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Ideas For Taking Your Fundraising To The Next Level

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

You’ve done your homework. You know your pitch. You believe in your mission, and understand the reasons donors give your organization. Even so, you may feel that your fundraising has plateaued… that you’re stuck in a rut or missing out on key giving opportunities. Many times, you may simply feel a sense of malaise – that no matter how much you try, you aren’t leveling up.

Today, we offer you ten great ideas for powering back on, and taking your fundraising game to a whole new level:

1. Turn off the Computer and Pick up the Phone

The next time you are getting ready to send out an e-mail, I want you to stop – turn off the computer – and pick up the phone. Instead of e-mailing that donor, prospect, board member or community leader, pick up the phone and call. It’s far more personal and has lasting positive effects on the relationship.

2. Join a New Networking Organization

Running out of new people to talk with about your organization? Join a new networking group. It could be a local chamber of commerce, the Kiwanis club, your college alumni association, a business group… whatever it is, join and start going to meetings to connect with more people.

3. Jump on Social Networks with Renewed Vigor

You may have started that Twitter account, LinkedIn Group or Facebook company page with the best of intentions, but as time went on, your interest may have waned, you got discouraged, or simply stopped participating. Now is the time to reengage!

4. Visualize Your Donor Efforts

Follow these tips to visualize your major donor fundraising efforts. It will help you see where your donors and prospects are in your overall process.

5. Listen to Your Staff and Volunteers

When was the last time you asked for – and listened to – new fundraising ideas from your staff and volunteers? Get them into the room and ask them for ideas: What should we try? Who should we talk to? What can I do to help you?

6. Take Your 5 Smallest Donors Out to Lunch

Everyone takes their biggest donors out to networking lunches – and you should too – but have you thought about taking your 5 smallest donors out to lunch? You know, those old ladies who give $50 a year to your annual appeal or those young professionals right out of college who give $25 because they saw an ad for your organization online? Call ‘em up, take ‘em out to lunch, and see what motivates them to give. Maybe they could give more? Maybe they have friends who would want to give? Maybe they will just be shocked that you called… It was only $25 after all!

7. Take 5 Peers Out to Lunch

Yes, another great lunch-related tip. This time, find 5 peers you respect, folks who work in similar jobs to you, but who aren’t competitors (is there such a thing as a non-profit competitor? You’d say no in public, but privately, you’d say yes!) and ask them if you can buy them lunch to hear about how they raise money, how they find new prospects, etc. End result = new ideas and a new contact.

8. Launch One New Initiative

Step outside the box and take a couple of days to launch a new fundraising initiative. Do lots of direct mail but never tried asking through email? Give it a shot! Don’t have a planned giving program? Get one started! Talked about doing prospecting mail, but never pulled the trigger? Now is the time to do it!

9. Spend the Day in the Field

Nothing is more invigorating, or leads to more insights, then spending a day away from fundraising working in the field with your program staff. If you are fundraising for a school, spend a day helping tutor kids for one of the teachers. If you are working with a homeless shelter, spend a day serving meals and cleaning up after. Get reconnected with the mission, and get reenergized.

10. Cold Call (But Don’t Cold Ask)

Seriously… It’s like a splash of cold water in your face. Shocking, confusing, a little scary, but oddly refreshing. Make a list of 5-10 people you wish you knew. Find their phone numbers (or the main switchboards at their companies) and call them. Introduce yourself. Ask them out to breakfast. Don’t make an ask over the phone. Don’t try to sign them up for your walk or get them to commit to a tour. Just try to get them to meet you to hear more. You may get one that says yes. You may not… Either way, you’ll refine your pitch, think of new ways to present your organization, and feel really, really confident when you go back to calling warm contacts.

Tags: business, charitable, community, fundraise, fundraiser, Fundraising, fundraising ideas, fundraisng idea, fundraisng tips, funds, Non-profit organization, raising funds, successful fundraising, tips
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Fundraising tips

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Fundraising for an organization can be a very tricky endeavor. While the right fundraiser can make hundreds of dollars for your organization, the wrong one can actually lose money. Several factors can influence whether or not the fundraiser you have chosen will make money. There are no set rules determining which ones to use and which ones to stay away from; most of that depends on your area and what activities other organizations use.

Naturally, when choosing a fundraiser, the first place to start is with doing some research. Find out what other organizations have been doing and what has worked for them. This is not to say that you should shy away from what others have done. Some activities, such as car washes, bake and candy sales, and dog walking services, work nearly every time they are done.
These kinds of activities work every time for a couple of reasons. First, they work because of the low investment costs required to participate in them. Car washes and dog walking services, for example, often only cost your organization the price of supplies; sponges, buckets and soap for a car wash, leashes and shovels for dog walking.
Second, they work because of the supply and demand. Unless you are working in a very small community, no single organization is going to wash every car in town. Your organization can catch the cars some other group missed out on last week. Or in the case of a bake sale, you are selling one time use products that people will buy if your prices are reasonable.

The next thing to research when selecting a fundraiser is location. First, if you are planning a car wash or bake sale, try to find a location that will first give you space for free (some places will charge you to use their water or charge a rental fee to set up tables). After you find free space, talk to a manager at your chosen location to find out if their company offers any incentives for using their location for your fundraiser. It’s not guaranteed but occasionally you can find a company that will match whatever money you make in your activity, turning $100 worth of washed cars into $200 for your organization.
After doing your homework, the next thing on your agenda should be setting prices for your services or products. If you have chosen to wash cars or walk dogs, you may consider offering your services for free, asking for donations instead of a flat fee. While some people may end up not paying, others will make up for it by giving you more than you would have asked for.

Even if you do decide to work on a donations only basis, you can save yourself from doing something for nothing setting a price after a certain point. For example, you could ask for five dollars or even ten dollars to wash full-size trucks or to walk dogs over 60 pounds or three or more dogs. You are still working on a donation basis but you are not running the risk of having someone take advantage of your free services.

The last important thing to consider when selecting a fundraiser is credibility. Unfortunately, because of past success and popularity of some activities, such as selling discounted magazine subscriptions, these activities have been transformed in recent years into scams. In such a large capacity in fact that potential customers have begun to avoid giving money to people saying they are selling magazines for their organization, despite the reputation of the organization. So, be sure to check on the credibility of your activity. While your members aren’t using these activities to put money in their own pocket, there are too many others who are.

Above all else, the most important thing to remember when you are selecting a fundraiser is to do your research. If it is popular, is it repeatable? If there are overhead costs will your profit exceed that overhead? Are their locations in your area that will match your earnings? And finally, is the activity credible, or has overwhelming success in the past made it prime for scams?

Tags: community, fundraiser, Fundraising, fundraising tips, money, organization, tips
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