precious time is—and how directly it affects your fundraising effectiveness and efficiency. When 66% of nonprofit organizations report struggling with budget constraints and insufficient funds in recruiting and retaining employees, it’s clear that limited resources can create a ripple effect: operational challenges, staff shortages, and increased pressure on already-stretched teams.

The result? Less time to focus on high-impact activities, like planning campaigns, engaging supporters, and managing special events. With so many competing demands, staying efficient isn’t just helpful. It’s essential to sustaining your organization’s mission.

5 time-saving strategies to maximize nonprofit fundraising efficiency

To make the most of your time and resources, focus on effective fundraising activities that deliver the greatest return. Strategic effort—paired with the right tools—helps you work smarter and turn every action into meaningful impact. 

Here are five time-saving strategies to help you achieve tangible outcomes with your nonprofit fundraising programs: 

1. Deepen engagement with personalized storytelling

Successful fundraising relies on your ability to tell a compelling story. Your donors need to understand why your cause matters and how their gift, no matter the amount of money, will make an impact. 

When you tell stories that connect with people emotionally, they do more than donate. They’re moved to: 

• Share your cause with their networks.
• Advocate through fundraisers.
• Attend community events.
• Find other ways to get involved. 

Storytelling that speaks to what your supporters care about helps bridge the gap between their values and the impact they want to make, holding the potential to turn one act of good into a long-term commitment to your social good initiatives. 

With Classy Studio, you can create targeted messaging that speaks directly to your supporters by: 

• Personalizing your messaging: Your message should reflect where the donor is on their journey with your mission. Whether they’re a first-time supporter, a dedicated event participant, or a long-term major donor, Studio’s flexible and highly customizable campaign builder lets you tailor your narrative in real time to connect with each segment of your donor base.
• Engaging with mobile-first campaigns: Recent research shows that over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. With more users preferring to browse the internet through their smartphones, Studio offers top mobile optimization features, including mobile-view editing, content prioritization, drag-and-drop customization, and one-click checkout for a seamless donor experience on any device.

2. Invest in giving that grows over time

One of the most effective ways to build sustainable support is through recurring giving. Recurring donors can provide up to 9x the lifetime value of one-time donors, making them a critical part of a long-term fundraising strategy. By focusing on nurturing these relationships, you invest in a reliable revenue stream that requires less ongoing effort and fewer fundraising costs than constantly acquiring new donors.

Studio helps make this process easier by offering no-code designs, advanced customization, and real-time editing options to create a simplified donation experience for your supporters. Whether growing a recurring donor base or preparing for your next annual giving day, Studio streamlines your efforts, enabling you to focus on the most valuable fundraising opportunities and connect with donors more meaningfully.

3. Embed giving on your website for higher conversions

Your website is likely one of your highest-trafficked assets, making it a critical piece of your fundraising strategy. But if your donation form is on a separate page or requires your visitors to leave your site, you lose valuable conversion opportunities.

With Studio’s embedded donation forms, you ensure your supporters can donate directly from the page that inspired them. Whether it’s your homepage, campaign page, or another page of your website, Studio donation forms are easily embedded, allowing supporters to donate without leaving the page. 

Embedded forms streamline the donation process by reducing steps and distractions, leading to higher key benchmarks like checkout completion rates. With as few as four steps to give, our embedded donation forms can increase revenue per site visitor by 28%.

Plus, setting up embedded forms is a one-time task, and for WordPress users, it’s even simpler with our plugin. That means you spend less time on technical details and more time on strategies that drive strong fundraising metrics.

4. Build off of trusted fundraising templates

One of the best ways to maximize your time is by leveraging templates designed around the latest best practices. Instead of starting from scratch, create time-bound or year-round campaigns that grow with your goals, adapt to changing needs, and align with top design and accessibility standards.

Studio then makes it simple to clone and adapt your campaigns for seasonal events or emerging challenges and celebrate donor milestones. You can quickly update campaign images, adjust fundraising goals, change messaging in real time, or add new content, like success stories or donor testimonials. 

At Classy, we’re invested in ensuring your campaigns perform at their best. Using A/B testing and real data, we constantly fine-tune our Studio layouts and capabilities so you can feel confident they’ll deliver great results. 

Another smart way to save time and resources is by building playbooks into your fundraising plans. These playbooks are step-by-step guides that help you replicate successful strategies, minimize errors, and make fundraising more efficient. Try playbooks for your next: 

• Year-end giving campaign: Creating a playbook for your year-end campaign ensures you put your most successful strategies into motion when it counts, from timing and messaging to donor segmentation, follow-ups, and stewardship.
• Disaster relief campaign: Creating a playbook for disaster relief helps you respond quickly when a crisis emerges. It provides clear guidelines, such as defined goals, email templates, and a communications timeline, ensuring you can mobilize fast in times of need. 
• Annual appeal campaign: Creating a playbook with preplanned steps for messaging, outreach, and thank-you notes, ensures your annual appeal stays on target and helps boost donor retention. 

Drawing inspiration from others

One often overlooked tactic is adapting strategies that have worked well for others to fit one’s goals.  

Our online fundraising inspiration hub invites you to browse through a library of Studio campaigns, see what others across the nonprofit sector have created, and use these insights to inform your fundraising efforts. And don’t forget that customers can request access to optimized, tested templates from our campaign catalog to give your campaign a jump-start while aligning with today’s best practices.

5. Empower supporters to find new donors and unlock generosity

Your current supporters can be some of your best advocates for finding new donors, especially since people trust people more than brands. By adding dynamic social proof elements, such as progress bars and activity feeds on your donation or thank-you pages, you can show donors how their total contributions make a difference. 

These elements not only highlight the impact of giving but can also tap into the power of person-to-person trust, driving organic donor acquisition by motivating supporters to share your cause with their networks.

To ensure new donors feel valued and seen, personalize your thank-you page with a message that expresses heartfelt gratitude and inspires the next step, such as: 

• Making another donation
• Sharing on social media
• Signing up for your monthly giving program
• Contributing a major gift 

A thoughtful, tailored message reinforces the value of their support and inspires them to reach more people through their networks.

As social sharing becomes increasingly more popular, particularly among younger generations, make it even easier for donors to spread the word by enabling Meta social sharing options on your fundraising campaigns. This invites supporters to quickly share their favorite causes with their Instagram and Facebook networks and inspire others to join your cause. 

And don’t forget to claim your Nonprofit Page on GoFundMe. By doing so, new supporters can easily discover your organization through GoFundMe’s collective, growing community of 190 million, expanding your reach, helping you attract more passionate donors, and giving you access to valuable supporter data.

Working smarter to maximize your fundraising efficiency

When time and resources are tight, every decision you make can significantly impact your fundraising success. By using smart strategies like personalized storytelling, recurring giving, templated campaigns, and embedded giving opportunities, you make the most of your resources to achieve the results that have the greatest impact on your mission. 

With Classy Studio, your organization can create more engaging campaigns, optimize donor experiences, and track results in real-time—all without the technical expertise of a web developer. Our campaign builder’s flexibility allows for quick adjustments, ensuring your fundraising efforts stay in line with your goals and address your supporters’ needs effectively.

Ready to see how Classy from GoFundMe can increase your fundraising efficiency? Schedule a demo today to explore how our platform can help you maximize your time and fundraising expenses, engage supporters, and boost conversion to fuel long-term sustainability. 

Copy editor: Ayanna Julien