Wiland Blog

Nonprofit Fundraising: The 9 Biggest Challenges of 2025

Unlock actionable insights and innovative solutions to overcome the top nonprofit fundraising challenges of 2025 and maximize your impact.

By Wiland Editorial Team | January 22, 2025

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“The future of nonprofit fundraising lies in smarter strategies and better data—helping organizations do more with less while building stronger donor relationships.”

5. Understanding Share of Charitable Wallet

Knowing where your organization stands in a donor’s overall charitable priorities is critical for cultivating loyalty and increasing giving.

The Opportunity:

Insights into a donor’s broader giving patterns and priorities give fundraisers opportunities to deepen relationships and identify the potential for increased giving.

The Solution:

Share of charitable wallet data empowers nonprofits to see how their donors prioritize them compared to other organizations, enabling tailored engagement strategies that foster long-term loyalty.

6. Growing Monthly Sustainer Programs

Monthly giving programs provide reliable revenue streams, yet many organizations struggle to identify which donors will most likely commit to recurring donations.

The Opportunity:

Targeting all donors for sustainer campaigns is inefficient and can dilute resources. With the right tools, nonprofits can identify and inspire donors most likely to commit to monthly giving, building sustainable revenue streams.

The Solution:

Predictive modeling built on vast second- and third-party transactional data identifies donors with a high likelihood of becoming monthly sustainers, allowing nonprofits to focus on cultivating these valuable relationships.

7. Personalizing the ask

Knowing how much to ask for is both an art and a science. Asking for too little leaves money on the table, while asking for too much risks alienating donors.

The Opportunity:

Making better ask strings that are tailored to a donor’s giving patterns maximize giving potential while nurturing donor satisfaction and retention.

The Solution:

Data-driven optimal ask string strategies use transactional data to suggest personalized ask amounts, maximizing giving potential while maintaining donor retention.

8. Cultivating Major and Mid-Level Donors

Major donor programs often rely on wealth screening tools that focus on net worth but fail to consider philanthropic behavior.

The Opportunity:

What if fundraisers could learn more about prospects’ total philanthropic behavior? Net worth matters but doesn’t tell the whole story.

The Solution:

Donor predictive modeling incorporating transactional data provides deeper insights into donor motivations, helping organizations identify and cultivate donors with the most significant potential to make transformational gifts based on existing philanthropic behavior

9. Planned Giving Potential

A planned gift represents the largest gift most donors will ever make, yet many nonprofits struggle to identify and engage the right prospects.

The Opportunity:

Cultivating the right planned giving prospects for years with predictive insights can improve program efficiency and maximize these valuable, loyal donor relationships.

The Solution:

Behavioral data analysis identifies donors most likely to include your organization in their estate plans, allowing planned giving officers to prioritize their outreach and build meaningful relationships.

2025: The Year of Smarter Fundraising

Data-driven fundraising is not a new idea, but fundraising in 2025 demands better and more specialized strategies than ever before. Organizations can overcome challenges and maximize their impact by leveraging tools like donor data analytics, predictive modeling, and cooperative databases for nonprofits.

Success lies in selecting tools that are actionable, cost-effective, and tailored to your unique needs. By focusing on smarter strategies and better data, nonprofits can navigate 2025’s challenges and thrive in a competitive philanthropic landscape.

Ready to tackle 2025’s fundraising challenges with confidence? Discover how GivingSignalsTM by Wiland can provide the actionable insights your nonprofit needs to grow donor engagement, optimize fundraising strategies, and achieve lasting success. Contact us to learn more and take the first step toward smarter, data-driven fundraising.

 

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