Your Fundraising Toolbox: Six Strategies to Diversify Your Nonprofit Revenue

We hear “diversify your nonprofit revenue” all the time. But nobody really breaks down what that looks like when you’re the one holding the work together day to day.

So let’s make it plain. If you’re building a fundraising strategy right now, these are some of the pieces worth putting in place.

Start with your foundation.

Before you add anything new, make sure your basics are solid. You need a donor system you actually use, not one that just sits there. You need someone who owns development, even if it’s one part of their role. And you need a clear case for support that sounds like you, not like what you think funders want to hear. Everything else rests on that.

None of this has to be expensive or elaborate. But it has to exist before the strategies below will hold.

Build relationships with individual donors early.

Don’t wait until you need money to start reaching out. The people already around you, your volunteers, your program folks, your community, that’s your first circle. Stay in touch, reach out personally, and make it easy for people to give consistently. This may look like sending a monthly or quarterly email that shares a story, making three to five personal calls or messages a month to donors or prospects, or creating a recurring giving option and actively promoting it.

Monthly donors may not feel big in the moment, but they bring in more and give you something grants rarely do: stability.

Look at your community as part of your donor base.

The people closest to the work are supporters when given the opportunity. Community-based fundraising, small campaigns, events that bring people together and invite them to give, all of that builds a base that is rooted in the same place as your mission.

A wide base of smaller gifts is harder to lose all at once, and it shows larger funders that people believe in what you’re doing.

Be intentional about how you approach grants.

More applications don’t mean better results. Focus on the ones that actually align with your work, especially funders who offer multi-year or general operating support. Take the time to build relationships where you can, and keep track of your pipeline so you’re not starting from scratch every time.

Think about corporate partnerships differently.

The best ones focus on alignment. Local and mid-size businesses that are part of your community are often looking for ways to show up in a real way. Start there. Be clear about what you bring to the table and build from that.

Start local and specific. A partnership with three or four businesses that are genuinely rooted in your community will generate more value than a generic corporate sponsorship pitch sent to a hundred companies.

And when it comes to earned income, follow what’s already happening.

Earned income gets promoted as a sustainability strategy, but it is worth being honest: it works best for organizations that already have the capacity to deliver a service beyond their direct community programs and where the service is genuinely connected to their expertise.

For Black-led organizations, the most natural earned income opportunities are often things you are already doing informally: training, consulting, technical assistance, facilitation, and curriculum development. If other organizations or institutions are coming to you for knowledge, you can formalize and charge for that.

The rule of thumb: only pursue earned income where the work aligns with your mission, where you have or can build the capacity to deliver it well, and where the revenue generated justifies the staff time required to pursue it.

Every strategy on this list to diversify your nonprofit revenue works better when it is connected to a clear organizational identity — who you are, who you serve, and what you uniquely offer.

That clarity is a fundraising asset. Donors, funders, and partners invest in organizations they understand and trust.

So, build outward from your community. Cultivate relationships before you need them. And invest in the infrastructure that makes all of it sustainable over time.