Nonprofits have amazing vision statements that represent so much care and passion for the communities they serve. But we’ve seen it time and time again: small staff, overstretched Executive Directors, no dedicated Communications and Marketing director, and, ultimately, strategies that don’t align with the visions nonprofit organizations set out to achieve.
U.S. charitable giving hit a record $617 billion in 2025, but fewer people are giving than ever before. The donor pool is shrinking; on average, fewer donors are giving larger gifts, and organic social reach is near zero. For nonprofits operating with lean teams, this isn't a minor shift; it’s a strategic challenge that isn’t going away.
It can be hard to tell if you are checking the necessary boxes to stay up to date and relevant in 2026. That’s why we’ve compiled a checklist of high-impact strategies you can use to ensure your nonprofit doesn't fall behind.
Email is Still Your Most Powerful Channel
Build a Giving Path that Grows with Your Donors
You’re Losing Donors You Already Have
Video is No Longer Optional
Tangible Campaigns Outperform General Appeals
Optimize for User Experience
Build a Storytelling System
AI Isn’t a Magic Fix — But You Can Use it Wisely
1. Email Is Still Your Most Powerful Channel
Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, X, TikTok, YouTube, text messages… the list goes on. Nonprofits often get lost in the shuffle of which platforms will have the most impact, but the reality is that email marketing is still the tried and true; in fact, 48% of donors prefer to receive updates and appeals via email.
Oftentimes, we see organizations that are treating their email list as a finite resource, a never-ending well that we can tap when we need to get a response, but here are a few strategies that can help you ensure that your email funnel is treated like the valuable resource that it is.
Convert New Subscribers - Have an evergreen campaign that helps to convert new subscribers. What would your donors or clients want to know about your organization? Gathering email addresses for impact reports, free resources, and events can be a great way to ensure that you can always communicate with the people who care most about your mission.
Schedule Database Deep Cleans - Keeping your email database up to date is essential in ensuring that your newsletters, campaign updates, and donation needs get delivered at a high percentage.
This doesn’t just include people who have actively unsubscribed; it also means users who have consistently not engaged with your content.
Assign a database manager and schedule regular cleaning days on your calendar! The larger your database, the more often we’d suggest doing maintenance. Use tools like NeverBounce and ZeroBounce to help validate and clean up your lists!Segment & Nurture Subscribers - Your email list is full of people who have different priorities and are at different stages of the donor or client journey. Creating automated segmentation and workflows that help move people through their different stages automatically is a highly effective way to increase monthly donors, convert new visitors, increase event engagement, and more!
Create an Email Opt-Out Survey - When users are unsubscribing, it can be really helpful to have an opt-out survey; this gives your team additional feedback on your audience’s preferences for communication, the value of your email content, and other insights that can keep your email at the top of its game!
2. Build a Giving Path That Grows With Your Donors
Every nonprofit organization has donors who have been faithfully giving for a long time, but have you ever directly asked them if they’d be willing to give more?
By creating a predictable donor funnel or path, you can work to increase the investment of the people who are already faithfully giving to your mission.
Here are a few places those asked can be highly successful:
Subscribers to Donors - Who is subscribed via email or social media but hasn’t given yet? What are specific campaigns, initiatives, or missions that you can directly ask them to give to? What’s the impact of their dollars directly?
Donors to Recurring Donors - Look through your donor list and find supporters who have only ever given one-time gifts. In these appeals, it’s really important to help givers understand why recurring giving is so important. Help them see how it will impact staff salaries, clients supported, etc.
Increasing Recurring Giving - When was the last time you directly asked recurring givers to increase their support? With the right motivation, these givers can be even more bought in. Offer them ways to increase their understanding of the organization. Things like an Annual Givers Zoom, quarterly impact report, or impact stories can be effective ways to show the ROI of their investment with your mission.
