FUNDRAISING

Transform Your Fundraising Strategies With The Powers Of Persuasion

Successful fundraising strategies must start with the proper preparation. How do you think your local football team would do if they were to turn up for their first game without having prepared properly or worse still, not having done any preparation at all? You can bet they'd find it difficult to win!

This is exactly the situation the vast majority of community fundraisers find themselves in today. They just haven't prepared properly and as a result they get frustrated when they don't succeed. My fundraising strategies used to leave me ill-prepared, that was up until a few years back when I discovered what I was doing wrong.

We need to remove that fundraising stress

Once my friend (the salesman) explained to me what I was doing wrong (i.e. too much event-focused, not enough people-focused), I decided to follow his advice and learn how to build the relationship between my organization and the local community. What I discovered over the next few years has enabled me to truly transform our fundraising fortunes to the point where we are enjoying unprecedented levels of success.

The highlight of my journey so far has been my discovery of the powers of persuasion. I use these powers as a basis for all of my fundraising strategies, especially the relationship building elements. They make the whole process so simple and most importantly they make it enjoyable and fun. It's a great feeling when you can see these techniques workingin practice.

Let's get back to community relationship building. There are three basic stages, which can be repeated over and over again. The first stage is all about creating awareness of your organization within the community. You must pre-sell your organization's benefits in order to lay the foundation for successful relationship building. Your benefits are what you live and die by.

The problem is that the vast majority of community fundraisers don't sell them. On top of that many fundraisers would struggle to list them off the top of their heads. Have a look at the pre-selling your benefits page for a fuller discussion as to the importance of selling you benefits.

Once you've created awareness by pre-selling your benefits, it's time to do some more personal relationship building. The best way to do this is to get people to attend your relationship building events. You'll find it much easier to attract people to these events, now that you've built the awareness, but there are plenty of additional promotional techniques you can use.

On the day of the event you'll need to use all of the relationship building techniques available to you in order to maximize your levels of success. The relationship building events explain these techniques in more detail.

People who have attended one of your relationship building events should be more enthused about your organization and may even be beginning to see it in a new light. This is your chance to cement the relationship even further by implementing yourfollow-up strategy. You'll have a follow-up strategy for all of the people that attended your events. You'll also apply some additional follow-up techniques to those that you think may be potential volunteers. Theevent follow-up page will help you get started.

There are two fundamental reasons to build a relationship between your community organization and people from your community. The main reason is that you want the people to support your community organization, particularly your fundraising efforts. The second reason is that you want some of those people to take the next step and volunteer to help out with your fundraising activities. Let's have a look at the second of these now.

The best way to transition someone from a casual helper to a fully fledged volunteer is to take things in small manageable steps. That means beginning with small commitments and gradually growing the relationship to where they are happy to agree to progressively biggercommitments. Generally in the beginning the person is not even consciously aware that they are making any sort of commitment at all. I call this thebaby steps principle and it will play a central role in your volunteer recruitment strategy.

How to effectively market your fundraising program

In order to effectively market your fundraising program for your community organization, you must first build a strong relationship with your local community.

Marketing is all about creating a buzz around your fundraising activities. Most community organizations have a very limited marketing budget so a TV advertising campaign is not a realistic option. You'll most likely be limited to relatively low key marketing techniques. That is why you must create a buzz within the local community before even starting, marketing your fundraising program.

By the time you come to marketing your fundraising program you need to have already grabbed people's attention. When you have their attention they will be drawn to your marketing messages automatically; in fact some of them will even be looking out for your marketing messages. So just how do you grab their attention prior to marketing your fundraising program?

That's easy! Use people-focused relationship building, as the central theme of your fundraising strategies. Use the powers of persuasion as your primary relationship build technique. When people begin to focus on your community organization then your marketing will be truly effective.

Marketing your fundraising program for a community organization is truly hands-on marketing. Even when you've got people's attention you still need to make your marketing materials as effective as is possible. Your advertisements should be catchy.

How many times have you seen ads for community organizations say something like, "Night at the races in the community center on Saturday night"? Well, Zzzzzzzz. Jazz it up a little. Say something like, "Feel like Donald Trump. Own your own racehorse this weekend! Come to our Night at the races on Saturday night and be lord of the manor. One of the first things to grab people's attention is a picture, so go ahead and put one on your ad.

When you start to market your fundraising program, keep it relatively simple and above all, make it fun. Advertise in as many places as is possible, your website, local press, around the community etc.

