Nonprofits are currently facing several interconnected challenges. One-third of nonprofits experienced government funding disruptions in the first four to six months of 2025. Amid these lapses in funding, 77% of nonprofits have had an increase in demand for their programs and services. And at the same time, nearly two-thirds of nonprofit leaders have had difficulty filling staff vacancies in the past year.
These circumstances create the perfect storm of reduced resources and heightened community need, leaving nonprofits grappling with the question of how to do more with less. Fixing inefficiencies in the fundraising process can help you make the most of your resources and staff time. To help you with this endeavor, we’ll cover the following:
- What are fundraising inefficiencies?
- Why is it important to fix them?
- 5 Common Fundraising Inefficiencies
TL;DR
- Many nonprofits spend too much time and money on fundraising tasks that don’t actually bring in revenue, leading to burnout and wasted resources.
- Common inefficiencies include manual processes, siloed tools, duplicated data entry, and poor tracking of what works.
- When fundraising systems aren’t integrated, staff waste time on admin instead of strategy, and organizations misread donor patterns.
- Fixing inefficiencies means:
- Automating repetitive work (online giving, receipts, segmentation)
- Unifying data across systems so revenue sources are tracked centrally
- Analyzing what efforts drive real fundraising ROI
- Better processes increase revenue, reduce friction for donors, and free up staff to focus on growth rather than busy work.
- The point is to raise smarter with tools and workflows that scale without extra cost.
What are fundraising inefficiencies?
Fundraising inefficiencies are process bottlenecks that slow down parts of the fundraising process and prevent nonprofits from maximizing the funds they raise.
Why is it important to fix them?
Since nonprofits have limited resources and staff time, these inefficiencies limit the amount of time these organizations can spend on their missions. Additionally, fixing donor-facing fundraising efficiencies can help nonprofits garner more support and retain donors over time.
5 Common Fundraising Inefficiencies
1. Disconnected Systems
When you have different software solutions that don’t connect, you create data silos, meaning donor data can’t fully come together to help you make informed fundraising decisions.
How to Fix This Fundraising Inefficiency
- Adopt a single source of truth. Start by reevaluating your tech stack. If you don’t have a central platform for managing supporter data, look for a nonprofit CRM that will consolidate this information and help you analyze it more easily.
- Implement integrations. Connect your CRM to the other platforms you use through integrations. That way, data can easily flow between solutions and support stronger decision-making. For example, by connecting your CRM with your marketing software, you can import donor contact information and communication preferences to streamline your outreach efforts.
- Establish data governance. Keeping data clean and useful also requires human effort. Assign responsibilities for different data management tasks to team members. Then, create procedures for standardizing data entry formatting and auditing data quality.
2. Delayed Stewardship
Experts recommend thanking donors within 24 to 48 hours of receiving their contributions. If supporters don’t hear from you soon after they donate, they may feel unappreciated by your organization and discouraged from giving again.
How to Fix This Fundraising Inefficiency
- Automate immediate acknowledgment. Instead of rushing to send every donor a personalized thank-you message, prioritize efficiency by automating thank-you emails that send immediately after donors make a donation, along with a donation receipt. While you can follow up with more in-depth donor appreciation outreach later on, the initial touchpoint shows you care as soon as donors contribute.
- Develop a stewardship matrix. In addition to helping you customize your donor recognition strategy based on donors’ gift sizes, a stewardship matrix also saves time by providing an immediate next action for your team. Instead of brainstorming how to thank a major donor, for instance, you’ll know that you should call them within the week following their donation.
- Establish ongoing stewardship cadences. Automate email cadences that allow you to stay in touch with donors without thinking about it. For example, you may create a welcome email series that informs new donors about your cause and different ways they can get involved.
3. Online Donation Process Friction
Long, multi-page, non-mobile-optimized, or otherwise non-user-friendly donation forms can tire donors and deter them from following through with contributions. Alternatively, if you’re using a platform not well-suited for donation collection, like Venmo, you may have trouble reporting these contributions, protecting donor data, and staying compliant with the IRS.
How to Fix This Fundraising Inefficiency
- Use the right donation platform. Start by selecting software designed for securing donations, if you don’t already have one. The right platform will allow you to easily secure recurring donations as well as one-time gifts.
- Consolidate your donation form. Donors shouldn’t have to spend time scrolling through several pages just to give. Limit required fields to necessary information like name, contact information, and payment details to speed up the process. Try to keep your donation form to one page to encourage follow-through.
- Make it mobile-friendly. Considering 53% of nonprofit website traffic in 2024 came from mobile devices, your donation page should accommodate these users. Select a responsive design that automatically resizes to different device sizes, and make text and tap targets large enough to read and touch.
4. Over-Reliance on Manual Reporting
The days of spending hours pulling data from spreadsheets into reports are over—or at least they should be. This manual method takes way too much time, is prone to errors, and halts decision-making.
How to Fix This Fundraising Inefficiency
- Standardize key metrics. When you’re pulling manual reports, everyone may use different metrics and terms, which can make data analysis confusing. Get everyone on the same page by developing agreed-upon definitions for key terms, identifying top metrics to report on, and enforcing consistent reporting periods.
- Use automated reporting tools. Rely on your CRM and other software solutions to build reports for you. Team members can create custom templates using the key metrics you’ve identified and schedule reports, allowing them to spend time on more mission-critical tasks.
- Implement real-time dashboards. Dashboards that update in real-time allow you to get a sense of where your nonprofit’s performance stands at any given moment. Create dashboards for different team members so they have the data most relevant to their roles. For example, an executive dashboard may include higher-level metrics, such as donor retention rate, while marketing team members may focus more closely on fundraising email open and conversion rates.
5. Lack of Donor Segmentation
Trying to speak to your entire supporter base at once all the time can slow you down. How can you craft a single message that addresses all of their needs?
Without segmenting your supporters, it’s difficult to build deeper relationships with them. Segmented communications demonstrate your commitment to listening to your donor base and considering their preferences.
How to Fix This Fundraising Inefficiency
- Look for similarities. Scour your donor database to identify similarities between supporters. For example, you might find a cohort of avid social media followers, a group who lives near your nonprofit’s headquarters, or a stronghold of long-time donors who have supported your organization for over ten years.
- Group donors. Segment similar donors within your CRM so you can communicate with each group separately. Prioritize segments that directly support your goals. For example, Bloomerang Fundraising’s donor segmentation guide explains that “a nonprofit that runs a mentorship program may create a segment for former mentees to keep them involved in the organization and eventually ask them to become mentors. Meanwhile, a political advocacy organization may group donors based on the legislation they typically support.”
- Develop templates for each segment. While customizing your messages to each group may seem more time-consuming than sending general communications, you can create templates that jumpstart the process. For instance, you may develop fundraising appeal templates for mid-level and major donor segments and use dynamic fields to automatically input specific supporter information like names and suggested donation amounts.
If your organization has experienced recent hardship due to government funding disruptions, increased demand, or reduced staff capacity, you may feel helpless to resolve these issues. However, you can control your internal processes and make them more efficient. By tweaking your fundraising approach, you can save time and resources that allow you to better power your mission and collect funds for your cause.
