Arizona Nonprofits: Get on PayPal Giving Fund Now, and Take Our Free Fundraising Guide

We just put out something I have wanted to write for a long time. It is a free fundraising guide for small nonprofits, it is a real PDF, and there is no email gate on it. You click the button and it downloads. Grab it here on our Non-Profits page.

Before I get into why I made it, a quick word on who we are, because a lot of people only know us from one thing we did for them.

What we actually do all day

Phoenix AZ Ad Agency is a full shop. We build websites and set up business email. We do search engine optimization and local search, which means getting you found in the map results when somebody in your zip code is looking for what you offer. We run Google Ads and Facebook ads. We shoot video, including licensed drone work. We do branding, logos, print, billboards, and directory cleanup so your name and address match everywhere on the internet. And we build AI tools that do real work instead of just sounding clever.

Most of our clients are contractors, home service companies, restaurants and local shops. That is the business that pays the bills.

The nonprofit side is the part I care about

I sit on boards. I have served as Executive Director of the Greater Phoenix Scooter Club, Inc. and as Chief Technology Officer for All Things for the Kingdom, Inc. I am the technology advisor for Struggle University and a founder of the Midtown Business Alliance. Our whole Non-Profits page lists it out.

The work itself is mostly donated or traded. We built and host the Copper King Elementary career day site at CopperKingLeadsTheWay.org for free. We built dvhsfootball.com for the Desert Vista Football Booster Club, and we are a platinum sponsor of the program. We built the website and the donation setup for All Things for the Kingdom, Inc. We do the branding, event promotion and social content for the Greater Phoenix Scooter Club, Inc. In most of those cases the trade was simple. We cover the design and the build, and the organization credits Phoenix AZ Ad Agency where the work shows up. That is the whole arrangement. No invoice, no retainer, just our name on something we are proud of.

Those banners you drive past on Central Avenue through Midtown are ours. We designed the artwork for the Midtown Neighborhood Association banner project, coordinated placement with the association and the city, and donated the design and the production management. Pole after pole up and down the corridor is carrying a piece we drew. It is the most public thing this agency has ever given away, and nobody paid a dime for it.

Wands at the Science Center and dirt under our fingernails

Not all of it is websites. The Arizona Science Center recently ran their Science With a Twist gala with a Hogwarts theme, and we donated magic wands for the staff and for the auction. Our whole crew showed up in robes and house ties for it. Good night, good institution, and the wands went home with people who know where they came from.

We also put in volunteer hours at the People's Garden, which is exactly what it sounds like. Wheelbarrows, pruning, hauling brush, clearing beds so people in the neighborhood can grow food. Some of what you do for a community does not need a deliverable.

Here is the pattern I see over and over. A small nonprofit has a mission, a couple of exhausted staff, and a board of volunteers. They know how to do the work. Nobody in the building has ever run a real fundraising campaign, and the one they run every December is a Facebook post that says "please donate" with a link to a form nobody finishes.

That is a solvable problem, and it does not require money. It requires a plan. So I wrote the plan down.

What is in the guide

It is a full playbook built around a worked example of a $75,000 campaign. Fifteen pages, no fluff:

You can hand it to a volunteer and they can run with it.

Now the part I want every Arizona nonprofit to read twice

Section seven of that guide is about PayPal Giving Fund and the Meta fundraising tools, and it is the single highest leverage thing most small nonprofits are not doing.

Here is how it works. Since October 2023, Meta partners exclusively with PayPal Giving Fund for nonprofit donations on Facebook and Instagram 1. PayPal Giving Fund is a registered 501(c)(3) and a donor advised fund, and it works with eBay, Meta, GoFundMe, Twitch and others to pass donations through to the charity the donor picks 3. So if you want a donate button on your Facebook page, or you want your supporters to be able to run birthday fundraisers for you, PayPal Giving Fund enrollment is the door you have to walk through first. There is no way around it.

To get in you need to be a registered 501(c)(3) public charity in good standing, and Meta has its own eligibility and verification requirements on top of that, including proving you are authorized to represent the organization 4. None of it is hard. All of it takes time. Bank verification, document review, and back and forth on details take weeks, not hours.

One more thing worth knowing. Meta has been changing payout rules and regional availability for charitable giving, and their own help pages carry notices about it 2. Do not assume the setup somebody told you about two years ago still works the same way. Check the current terms when you enroll.

Why this matters more than another donate form

When somebody clicks donate on a Facebook fundraiser, they never leave the app. No new tab, no credit card form on a page they do not trust, no eleven fields. That drop off between "I want to give" and "I finished giving" is where most small nonprofit money dies.

The bigger win is the supporter fundraiser. Once you are enrolled, your donors can raise money for you on their own. Somebody has a birthday, they pick your organization, and their entire friend list sees your mission from a person they trust instead of from an ad. That is reach you cannot buy, and it costs you nothing but the setup.

Start now, not in November

Every year I watch nonprofits decide in mid November that they are going to run a year end campaign, and then discover that the enrollment they need will not clear before December 31. Then they spend Giving Tuesday posting a link to a form.

Do this instead. Get your PayPal Giving Fund enrollment started this month. Get the Meta application in behind it. While you are waiting, get your donate button placement decided, write the campaign story, and shoot the three videos. Then run one small test campaign, something modest, before you put your real goal on the table. You want to know your tools work while the stakes are low.

If your organization is in Arizona and you need help doing any of that, ask us. We help nonprofits at no cost or at cost depending on the scope, and we will tell you honestly which one you are before we start. Send us a note here and we will get on a call.

Who we help, said plainly

I want to be direct about this, because people ask and then dance around it.

You do not have to be a Christian organization for us to help you. But you do have to be working on a real problem for real people. Poverty, hunger, housing, youth programs, foster kids, recovery, veterans, education, second chances. Something for humanity.

I am not going to dog on anybody else's charity. If a cause matters to you, it matters. It is just not what we are here for. We are not the shop that gets shoes for dogs, and we are not interested in the way wealthy people use foundations to move art back and forth between each other and call it giving.

We work for human need. People with less than. If that is your organization, we are on your side, and the guide is yours.

Get the guide

The PDF is free, there is no form, and you can share it with any nonprofit you want. Download the Phoenix AZ Ad Agency Nonprofit Fundraising Guide.

If you would rather talk it through with a human, book a call with us. Bring your goal number and your donor list size and we will tell you in twenty minutes whether it is realistic and what it would take.