The fundraising plan is essential for fundraising success

When creating a fundraising plan the first thing you need to do is to figure out your intentions for the year. Write those down on paper. It should only be a few sentences. It's best to do this in conjunction with some of your more senior volunteers (senior in experience and vision, not age!). If you re the leader you need to set your own intentions as well.

Remember that anything you want you can have. All you need to do is, understand why you want it, set out a series of steps (the fundraising plan) that will enable you to get there and then faithfully execute those steps until you get success. It sounds simple? It is, so long as you take action.

I would recommend that you set aside a couple of meetings at the beginning of each year with the sole aim of producing your master fundraising plan (that implements the intentions). If you don t have a plan you will drift.

Start planning your annual fundraising program by calculating your costs for a typical year. Then figure out what development projects you would like to do for the year. Brainstorm with your team and make a list. This exercise will help you form your high-level targets for the year. Whatever projects you decide on, you need to work out the exact amount of cash that will be required for the achievement of each. Write these figures into your plan. Lots of people say things like we need to raise a lot of money this year or we need to raise a lot more than last year. That doesn t work.

I normally assign our regular income fundraising activities to cover the normal running costs for the year, and then run a series of boosters andcapital campaigns to cover the cost of the development projects.

Let s consider the development projects in terms of planning: many of the high-level target figures will need to be broken down into a series of manageable chunks. If you need 35k for a particular development project, it may be the case that it is required in stages, e.g. 15K by the end of March, another 10K by the end of July, and the other 10K at the end of October. These are the financial milestones for the project.

The last part of the fundraising plan is to assign particular fundraising activities to each of these financial milestones. Finally break down each fundraising event into a series of steps with dates and people against each one. Even people who make plans sometimes fail because they make a list of steps but don t ever put any firm dates against them. You must measure against each of these steps. This is the only way to be successful.

Realize that you won t be able to do all of the development projects on your list so list them in order of priority. Don t just say, let s see how many we can do. Plan each of them and leave two free months at the end. That way if you run over, you ll still have a good shot at achieving your minimum list. If things go particularly well you can pull in the next project on your list.

When the fundraising plan is complete don t think it s set in stone. Always evaluate it as you go and rework it as necessary. Maybe something you planned is not appropriate now so you have to change to something else.

Commit yourself 100% to follow through your steps until you get a result. Read it again! I didn't say if you get a result. There is a huge difference. I said until you get a result. Keep in mind, there is only one way to fail, and that is to quit.

Some people in amateur organizations think, oh I don t want to pressure people too much because after all they are volunteers. That doesn t work, people need specific targets and to be told what is expected of them. If you follow the relationship building methods on this site your volunteers will be motivated and won t feel stressed, instead they ll feel excited about reaching their targets and if they miss the target they will try even harder. If they know why they are doing it they will not give up.

Fundraising corporate sponsors for Community organizations

Fundraising corporate sponsors are very important to us as community organization fundraisers. Our corporate landscape typically doesn't extend much beyond local businesses, so we need to make the most of the opportunities we have. It goes without saying that relationship building is central to success with local businesses.

Most community organizations have some sort of public facilities such as playing fields, technology suites, community centers etc. These facilities are perfect for you to display sponsorship banners for your fundraising corporate sponsors. You display a banner for a sponsor in return for a yearly amount, e.g. we have banners for 45 sponsors around our football field at $150 a time. These banners normally cost from $100-$150 to make so perhaps you will need to charge $200 the first year. Don t be tempted to take on the cost of the banner yourself as an incentive because it makes the decision for the sponsor not to renew, much easier. Never forget that you are in fundraising to make money for your organization and if you ve spread your message people will be willing to support you.

When you re selling to a fundraising corporate sponsor, it s likely that you ll need to go to their offices to meet with them. Work out which local businesses your organization spends money with each year and be sure to target them especially. Make sure your fundraising corporate sponsors know what benefits you bring to the table for their business and the local community.

Quite often the fact that your community organization is popular in the local community will be enough, especially if they have a retail business. Supporting your organization will reflect well on them within the community (for only $100-$200 per year).

If you are asking for a major sponsorship you ll have to sell your organization over a period of time. Start by sowing the seed and then continue to up-the-ante. The best way to close is to take them to lunch (or even breakfast)

Sometimes fundraising corporate sponsors will be expecting your visit and will have already made up their minds to support you (especially if you know the owner). Remember you are always trying to maximize your fundraising efforts and that it doesn t always have to be in the form of cash. If the business is keen then don t be afraid to ask about the possibility of them donating some expertise (e.g. for building work, electrical work, computers etc). People don t put the same value on their employee s time as they do on hard cash but it s all the same to your organization in terms of what your bank balance will show at the end of the year.

