5 Tips for Asking for Donations on LinkedIn
Fundraising on LinkedIn can help your nonprofit reach a vast audience of potential donors. With more than 850 million members using the platform, there are endless opportunities to secure the support you need to bring your organization a step forward.
Posting fundraising content from your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page is a great place to start. But when you find a great prospect on LinkedIn, how can you approach them about making a donation?
Inspired by our guide The art of outreach: How to message potential donors on LinkedIn, here are five tips for asking for donations on LinkedIn.
1. Personalize your outreach using profile information
Before asking for donations on LinkedIn, spend a few minutes reviewing potential donors’ LinkedIn profiles. What’s the correct spelling of their name? Do they have a personal connection to your cause that you can highlight? Is there an impressive detail about their work that you could mention to flatter them? Small touches like this can make your LinkedIn fundraising messages feel warm, compelling, and personal.
2. Take note of details that may be important later
Some LinkedIn profile information won’t be relevant when you’re first reaching out, but it might be critical if you later set up a meeting or call with the potential donor. For example, if the prospect has chosen to include them, their pronouns will appear in parentheses next to their name. And if you see a small speaker icon at the top of their profile, you can click it to hear how their name is pronounced.
3. Leverage the Group Chat feature for warm introductions
If you share a mutual connection with a potential donor, asking for a warm introduction can help you get your foot in the door when you’re fundraising on LinkedIn. To make this request as easy as possible for your mutual connection, consider providing a template and asking them to use LinkedIn’s Group Chat feature. That way, all they have to do is start a new LinkedIn message, paste the templated message, and add your name and the name of your prospect in the “Type a name” field to get the conversation started.
4. Take advantage of InMail subject lines to grab attention
If you have a LinkedIn Premium account, or if your organization uses LinkedIn Recruiter or LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you’ll have a monthly allocation of InMails. These can be useful for fundraising on LinkedIn, allowing you to reach out to almost any potential donor directly. But did you know that you can add a subject line of up to 200 characters to your InMails? Include a compelling, personalized detail in your subject line to make your message stand out in a crowded inbox.
5. Build a library of LinkedIn fundraising templates
While personalization is important, drafting messages entirely from scratch can be time-consuming. To streamline your LinkedIn fundraising and stewardship efforts, create a library of customizable templates that you can easily pull from. Here’s an outreach template to get you started:
Hi [prospect’s name],
I saw on your LinkedIn profile that [reference their connection to your nonprofit’s cause]. Given your interest in [cause], I thought you might be interested in what we’re doing at [your nonprofit’s name].
At [your nonprofit’s name], we [briefly outline your nonprofit’s mission and Impact].
I’d love to set up time to chat about ways you could get involved with our organization, whether that’s making a donation or joining our board. Do you have time for a 20-minute call next week?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
[your name]
You can find four more LinkedIn fundraising templates — along with other tips to help with asking for donations on LinkedIn — by downloading The art of outreach: How to message potential donors on LinkedIn. Get your guide today.
