On a small budget, make 5 moves: claim the free programs (Google for Nonprofits with its Ad Grant of up to $10,000 a month, plus Canva), send one donor email a month, thank first-time donors within 2 days, give volunteers one clear ask, and team up with one local partner. Most cost only time.
If you’re the executive director who also writes the newsletter and remembers where the event tablecloths are, we see you. And this is for you. You don’t need a bigger budget to start. You need to stop spreading thin hours across 10 channels and put them into the few that pay you back.
What’s the cheapest way to market a small nonprofit?
Keep the people who already gave, then find more like them. That’s cheaper than any ad. And the numbers say it’s exactly where the pressure is.
Giving overall is up. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project found dollars raised grew 5.0% in 2025 while the number of donors fell 3.6%, a slide that started in 2021. Most of the growth came from major gifts. Individuals still give the most: Giving USA reports $394.2 billion from individuals in 2025, 64% of all US giving.
Put plainly, there’s money out there... spread across fewer people. A community-sized nonprofit can’t outspend anyone for attention. But it can out-care them. Every move below is built on that.
Which free programs should you sign up for first?
Start with Google for Nonprofits. It’s the door to 3 things at once.
The first is Google Workspace for Nonprofits at $0 per user, which gets everyone an email address at your own domain. That sounds small. In our book, it isn’t. jane@yourcause.org looks like an organization, a personal Gmail looks like a side project, and when a staffer leaves, the account stays with you.
The second is the Ad Grant: up to $10,000 a month in Google Search ads for qualifying nonprofits. It comes with rules, chiefly a 5% click-through minimum, and Getting Attention reports that most self-managed accounts leave almost all of it unspent. We wrote a whole guide on how the Ad Grant works and what gets accounts suspended, so we won’t repeat it here. The short version: apply, build the account to the rules, and point it at your volunteer page first.
Then design. Canva gives registered nonprofits its Pro features free for up to 50 users, templates and brand kit included. Set up your logo and colors once, and every flyer a volunteer makes looks like it came from the same place.
Last, register with TechSoup, which offers zero-cost memberships and gathers donated and discounted software from Microsoft, Adobe, and others. You may not need anything there today. You’ll be glad the verification is done when you do.
How much time do the 5 moves take?
Here’s the whole plan on 1 screen. The hours are our estimates for a small team doing this for the first time.
| Move | Cost | Time per month | What it gets you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free programs | $0 | A few hours once, then 2–4 for the Ad Grant | Real email addresses, free design, and up to $10,000 a month in search ads |
| Monthly donor email | Free to low-cost, depending on your email tool and list size | 3–4 hours | Your most dependable online gifts, from people who already know you |
| Fast thank-yous | $0, plus stamps | 1–2 hours | More first-time donors who give a second time |
| One volunteer ask | $0 | 2 hours | Help with the work, and people who tell their friends about you |
| One local partner | $0 | 2 hours | A new audience that already trusts the person introducing you |
That’s roughly 10 to 15 hours a month, and almost no cash. Don’t get us wrong, ads have their place. But we’d take those hours over a $500 boost budget any day.
Is email still worth it for a small nonprofit?
Yes. Hot take: it’s the best return on an hour you’ll find.
M+R’s annual benchmark study found nonprofits raised an average of $2.40 per email subscriber in 2025, and $54 for every 1,000 fundraising emails sent. Email accounted for 11% of all online revenue. M+R’s participants lean toward larger national groups, so treat those numbers as direction, not a promise. Still, the math holds at any size. A list of 800 people is worth real money every year, and it costs you a few hours a month.
Keep it simple. 1 email a month. 1 story about 1 person your work helped. 1 ask at the end. Every few months, make that ask something other than money: come to the open house, or sign up for a Saturday shift. People who only hear from you when you need cash stop opening.
So here’s our contrarian take: a small nonprofit should build its email list before it posts on social media every day. Social posts reach whoever the platform decides. Your list is yours. One thing to do this week? Put a sign-up form on your homepage and at your next event.
Why does the second gift matter more than the first?
Because most first gifts are also the last. The same Fundraising Effectiveness Project data puts overall donor retention at 43.3% in 2025, with new-donor retention flat. More than half of last year’s donors won’t give again. Finding a replacement costs far more than keeping the person you already have.
So build a thank-you routine and stick to it:
- Send a personal email within 2 days of a first gift. Name the gift and say what it does, in one sentence.