As I say, there are many sponsorship opportunities. You can also get sponsorship for individual events where you put the name of the business in a program or on a cheap poster that only stays up for the event. We ve had businesses sponsor holes on golf days, races at the night-at-the-races and even the bouncy castle at our open day (incidentally, that was a children s furniture retailer, just in case you were wondering). As a sports club we ve got sponsors for our team s playing kits and the scoreboard.

You can even get sponsorship for each page of your annual calendar! Use your imagination for your own context because once you ve built up the affinity with your community, anything is possible.

Always remember to thank your sponsors in a letter and in the case of larger fundraising corporate sponsors, get the volunteer to organize a photograph for placement in the local press.

Community event fundraising in its different shades Your community event fundraising activities fall into three different categories. Each serves a different purpose within your overall fundraising strategy. The first of these activity types is perhaps the most important. I call this type the regular income activities. It's your most reliable form of income that pays your fixed costs. Most community organizations can calculate their fixed costs for the year with a fair degree of accuracy. Get this stream up and running first. The next type is what I call the booster activities. These are for the times when you need a little extra income for some organizational development or for those items that you didn't exactly plan. The last type is the capital campaign. These are used when you are planning some serious organizational development. As part of your fundraising planning you'll need to figure out which events you are going to use in each category. You'll find ideas for each category on the fundraising ideas page. Fundraising consulting for community organizations Many charities and larger non profits regularly use fundraising consulting. My advice is that, as a community organization you should only consider using fundraising consultants if you are undertaking a major development. Even then you'll only need them during the planning phase. You'll have to pay some money up front but try to tie a portion of the remainder into the success of the project. If you follow the advice on this website, the chances are that you can achieve pretty much all of your targets without the need to hire specialized consultancy. If you are still not confident, because of the magnitude of the project, then check with other similar organizations in our directory before you take the plunge. You may find the help you are looking for there. General consultancy such as legal and financial are unavoidable, so don't attempt to do anything without getting those items tied down properly. There are other specialist consultants that are worth considering. We always use a consultant when applying for grants because it greatly increases the chances of success and saves so much time. Most grants come from government, where the red tape is plentiful! Check around your members for anyone with contacts with these types of consultancy services and you may get a good deal for your community organization. Nonprofit grants for your community organization Nonprofit grants are an important source of funding for community organization development. They are definitely worth jumping through all of the hoops. Government Grants Almost every government in the world has grants schemes that can help community organization development. These nonprofit grants are normally for big development projects such as new premises or other new facilities that will benefit your members and the wider community. Other grant schemes are designed to help you start up new programs that help people in your community. Search your government s website to see what is available, or simply call them up so that someone can point you in the right direction. In the US check out Government Grants for further information. In the UK check out the Home and Community section on the DirectGovsite. You will rarely get non profit grants that will cover the total capital expenditure of your project and in most cases you ll be asked to put up a significant portion of the funds. The best schemes will fund 85% of the cost but the normal is 50%-60%. In some countries its only government bodies that administer these schemes but in others the government will license public companies to execute some of the schemes as well. Many licensed Lottery companies administer nonprofit grants schemes on behalf of their government. Regardless of who administers the scheme you can be sure there will be a lot of red tape and hoops to jump through! It is worth it though. In my experience very few of these administrating companies (or government departments) are well organized. What that means is that you should keep a record of everything you sent to them, when you sent it. Make hard copies of all documents you have passed to them. If it is practical hand-deliver any of the documents, do so and be sure to get a receipt for it. It s not that they are trying to trip you up; it just speeds up the process a bit because they ll be more diligent when they realize that you are on top of your end of the bargain. If you re not, you can be guaranteed that they ll not bother looking too hard for something they ve misplaced, but instead they ll ask you to re-send it. Aim to always deal with the same person. Build a good relationship with them as this makes a big difference to how quickly each stage of your application is processed. Above all, remain pleasant to them even when they are not performing at their best! Most law offices will have someone who is familiar with nonprofit grants applications so it pays to have at least one consultation with that person. It is especially beneficial when you are completing the initial application so that you answer the questions in such a way as to maximize your eligibility. Of course, you ll know by reading the scheme s literature whether or not, but mostly the percentage they ll fund depends on how good a fit your organization is to its best to enlist the help of an expert. It ll be a good investment. Check if any of your members have contacts in the Law business. Another way to get some discount is to use a Law office who has people sympathetic to your type of organization or even get a referral from another organization, similar to your own, that has already received a grant. Local Authority Grants This is a source of nonprofit grants often overlooked by most community organizations. Local authorities are essentially local government but they have their own budgets and administer their own grant programs. The problem is that local authorities don't tend to put a lot of effort into advertising their schemes so the best thing to do is contact them and ask what is available. Do this every couple of months, as the schemes tend to be short and sporadic. Sometimes it s the case that they simply need to use their budget or loose it the following year, so check more frequently coming up to their financial year end. Local authority nonprofit grants tend to be small but easy to get. Don't let it go by default. Foundations Today all across the world there are more millionaires than at any time in history. Rather than give directly to charities and non-profits, some people give to what is called foundations. These foundations distribute the money but normally it s only to charities. However it s worth having a look for community based foundations either in your area or just foundations that give to community organizations. The internet is the best place to find these. Fundraising Feasibility Studies Fundraising feasibility studies are an important consideration prior to undertaking any major development. Do think because it seems like a good idea, that it automatically is. Too many community organizations undertake a major development only to realize, that many of their problems only start after it's been completed. As part of your fundraising feasibility studies you need to consider if the appetite exists for the proposed development. I don't mean just within your community organization either. There must be a desire amongst the local community for the development, if it is to be successful. If your fundraising feasibility studies have established that there is a sufficient level of interest both from within your community organization and externally within the local community, then its time to start looking at the finances. Start to get a set of high level costing estimates and add 20% to the figure. Do you have the capabilities of raising that amount? Don't under-estimate your resourcefulness! Explore how much money you could raise through government and other grants. Factor in how much of the finances you can short-circuit using volunteer work and other resources that people would be prepared to donate. Are you happy that you can get it done? If the answer is yes, then there's one final thing to need to consider as part of your fundraising feasibility studies, before making the decision whether or not to proceed. Carefully consider the ongoing maintenance associated with the development. How will that be funded? Think of ways if can be utilized, such as rental income etc. Don't let excitement about your development mask the fact that it could become a maintenance nightmare afterwards. You need to plan everything associated with the development. When you decide to go ahead then get yourself a consultant to deal with the grant applications and give you some general advice. Make a fundraising plan and get started. Track your plan, make adjustments and measure progress until you development is complete.

