|
 |
 |
 |
|
How to Choose the Right Fundraiser for You
Although many organizations do the same type of fundraiser year after year, it’s a good idea to reconsider methods from time to time. Not only can donor fatigue set in, but there’s also a chance that your board’s and staff’s creativity will lag with each repetition. Ask some questions up front:
- How much money do you need to raise?
- How much time do you have to plan?
- How much money do you have to spend?
- How many volunteers do you have to help?
- How well-connected are you and your volunteers?
- What fundraising success have you had in the past?
- What fundraising challenges have you had before?
- What nonmonetary goals does the event have?
Define Your Goals
The first thing to consider when selecting a fundraiser is the amount of money that you hope to make. Having a spaghetti dinner in a church basement isn’t the best strategy when you need to raise $1 million to purchase real estate or build a new facility (though it may be an appropriate tactic when combined with several others). Until you’ve decided on a monetary goal, you’ll have no basis for judging whether one fundraiser or another is likely to lead to success.
How to Define Your Monetary Goals
The monetary goals of a fundraiser are the most straightforward to pinpoint. You can look at the previous year’s budget to anticipate upcoming needs for staffing and routine expenses. Estimates from contractors can tell you how much a building expansion might cost and so forth. Writing a case statement can guide you in determining where funds are needed most.
How to Define Your Other Goals
Beyond money, you may also hope to use your fundraising to increase awareness of your organization among certain audiences. Calling on donors for funds for a particular initiative could be the first step in a sequence to create a long-term relationship. Whatever your goals are, it’s important to identify them early and state them repeatedly.
Assess Your Timeline and Team
The urgency with which you need the funds affects your choice of fundraiser. A car wash or tag sale to raise cash quickly for an emergency building repair can be pulled
together in less than a week, but a luxury home tour cannot, due to the partnerships that must be established and the length of time needed to promote it effectively.
Another time-related consideration is the amount of time that you and your team can realistically devote each week to getting the project off the ground. Even if you have a year to plan, some fundraisers will fail if you don’t have the sufficient human resources available to make it work.
Although for-profit fundraising companies exist that can help your organization with fundraising projects that are beyond your means, such companies are expensive. You may wish to avoid fundraisers that you can’t pull off on your own.
Evaluate Your Organization’s Finances
Money is another issue that’s easy to underestimate when selecting a fundraiser. As an organizer, you must watch the budget closely to ensure that the costs of fundraising—printing, postage, advertising, and other expenses—don’t outweigh the revenue generated.
Poor financial management undermines your future ability to raise funds, as donors will question whether their donations actually served the public good. Charity Navigator (www.charitynavigator.com) even publishes top 10 lists of the most inefficient charities to discourage people from donating to them until they shape up. Some charities on the list spend a whopping 50% or more of the funds they raise on administrative expenses.
Appraise Your Donor Network and History
Get some historical perspective on your fundraising triumphs and disasters to provide an important reality check when considering new ideas. Assess honestly what you’ve done well in the past and what needs improvement. Write a profile of the types of donors that you have the most success raising money from, and then use research to find out whether there are more like them whom you can solicit.
Note any gaps in your fundraising knowledge and staff. Try to fill those gaps or avoid types of fundraisers for which those gaps would pose a particular problem.
| Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
