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The Fundraising Process
The fundraising process consists of eight important steps.
1. List Goals and Objectives
Though your case statement clarifies where your funding needs lie, you still need to come up with a specific monetary target to pursue. Add up the costs of the new roof, after-school program, or whatever else you’re seeking funding for in your campaign. The total is your fundraising goal.
Next, identify specific fundraising objectives, such as getting one large donor to foot 25% of the bill or 250 small donors to give $20 each. Historical data is helpful in making these determinations. If this is your first fundraiser, do an informal poll of people close to the organization to see what they think is a reasonable amount to expect from different audiences. Capture these objectives in a table like the one below, tallying the number and amount of gifts you seek.
Category |
No. of Gifts |
Gift Amounts |
Category Total |
Grand Total |
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Platinum |
2 |
$10,000 |
$20,000 |
$20,000 |
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Gold |
5 |
$2,500 |
$12,500 |
$32,500 |
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Silver |
11 |
$500 |
$5,500 |
$38,000 |
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Bronze |
20 |
$100 |
$2,000 |
$40,000 |
2. Create a Timeline
Your campaign timeline is a vital tool that ties your objectives to dates in the weeks or months leading up to your event. It includes orientation, training, meetings, publicity, solicitation, and other major dates. For example, if you’re planning a campaign that solicits gifts at various levels, you might start asking the big donors on one date and then work your way to other levels over time-adjusting goals.
A campaign timeline might look something like this:
Week |
Tasks |
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Week 1 |
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Week 2 |
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Week 3 |
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3. Recruit and Train Help
Many nonprofit fundraising efforts fall flat because of volunteers’, board members’, and even staff members’ attitudes toward fundraising. They may consider it begging, rude, or beneath them to ask for money, and the result is often a lackluster donation solicitation or none at all. Here are some telltale signs of the unmotivated fundraiser:
- He sends out solicitation letters but doesn’t follow up with calls or face-to-face discussions.
- She ends up buying the whole table, box of candy, or whatever item is sold instead of building support among a wider audience.
- Rather than try to rally support with a vivid description of all of the public good that will come with donation, he simply says that the organization is in dire straits and needs help to escape ruin.
To avoid these problems, you must properly educate volunteer and staff fundraisers about the donation solicitation process and equip them to surmount anxiety and prospective donor objections. Training should:
- Include an overview of organization and fundraising aims to give campaign workers more information to draw on when potential donors ask them questions
- Devote significant time to role-playing so that volunteers can practice responding to typical donor questions and you can coach them along the way
4. Draft a Budget
It costs money to raise money, so you need to carefully project and document expenses to maximize the portion of donations that actually go to fund your projects. Unlike your organization’s budget, which lists everything from pension plan contributions to utilities, your fundraiser’s budget records only those costs that are directly related to raising funds. For example, a benefit gala might require spending on invitation printing and postage, food, drinks, decorations, speaker fees, and audio-visual equipment rental.
Your fundraising budget is mainly for internal reference, but your constituents will scrutinize the outward evidence of your spending as well. It’s not uncommon for donors to scold nonprofits for spending extravagantly on fundraisers.
5. Publicize Your Fundraiser
Most nonprofits recognize the importance of raising their visibility in the communities they serve, but few take the time to carefully consider what they want to get out of this raised awareness. Do you want to build deeper relationships with journalists so that they’ll offer continuing and favorable coverage of your activities and events? Do you want to use the media to correct common misconceptions about your organization? Do you want to educate the public about your cause? Do you want to lay the groundwork for a major fundraising campaign in the future?
The answers to these questions should determine the publicity tools that you use to communicate with the public and the portion of the population to whom you direct your message. Publicity tools include press releases, advertising, direct mailings, brochures, websites, emails, T-shirts—anything bearing a message about your organization or fundraising. See Fundraiser Publicity Tips for more details.
6. Solicit Donations
At this point, you’re ready to ask prospective donors to invest in your cause. Just as there are many types of fundraisers, there are many ways to ask for donations as well—some more effective than others. Here are some things to consider as you make appeals:
- Ask in person: Asking a prospective donor for funds in person demonstrates the seriousness of your request and is harder to dismiss than a form letter sent by mail. It also makes the request interactive: you are there live to respond to objections, answer questions, and encourage the person to make a pledge.
- Start with those closest to the cause: Rather than cold-call people with no discernible connection to the cause, start with the organization’s volunteers, board members, even the constituents it serves. For example, library patrons are a natural fit for library fundraisers. They understand from personal experience the vast array of public services the institution provides, from book lending to meeting space to guest lectures. Your friends and family may also contribute because they are close to you, if not the organization you represent.
- Present a vision that packs emotional punch: Don’t depress potential donors with endless descriptions of the social ills plaguing your community. Instead, use the problems as a launchpad to show the exciting future that your organization (with donors’ help) can create.
- Set a good example: People are more likely to give if the person asking is enthusiastic about the request. If you’re genuinely interested in the cause and involved with your organization, your appeals will be more informative and compelling. Having made a financial commitment to the organization yourself also makes your fundraising request more credible and persuasive.
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Do your homework: Researching prospective donors is a wise use of time—it keeps you from wasting time trying to woo donors who are unlikely to support your cause. Try to assess both a potential donor’s wealth and her history of charitable giving. For some high-end fundraisers, you’ll need to do significant research to qualify prospects. Try the following resources:
- Property records (on your county tax assessor’s website) offer insight into potential donors’ wealth.
- Public companies’ proxy statements, found at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml, list executive salaries.
- The website www.opensecrets.org compiles data on political contributions.
- Other nonprofits’ annual reports often list past donors to those organizations.
- Use technology: Fundraising management software packages, such as DonorQuest®, PledgeMaker®, and The Raiser’s Edge®, can boost your fundraising efforts’ effectiveness by helping your staff track data, generate reports, make projections, and develop deeper relationships with donors.
- Get outside help: Carefully screened outside consultants can enhance your organization’s efforts.
- Focus on donor benefits: Attracting corporate donors is increasingly difficult because of widespread focus on return on investment. Even where charitable giving is concerned, more and more companies view donations primarily from a marketing and public relations perspective. They want nonprofits to show them which new audiences their donations could bring them into contact with and how nonprofits will help them make a strong impression with those audiences.
7. Track and Collect Donations
Collecting donations can be tricky if you’re running a pledge campaign in which donors promise to give a certain amount but don’t write the check right away. When you have your volunteers follow up with donors, it’s important to treat the pledgemakers respectfully—their financial condition may have changed in the interim, making the donation too much of a stretch for them. Also, you must put a system in place to ensure that donations are properly recorded and promptly deposited in your organization’s account.
8. Thank Donors
It’s critical that your organization follow up after a fundraiser to update the donors on results and thank them again for their participation. The level of personalization with which you thank a donor should be commensurate with the
donation request you made from him. For example, a donor whom you spent weeks wooing with in-person meetings and presentations shouldn’t be sent the same form letter as donors who gave $25 in response to a mass mailing. A thank-you visit might be more appropriate. However, every gift, regardless of size, should be acknowledged. You should also stay abreast of the current IRS rules governing what donors can receive in exchange for contributions.
| Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