Internet Fundraising
An Important Part Of Community Organization Fundraising

Internet fundraising must play an important role in your community organization's fundraising strategies. If it doesn't today I urge you to start thinking about it. It is estimated that up to 90% of the developed world will have broadband grade access to the internet by the year 2009. The opportunity here is too big to miss!

Technology comes in waves. Every so often some new piece of technology comes along that touches the lives of almost everyone. This last time this happened was in the 1920s when Henry Ford began mass production of the automobile. Now it's happened again with the advent of the Internet. Just like the car, the Internet radically alters the range of possibilities open to all of us. In a few short years it will be second nature to most people, just like the car became towards the end of the 1920s into the early 1930s.

So just how can yourcommunity organization'sfundraising strategies benefit from the Internet? The main aspects I am going to deal with are relationship building on the internet and online fundraising using secure payments. You can turn your community organization website into an online fundraising site that makes money on auto-pilot.

Before we examine the subject of your website I think it's important to cover the basics of email. Have a look at the email page to learn how to use it as a fundraising tool.

It is vital that every community organization has a presence on the web in the form of a website. If you don't have a website right now then thecommunity web site page will help you get started on the road to internet fundraising.

Once you have a basic website up and running then have a look at themerchandising page to discover how you can sell products online. These are typically someone else's products but they could also be your own. Your own products will often be much more profitable.

A big part of internet fundraising is the ability to take payments online. The internet payments page will show you how easy it is to do this. Most techies would have you believe that this is some sort of rocket science. The truth is that services such as PayPal make it very easy for you. I'll show you how to get up and running.

Ok, so I know I said earlier that community organizations don't often rely on donations as a fundraising source. However it is possible to bag the odd donation, especially as part of your online fundraising strategy, and especially from ex-pats. After all it's not fair that they can't support your community organization just because they are geographically challenged! The internet payments page will show you how to accept online dinations.

One advanced internet fundraising technique you may want to have a look at is what I call web business.

That means a small online business whose profits go to your community organization. It isn't as hard as you might think and I'm pretty sure that there will be people in your community, only too willing to give it a shot. That includes people who have no interest in your community organization at all!

Discover how persuasive fundraising can help you boost your internet fundraising by building strong bonds with your local community.