- Publish a ‘Gifts Catalogue’, listing all the goods
and services that you would like to have donated to your cause. Either mail it to
corporations and individual donors or ask a newspaper to run it as a page of donated
advertising.
- Construct an ‘Extended Budget’ for your organization that includes the value
of the donated volunteer time that is given your agency. Use this budget to demonstrate to
funders that you have valuable community support that is ‘matching’ their
donation of cash.
- Build a fundraising solicitation team composed of three types of expertise: a staff
member to answer technical questions and to appeal to the logic of the funder; a board
member to demonstrate community support and to appeal to the political needs of the
funder; and a service volunteer to demonstrate the actual work of the program and to
appeal to the emotions of the funder.
- Investigate ‘negative fundraising.’ Explore all the ways that you can save
money, either by reducing your expenses by getting direct donations of goods and services
or by engaging in cost-sharing purchasing arrangements.
- Think of fundraising as a long-term effort. Begin now to establish a ‘donor
listing’ that will form the base of your solicitation market in years to come. Keep
listings of all your clients, all attendees at special events, and all others who come
into favorable contact with your organization.
- Never plan a special event at which you are trying to raise money that does not
piggyback several potential sources of revenue. Do not try to make money off the initial
ticket price along, because there is a direct conflict between the size of the potential
attending audience and the cost of the ticket.
- Whenever you plan to make a corporate solicitation, try to develop some specific
statistics about the extent to which you directly serve the employees of that corporation.
- Compile statistics or examples of projects that relate to the corporation and its
people, either those who are your clients or those who volunteer for you.
- Keep your eyes open for "The Story," a great anecdote that will poignantly
demonstrate the need for your agency. A good story, like a good picture, is worth a
thousand statistics.
- Remember that step one of effective fundraising may be getting the right people on your
board of directors.
- Since it is easier to get donated goods and services than money from corporations,
approach them with a ‘Chinese menu’ that will allow you to take any of the three
types of contributions. Then, after you have demonstrated what great use you have made of
their donated goods and services, use this track record to ask for cash.
From "101 Ways to Raise Resources", 1987 |