Multi-Year Givers to Major Donors - Identifying the donors who have given over $5000 over the course of several years can be a great way to identify donors who might be qualified to refer or become major donors. Schedule appreciation conversations when donors get to a certain number of consecutive giving years, acknowledge them with a call from the executive director, and use that as an opportunity to talk about the future of their giving.
Major Donors to Legacy or Planned Giving - According to plannedgiving.com the average Legacy gift is 200 times larger than a major donor's largest annual gift. So while these gifts are not an immediate benefit, spending time talking to your highly motivated donors about these types of gifts absolutely will impact the long-term outlook of your organization. Make sure you have information on your website, giving channels, and impact documentation about how donors can contribute to your vision as part of their legacy.
3. You're Losing Donors You Already Have
Nonprofits rely on their donors to keep their mission going, and monthly recurring or annual givers are some of the most critical donors to an organization. So whether manually managed by your fundraising manager or (ideally) digitally automated, all nonprofits should have a lapsed-donor workflow in place.
Set Up a Trigger - In your donor CRM, create a trigger or list that automatically populates people who haven’t given in over 3 months.
Create a Reconversion Workflow - Build an email or text workflow that reminds users to opt back in to their regular giving. Make sure that these emails and texts include high-quality stories, data about your impact, etc.
Reminders for Phone Calls - If your automated workflows aren’t effective, consider adding a phone call into the mix. Hearing directly from your organization can help create that personal relationship that builds trust.
Lapsed Donor Survey - If your other efforts haven’t been effective, consider creating a lapsed donor survey to better understand the reasons that people are not continuing to support your organization. This kind of information can help illuminate gaps in communication, ways to improve, and more.
Donors can lapse for a variety of reasons: an expired credit card, a change in billing address, disagreement with something that happened, or a change in priorities. Setting up these steps will help you not only understand why these
4. Video Is No Longer Optional
It’s 2026 and 68% of nonprofits post less than once weekly. And why is that? Because spending your time and energy creating content that gets no engagement feels demotivating. Because there are always higher priorities to work on.
Did you know that 57% of people who watch nonprofit videos go on to make a donation? Why is video such a powerful tool?
Follow the Attention - The average mobile viewing session lasts more than 40 minutes; social media video viewing is replacing watching other forms of entertainment in people’s lives.
Connect with Younger Audiences - Video is very popular with millennials and younger generations (45 and younger). As your nonprofit is working to connect with younger donors, clients, and more, video is a highly effective way to do that.
You don’t have to start with high-production and expensive video; today most people have access to a high-quality video camera right in their phone. Here are our recommendations for a setup to get started with video.
Capture high-quality videos with the help of this DJI Osmo Pocket 3, which includes the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal camera, the DJI Mic 2 Wireless Microphone System, a microSD card, and a battery handle and power bank to increase runtime. The microphone can be connected to a phone.
5. Tangible Campaigns Outperform General Appeals
Donors love being able to connect with something tangible when they are giving. Creating a clear goal that highlights specifically what giving impacts helps donors to get a sense of community, where their dollars are going, and how it will help your mission.
Campaigns like the 375 Campaign from Pure Water for All Foundation or the 1000 @ $100 campaign from praisefm, provide a clear ask, a tangible goal, and an easy call to action.
Take inspiration from things like GoFundMe Campaigns or Kiva to think about how donors give when they are motivated by specific needs. These types of asks appeal to both our practical and emotional sides, making them highly effective!
6. Optimize For User Experience
Whether it’s a volunteer form, the mobile version of your website, or your donation platform, the experience users have engaging with your online presence matters.
These types of fixes can help your organization better leverage the traffic and interest you are already getting to your site.
Clarity of your messaging is a big part of this as well. Can users tell exactly what your organization does within 5 seconds of coming to your website or landing page?
Here are a few things you can do today to ensure your website is creating a good experience:
Measure and Analyze: Using free tools like Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity can help you understand where users get stuck, get lost on the page, or fail to convert.
