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Donor trust is the foundation of every sustainable fundraising program, and small nonprofits actually have a real advantage in building it. You know your donors by name, you can spot a returning gift the moment it comes in, and you can pick up the phone when something feels off, or to talk to a donor about changes before they are announced.

Kathy Powelson and I recently ran a webinar for a group of animal welfare fundraisers on how to grow donor trust inside a small organization. Kathy is the Executive Director of Paws for Hope Animal Foundation, where I’ve worked as their fundraising consultant for the last three years, and together we walked the group through five practices we’ve built and tested inside a charity that now raises over $600,000 a year from individual donors with a small team of two full time staff.

Here are the five strategies.

1. Be authentic in your donor communications

The single biggest driver of donor trust is being real with people, which means writing like a human, signing emails from an actual person, and letting donors see the messy parts of the work alongside the wins.

One month, Paws for Hope had already turned away 60 families asking for help by the middle of the month, and Kathy decided to record a quick video for Instagram Stories about it. No ask. Just an honest acknowledgement that they were overwhelmed, this was hard, and thank you to anyone who had given, because those gifts were the reason they could help anyone at all.

A donor messaged her on Instagram and asked what it would cost to fund those 60 families. The answer was about $60,000. He sent it.

That donation wasn’t the reason she made that video, the plan was simply to tell the truth about what the organization was dealing with.

A caution though. If every message you send says the same thing about being overwhelmed, people will tune out fast.

Authenticity isn’t the same as crisis mode, and if you work in animal welfare, you’re pretty much always short on funds and always stretched. Balance the honesty with wins, no matter how small. A petition signed, a foster pet placed in a new home, a clinic held for animals in need. Donors want to be part of good things happening, not just carry your worry.

2. Share your message consistently, not just when you need money

At Paws for Hope, we email our full email list every Wednesday. That surprises people. Most small charities send emails quarterly or once a month at most, and then wonder why donors forget who they are.

A few things we do in every email:

• Every email is signed by Kathy, with her photo and reply-to email.
• One story per email. One call to action, and usually a gentle one.
• Short paragraphs. Simple language. Contractions. No jargon.
• We choose photos where the animal is looking straight at the camera.
• We remind donors they’re part of a group of people who love animals and treat them as family.

When we share client stories, we’re careful. Our work supports low-income families, and many are dealing with violence, addiction, mental health struggles, or the loss of pet-friendly housing, and that reality is exactly what makes the impact of our program so profound in the first place.

Funding is never conditional on telling a story, and we ask permission every time we do share one. We use “mom” or “single dad” rather than names. If someone seems vulnerable, or is very young, we don’t ask at all. The story is only worth telling if it costs the person nothing.

For rescue orgs, one more note on storytelling: keep the focus on the animal, not the person who surrendered them, because we rarely know the full picture and villainizing former owners doesn’t help donors do the thing they actually want to do, which is help that pet.

3. Know your donors personally

This is where small nonprofits can actually outperform bigger ones. In a larger organization or team, the development team is often far removed from the executive director, but in a small charity, you can see every donation as it comes in and act on it the same day.

Kathy checks each donor’s history, makes sure they’ve been thanked recently, and notices when a giving pattern shifts. She’s had donors call her, and the moment they say their name, she knows who they are. Whether they’re giving $5 a month or $100,000, they get the same treatment.

When Paws for Hope changed a program a while ago, Kathy called larger dollar donors who were giving specifically to that program to walk them through the change and hear their feedback. 

That call cost nothing. Not calling would have cost a lot.

One habit worth borrowing from us: a short donor survey once a year with three or four questions.

The questions we ask are:

What made you give?

Which of our programs matters most to you?

What would you tell someone else who’s thinking about donating?

That third question is gold, because the answers become your donor content for upcoming messages, written by donors themselves, in their own words.

4. Segment your email list

If you’re going to email often, and you should, you have to segment. Nothing loses donor trust faster than asking someone for money the day after they gave.

At Paws for Hope, once someone gives to a campaign, they come out of the ask list for the rest of it. They still get campaign updates. They just don’t get asked again.

Monthly donors don’t get campaign asks either, because they already give every month, and asking them for more inside the same email flow tells them we haven’t noticed.

