How Nonprofits Can Prepare for Disaster Fundraising

Many nonprofits never think they’ll need to respond to their donors in emergency situations, until disaster suddenly strikes. This became a reality for many nonprofits over the past couple of weeks with Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Over the years, we’ve compiled a list of best practices for our clients to prepare for these unanticipated events. Here’s what you need to know to plan for the future — because we never know when or where the next emergency might happen.

As FEMA states on their website: “Being prepared can reduce fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany disasters.” The same holds true for any nonprofit organization that needs to launch into digital fundraising action within hours. Are you ready? How do you pull it off successfully? Organizations can prepare a cohesive plan of action to be implemented as disaster events unfold. Digital fundraising tactics can be quick to market. The whole process can be swift and smooth. 

Here are 5 ways nonprofits can prepare for disasters:

1. Plan the “Plan.”
   In order to move as quickly as possible during a disaster, the steps, protocols, and communication of the plan need to be carefully mapped out and tested in advance. From an operations perspective, the production and decision process needs to be as streamlined as possible to deliver finished materials at lightning speed. The elements of the emergency campaign should be carefully plotted with strategic latitude for unknown variables to the specific disaster itself.
2. Communicate.
   Having “too many cooks in the kitchen” can deter any simple process. The same notion holds true for your disaster fundraising program. Too many people involved will slow you down or may even stop progress in its tracks. Choose one point person with decision making abilities, and designate this individual the “master delegator of communications and strategy” to both internal and external stakeholders. This individual should have the authority to make the necessary, quick strategic decisions needed for success.   
3. To-Go Creative.
   Templatized creative assets, such as branded donation pages, emails, social media posts/ads, and search campaigns, can all be prepared in advance with a basic framework created to save valuable production time — during the disaster. Use branded elements and boiler plate text for your templates, and leave variable text and image space available to be customized to the disaster situation. Having digital assets produced to an 80 percent completion state will make your organization’s response time unmatched. Simplify the call-to-action (CTA) to be one very specific action that you wish the user to take. Make donating as easy as possible, within two clicks or less. Don’t forget to have confirmation and thank you auto-responder landing pages and/or emails ready to trigger. You’ll want to solidify the future relationship with these disaster donors.   
4. Prep the Execution and Production Team.
   One of the most important things to do when preparing your execution and production team for emergency situations is to practice and rehearse. Just as a coach prepares athletes with playbooks, practice, and motivation, make sure that the execution team knows what their assigned task and responsibility is. This will save potential bottleneck issues that arise mid-stream during the disaster. Encourage the team to remain calm. Many of the world’s greatest achievers, including entrepreneurs and athletes, could not have reached their level of success without learning how to stay extremely calm under pressure.
5. Around-the-Clock Support.
   Once the disaster fundraising campaign is deployed, the execution team should be on call for troubleshooting, on-going updates, and reporting on the fundraising results. A good execution team will be coordinated and available to act during times of disaster — this may mean three shifts of support over the course of the disaster.

During a disaster, at a time when we need to be strategic and thoughtful, we instinctively become panic-stricken. Being prepared, staying focused, and having a plan that has been internalized will automatically lower stress and chaos levels in emergency situations. The more organized your digital disaster fundraising plan is, the more likely your organization can immediately put those donations to work helping in the disaster.