Do the 5 Second Comprehension Test: Give a test to someone who doesn’t know anything about your website by letting them look at your site for 5 or 10 seconds and then ask them what you do. If they can’t give you a clear answer, there’s still room for improvement!
Look at Page Speed Insights: This is another free tool that will help you increase the technical performance of your website. Slow-loading sites can frustrate users and cause them to leave the site quickly!
Audit the Mobile Version of your Website: Most organizations see 35-60% of their traffic on mobile, but when’s the last time you looked to see if all the formatting is correctly rendering, buttons are easy to click, and the menu is clear to users? These updates can ensure that mobile users are having the best experience using your site.
Clarify Calls to Action: Look through your site and eliminate places where buttons say “Learn More” or “Read More”; instead, replace this with more specific action language like “See our services,” “Support our Mission”, etc. These simple steps can help ensure that users clearly understand the next steps you are asking them to take.
Schedule Your Communication Plan: Understanding how often each person in your database gets communicated a certain message is a really important part of creating a positive user experience across your organization, ensuring that donors aren’t fatigued and also that messaging is consistent!
7. Build a Storytelling System
Most nonprofits have amazing, impactful, and joy-filled stories, but taking the time to share them can fall down the priority list. Our brains are hard-wired to understand and interpret stories. Storytelling helps connect the practical with the emotional - showcase the impact of your mission and vision.
Here are a few ways you can incorporate more storytelling into your strategies this year:
Capture Your Wins with Photos - Finding a trusted photographer that your team can rely on is really important; photos can ensure that your stories are easy to share on social media, your website, in impact reports, pitch decks, and more. And this doesn’t have to be expensive; if you don’t have a budget for a professional photographer, connect with a local high school or college and help someone build their portfolio!
Create a Process to Request Stories - One of the best ways to get new stories is just to ask! Create automations to follow up after appointments or meetings, send out requests for reviews, etc. Creating a landing page for stories can be another great way to encourage people to submit their celebrations! These can be an excellent way to make sure the best stories are captured and known!
Set Reminders to Create and Publish Stories - Don’t let too much time go by without stopping to celebrate (and capture) your best stories from the year. Set a team celebration meeting once a quarter to honor the wins of your team, your best client success stories, and to look at reviews. These places are the best ways to mine for the best stories that are just waiting to be told!
Find Regular Places to Include Stories - One of the best ways to ensure that you capture stories is to make places where you need them!
8. AI Isn't a Magic Fix — But You Can Use it Wisely
I’m sure you've seen, heard, and been advertised to about all the ways that AI is going to change your life and your workflow, but the truth is that AI isn’t good at everything. Many nonprofits are already turning to AI to try to create designs and complex topics. Something that it doesn’t excel at, and guess what, your viewers can tell. Instead of using AI like a fix-all, here are some ways that it can excel at helping you in your day-to-day:
Ideation and Brainstorming - If you are feeling stuck on what to post on social media, how to craft an email, or the name for your next event. Let AI help you get out of your rut. Think of it like another person at the brainstorming table!
Analyzing data - AI can spot trends better than most people. Try adding your data to your tool of choice and see what trends and insights it can help you find. Our one note is to just ensure that the data is anonymized to protect your donors!
Meeting summaries and board governance - AI-supported tools are commonly used for meeting minutes, document summaries, and preparation materials, improving governance efficiency and clarity.
Growing your nonprofit's impact in 2026 doesn't require doing everything at once; it requires doing the right things well.
Whether that's cleaning up your email database, building a giving path for your most loyal donors, or finally getting comfortable in front of a camera, small, consistent steps compound into real momentum over time.
The organizations that thrive this year won't be the ones with the biggest budgets; they'll be the ones with the clearest strategy and the discipline to follow through on it.
If you're ready to turn this checklist into a plan, Elevation would love to help you identify your priorities, build a roadmap, and start climbing toward your mission's next chapter.
