5 Tips to Harness Your Technology for Seamless Fundraising

From automating donor communications to simplifying online giving, the right technology makes a big difference in your organization’s ability to further its mission. But even the best tools won’t drive results on their own. It’s up to you to use your platforms to their fullest potential.

To take full advantage of your fundraising software, you need more than access—you need a strategy for using it well. In this guide, we’ll discuss five actionable tips for putting your systems to work so you can harness the power of technology to boost efficiency, increase revenue, and strengthen relationships, ultimately furthering your cause.

1. Audit Your Current Tech Stack

To get the most out of your software, you first need to know what solutions your nonprofit has and how they work together. Conduct a comprehensive audit of your organization’s current tech stack to uncover inefficiencies, redundant tools, and missed integration opportunities.

List each solution your team currently uses, how your team uses it, and what is and isn’t working well. Your list might include:

A CRM or donor database: How many team members use your constituent relationship management (CRM) platform, and what features do they find most valuable? Survey your staff to find out. You may discover your development team loves its segmentation and list-building features but hates having to manually input data from events.

Online fundraising software: Assess whether your online giving tools are meeting all of your organization’s needs and the expectations of today’s donors. For instance, do they support mobile payment methods like Venmo, Apple Pay, and Google Pay? Can donors easily check their matching gift eligibility when donating? Are donors able to make monthly gifts?

Marketing platforms: Make sure any email, text message, and social media marketing tools integrate with your CRM. You should be able to easily build out multi-channel marketing campaigns that auto-populate with individual donor data. Additionally, if new contacts subscribe to your newsletters and alerts, your CRM should automatically import that data.

Event management tools: Does your fundraising event platform support live, online, and hybrid events? What about specialized events like auctions or golf outings? If so, look at past event data and guest feedback to ensure your software is accessible, user-friendly, and successful at driving engagement.
Volunteer management software: Any volunteer management solutions you use should integrate with your CRM and, ideally, your event software. Verify that data flows seamlessly between all three systems so you get a full picture of supporters’ involvement.

As you conduct your audit, consult internal users across your teams (mainly development, finance, programs, and communications) to gather feedback. Evaluate each tool’s reliability, ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and how well it supports your strategic goals. Pay attention to any systems that are underused or disliked—these might signal training gaps or a poor fit for your nonprofit.

2. Create a Technology Roadmap

Next, use the insights from your audit to build a technology roadmap. This document outlines your organization’s plans for using, improving, and investing in new software for the next few years. It should include both short-term needs and a long-term vision for your nonprofit’s future technology usage.

For instance, what tech capabilities are mission-critical in the next 6-12 months? What solutions need to scale up in the next 2-3 years to grow your fundraising capacity? Are there any platforms you want to move away from?

Discuss each of these questions with leadership and start creating a path forward. Your roadmap should address:

Specific technology pain points to solve
Tech investments to make in order of priority
Timelines for research, selection, and implementation of new software
Cost projections, including subscriptions, training, and migration
Integration needs and plans
Your approach to emerging technologies, like AI
Strategic priorities to keep in mind when making decisions

Creating and revisiting this roadmap helps you stay on track and ensures your tech strategy remains aligned with your organization’s evolving needs.

For instance, say you discovered in your audit that your online fundraising software isn’t meeting your donor engagement needs. In your roadmap, outline the process for choosing, implementing, and integrating a new peer-to-peer fundraising platform with your other systems.

3. Optimize Online Giving Pages

According to OneCause, your nonprofit’s fundraising pages should “tell the story of your campaign, build trust, connect donors with your mission, and offer them a frictionless online giving experience.” Your tech solutions should facilitate this, but it’s ultimately up to you to harness your platform’s capabilities to optimize your online donation pages.

To offer donors the best experience, consider ways to improve how your organization handles:

Mobile-responsive donation forms: Streamline your forms as much as possible so donors can give quickly, even when they’re on the go. Limit fields so supporters only have to provide basic information like their name, contact details, and donation amount.

Suggested giving amounts: Make donation tiers stand out by adding tangible impact information for each one. For example, you might say that a $100 donation funds 20 meal kits for families facing food insecurity.
Photos and donation page copy: Choose any images you use carefully and compress file sizes so they don’t slow down your page’s load time. Keep the text on your donation page concise and compelling—the embedded form should be the main focus!

Make sure you’re using any integrations effectively, too. For instance, if you embed a matching gift tool on your donation page, provide clear information that explains why donors should check their eligibility using the tool and request a match.

4. Leverage Analytics for Smarter Decisions

Your technology provides you with plenty of useful data, but how you use that data matters. The most successful nonprofit teams have defined data strategies that guide their decision-making.

Outline how you’ll use your fundraising platforms’ dashboards and analytics features to go beyond basic reports. Set clear key performance indicators (KPIs) and plan how regularly you’ll track performance against them.

Effective analytics allow your team to identify trends early and course-correct mid-campaign. For example, if donor retention is dropping, your strategy might be to analyze which segments are lapsing and test new outreach and stewardship tactics. Data also empowers you to have more honest, productive conversations with leadership, helping them allocate resources effectively.

5. Revisit Your Data Governance and Hygiene Practices

As your organization collects more data—names, addresses, giving history, payment details—data hygiene and protection become increasingly important. Cybersecurity breaches pose legal and financial risks and can damage trust with supporters. Additionally, using inaccurate or outdated information can hurt your communications and fundraising success.

To improve data governance and hygiene, start by assessing your current security measures. Are donor records encrypted? Does your staff use strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication? Is access to sensitive data limited by user roles?

Verify that each of your platforms comes with built-in compliance support and transparent data handling protocols. Then, conduct regular security audits and train staff to follow more secure data practices. Any time you want to purchase new technology, consider how secure it is and which staff members will need access.

By following these tips to maximize fundraising technology usage, you can empower your team to work smarter and ultimately do more for your mission. Even as your needs shift and new technology trends emerge, you’ll have a firm foundation to stand on and a plan for reacting appropriately.