- Have a board member call or text the donor that week. Not to ask. Only to say thanks.
- Around 30 days later, send a short update showing the gift at work. A photo and 3 sentences are plenty.
- Ask again only after that, and make the second ask smaller and specific.
Is it glamorous? No. But it’s the closest thing to free money in nonprofit work.
Where do volunteers fit in your marketing?
Right at the center. A volunteer who had a good Saturday tells more people about you than any post ever will.
There are plenty of them to find. The Census Bureau and AmeriCorps report that 28.3% of Americans 16 and older, over 75.7 million people, volunteered through an organization between September 2022 and September 2023. Most small nonprofits don’t lack willing people. They lack a clear ask.
“We always need help” isn’t an ask. “We need 4 people on Saturday, 9 to noon, sorting the food pantry’s fall drive” is. Put that on one page of your site with a sign-up form. Point your Ad Grant at it. Then follow up after the shift with a thank-you and the next date, the same way you would with a donor. Volunteers often become donors, and they arrive already knowing what you do.
How do local partnerships help a nonprofit on a tight budget?
They borrow trust you haven’t built yet. When a neighborhood association, a branch of the Indianapolis Public Library, or a coffee shop on Mass Ave introduces you to its people, you skip the “who are you?” step.
Pick 1 partner a quarter, not 10. Good matches already serve the people you serve or share your volunteers’ values. Then offer something concrete, like a co-hosted drive or a line in each other’s newsletters. Local businesses often say yes to a round-up-at-the-register month, and their staff become volunteers.
If paying for outside help ever becomes the question, look at capacity money before your operating budget. In central Indiana, United Way of Central Indiana’s Capacity Fund provides up to $50,000 against a clearly stated business case. Check whether your organization qualifies before you plan around it.
What should you skip when money is tight?
A new logo. A brand-new donor database. Boosted posts with no plan behind them. Daily posting on four platforms.
Don’t get us wrong, none of those are bad forever. They’re just bad first. A rebrand won’t fix an email nobody sends, and a new database won’t fix a thank-you nobody writes. We tell almost every small nonprofit the same thing: fix your donor list before you touch your logo.
Turn these 5 moves into a 90-day plan
Our free 90-Day Plan Starter walks you through your next 3 months of outreach in a few minutes, from who you’re reaching to what you’re asking for each week. No email, no login.
When does it make sense to pay for help?
When the 5 moves are running and you’ve hit the ceiling on hours, or when nobody on your team owns them at all. A common sign: the Ad Grant has been sitting untouched for months, or the newsletter goes out “when someone has time.”
That’s the work we do on our nonprofit page: one donor list everyone trusts, stories people understand, and numbers your board can read. A good first step costs nothing. Our free Ad Grant checkup tells you whether you’re eligible and what the account actually spent last month.
On price, plainly: nonprofits get a reduced version of our published retainers, which are $1,200, $2,400, or $4,800 a month. You’ll hear the exact number on the discovery call. 3 months minimum, then month to month, and we take 8 clients at a time.
What else do nonprofits ask about marketing on a budget?
How much should a small nonprofit spend on marketing?
Honestly, there’s no percentage we’d defend for every organization. Budget time before money: about 10 to 15 hours a month covers the 5 moves on this page. Spend cash only once those are running and you can see which one brings in donors or volunteers.
Do we need 501(c)(3) status to get these free programs?
For most of them, yes. Google for Nonprofits and Canva Nonprofits both ask for a registered charity, which in the US usually means a 501(c)(3). Canva excludes most other 501(c) types, and Google excludes government entities, hospitals, and schools. Check each program’s rules before you apply.
Is social media worth it for a small nonprofit?
As a place to show the work, yes. As your main fundraising channel, usually not. Post when something real happens, like a volunteer day or a family you helped, and put the hours you save into email, where your donors already said yes to hearing from you.
Can a volunteer run our marketing?
A volunteer can run a piece of it well, like the monthly email or photos at events. Running all of it is a lot to hand someone unpaid. Keep the logins in an organization account, write down how each task works, and have a staff member own the plan.
What does Carson Poore Consulting charge nonprofits?
Nonprofits get a reduced version of our published retainers, which are $1,200, $2,400, or $4,800 a month. You’ll hear the exact number on the discovery call, before anyone writes a proposal. Same terms as every client: 3 months minimum, then month to month. The Ad Grant checkup is free.