Segmentation also opens up two moves that work really well in a small org:

Matching pools built from your top donors. Instead of hunting for one big matching sponsor, ask ten donors to give their gift early as part of a match, pool the gifts, and announce the total as your matching amount for the campaign.

Those donors feel recognized, other donors give faster because a match is on the table, and you have the funds in the door before the campaign even launches.

A $5-a-month monthly giving campaign for newer or lower-income supporters. New subscribers, petition signers, and social followers who haven’t given yet get a specific ask: $5 a month, on a donation page that actually defaults to $5. The message meets them where they are without making assumptions about their capacity.

Paws for Hope now has around 270 monthly donors, from $5 a month all the way up to $1,100 a month, and every one of them matters.

5. Include every donor, regardless of gift size

The last one is a mindset. Treat every donor the same, regardless of gift size, because gift size doesn’t tell you much about a person’s capacity or their long-term value to the organization. The $10 donor might leave you a legacy gift. The $100 donor might come back at five figures. The client you helped last year might become a monthly donor this year. We’ve seen all three.

A few practical ways this shows up in the work:

• The same thank-you quality regardless of gift amount.
• Multiple channels, including direct mail with a QR code. Ours is made in Canva and mailed from my kitchen table twice a year, for the cost of postage and a small batch of branded sticky notes.
• Multiple ways to give: monthly, one-time, donor-advised funds, gifts of securities, and legacy gifts. Most small charities don’t mention donor-advised funds at all, but we do, and it’s brought in some of our largest gifts, including a donor who gave 2 five figure gifts followed by a 6 figure gift after hearing our story on the news and visiting our donation page that clearly indicated we were looking for gifts from Donor Advised Fund holders
• No assumptions about who can or can’t give.

What doesn’t work in small nonprofit fundraising (in our experience)

For honesty’s sake, a few things we’ve tried and dropped. In-person events (nobody came ). 50/50 raffles (people just wanted to donate directly). Fundraising campaigns for individual named pets rarely work either, because donors generally prefer to give to a program that helps many animals rather than one. QR codes tied to specific campaign landing pages haven’t done what we hoped either, because people scan, end up on the main site, and find their own way to the donation form, which is fine but makes tracking harder than it’s worth.

Frequently asked questions

How often should a small nonprofit email its donors?

More often than most small charities do. At Paws for Hope, we email the full list every Wednesday, and consistent contact is what builds recognition and trust over time. Anything under a 1% unsubscribe rate is considered healthy, and unsubscribes are part of keeping a clean list of people who actually want to hear from you.

What’s the fastest way to grow donor trust in a small nonprofit?

Sign your emails from a real person, respond when donors reply, and thank every donor regardless of gift size. Personal contact from the executive director or a named team member does more for donor trust than any polished campaign, and it’s something small charities can do that larger ones often can’t.

Should small nonprofits focus on grants or individual donors?

Both, but the mindset shift toward individual donors matters. Grants come with strings and often force you to shape programs around funding criteria, whereas individual donations give you the flexibility to do the work you set out to do. Grants alone rarely fund a sustainable animal welfare organization, especially in Canada, where animal welfare has far fewer grant options than social services.

How do I ask a small donor to give more?

Often, you don’t need to. Start people at $5 a month if that’s what fits, and treat them the same as any other donor, because many will increase their gift on their own over time as their connection to the organization grows. When you do run upgrade campaigns, segment carefully so you’re asking the right donors at the right moment.

What are donor-advised funds and why should a small charity care?

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) are charitable investment accounts donors use to give strategically over time, and most small charities never mention them at all. Just talking about DAFs in your regular communications signals to donors that you accept these gifts, which can unlock some of the largest donations you’ll ever receive.

About Groundwork Labs

Groundwork Labs is a nonprofit consulting practice co-founded by Sara Hoshooley and Kathy Powelson for small animal welfare organizations that want to grow their fundraising and capacity in a sustainable way.

The five strategies in this post are drawn directly from the work we’ve done together at Paws for Hope, and they’re the kind of thing we help other animal welfare charities put in place inside their own organizations.

If you’d like to talk, you can find us at groundworklabs.ca. 

Book a free 30-minute discovery call to discuss whether our services are right for your organization.