You work hard to raise awareness for your cause, reach new donors, and solicit support for your fundraising campaigns. But how does a donor’s decision to make a gift translate into money in your organization’s account? That’s where payment processing and your donation tools come in.

Just like other organizations, nonprofits rely on a steady flow of revenue to keep up their operations. You almost certainly already use online donation tools of some kind, and nonprofit payment processing is essential for converting that online support into real revenue.

Online credit card processing is a huge part of our lives these days, so as consumers and donors, it can be easy for us to take it for granted. However, as a fundraising professional, you should be asking yourself (and ideally be able to answer) questions like:

• How does nonprofit payment processing work? Why is it important?
• Are there different types of processors?
• How are recurring donations processed online?
• What if I need to switch my payment processor?

One of the most critical factors in fundraising is the wording you use to ask for donations. Whether you are crafting an email to potential donors, a social media post, an invitation, or the donation page for your website, your wording impacts the outcome.

How you ask is just as important as who you ask to support your organization. As Hamza Yusuf said, "Don't ever diminish the power of words. Words move hearts, and hearts move limbs."

It comes down to this: you need strategy and the right words to inspire your partners to donate. Here are five easy ways to boost your wording when asking for donations.

Every nonprofit depends on development professionals to bring in the funds needed to accomplish the mission. Each development professional has a slightly different approach to fundraising that fits their strengths, but there are some basic qualities and skills that every fundraiser should possess. Here are four skill sets every development professional must have to be an effective fundraiser.

Email is one of the most convenient and cost-effective means of communicating with current and potential donors. It allows you to clearly communicate your vision, strategy, and needs with numerous people and invite them to donate to your cause.

As a general rule, you should be using email for more than just asking for donations. Your donors want to receive stories and regular updates because they care about your work! In this blog, we will focus on how to ask for donations in an email, and specifically, choosing the best wording to ask for donations for your organization.

Requesting donations in an email is both an art and a science. People’s inboxes are peppered with messages from great organizations asking for support for worthy causes. It’s important to write emails that stand out, deliver unique information, and make compelling requests.

Online fundraising and digital toolkits are essential components of any modern nonprofit’s operations. If your organization is just getting started, or if you’re looking for ways to make improve your existing set of tools, you’ll want to focus on nonprofit fundraising software.

This is a fairly broad category, including both the tools that donors will directly engage with online in order to make donations and the underlying software that will support your strategies behind the scenes.

We’ve selected a few top nonprofit fundraising software solutions that span a variety of core functions: