Fundraising guides

A plain guide to taking donations on your own website: platform-hosted pages vs. an embedded widget vs. a hosted page, what you need, and the trade-offs.

What Stripe charges on a donation (2.9% + 30¢), how payouts work, what donation platforms add on top, and how to read the fee on your Stripe dashboard.

Short answer: no, you can accept money online as an individual. But there's a real difference between a gift and a tax-deductible donation — here's what to know.

What's the difference between a donation button, an embedded widget, and a hosted page? A plain comparison of each, with the pros, cons, and which site fits which.

A no-code guide to adding a donate button or widget to your site: how the embed snippet works, where it goes on common builders, and the hosted-page fallback.

A practical guide to asking for donations online: where to put the ask, what to say, how specific to be, and the mistakes that quietly cost you gifts.

A structure for writing donation appeals that convert: lead with one person, name the specific need, make the ask concrete, and close with what happens next.

How to thank donors well: timing, channel, and what to say. A good thank-you is the cheapest, highest-return fundraising you can do.

Why donor retention beats chasing new donors, the second-gift problem, and the simple habits that keep supporters giving — a plain-language primer.

A plain-language primer on keeping clean records of online donations: what to track, reconciling with your processor, and when to get a professional.

A plain guide to launching recurring donations: why monthly giving matters, how to ask for it, what to set up, and how to keep monthly donors for the long run.

A practical guide to year-end fundraising: why December matters, a simple six-week timeline, what to say, and how to make giving easy when the rush arrives.

What matching gifts are, the difference between employer matching and a match campaign, and how to run a simple match that motivates donors — in plain language.

A practical guide to donation pages that convert: cutting friction, suggested amounts, trust signals, mobile, and keeping the gift on your own site.

A plain guide to getting your donation page seen: email, your site, social, and your newsletter — where the link goes and how to ask without nagging.

What grant writing actually is, the parts of a basic grant application, how funders choose, and the honest limits of what one grant — or one tool — can do for you.

What donor stewardship actually means, the simple post-gift steps that matter, and how to keep supporters without a CRM or a big team.

What donor segmentation is, the simple cuts that matter most for small organizations, and how to do it with a spreadsheet — no CRM required.

What an annual report is for, the few sections that matter most, and how to produce one as a small nonprofit without a designer or a big budget.

What social media can and can't do for fundraising, the few practices that move money, and how to use platforms without making them the bottleneck.