SolveYourProblem
eBusiness Series: Fundraising
Fundraising
Essentials For Your Non-Profit:
How To Raise All The Money You Want
( 34 pages )
How
To Develop
a Great Fundraising Plan
Once you have a great fundraising idea, motivation will be
high and everyone at your non-profit group will likely
be eager to get started right away. However, you will certainly
want to take the time to develop a plan. Fundraising plans
do several things:
- They ensure
that everyone has a job - and that their job corresponds
to their abilities and resources
- That time-sensitive materials
and events take place in an orderly manner
- That nothing is overlooked.
You don’t want to set up the world best fair - only to
have no one show up because advertising and marketing were
never considered.
- Things are not repeated over
and over, wasting time
A fundraising
plan does not have to be a complicated thing, but it does
need to be thorough and you need to make sure that each person
on your team has a copy of the plan. A fundraising plan can
be a formal report that outlines what needs to be done, by
whom, and when. It can consist of just a list or two of tasks.
It can also be a listing of items in a calendar or planner.
The important thing is that the plan works for you. Once
you have decided on a fundraising plan or idea, you will
need to develop a written plan to ensure that nothing is
forgotten. No matter what form your plan takes, it needs
to include the following items:
-
Information
about your group, including your mission statement, what
your desired programs are, when you were registered as
a non-profit group, who belongs to your group, and contact
information for your group. This is information that
grant applications will request and donors will also
want to have this information before deciding whether
to give money to your cause.
-
Contact
Information For Your Volunteers. That way, if anything
occurs, volunteers can easily be contacted. You should
also list the titles (treasurer, marketing) of each volunteer,
so that it is clear who should be contacted about which
fundraising issues.
-
Information
About Donors. Any information you have - donors who may
be inclined to give for your cause, donors who have given
in the past, donors who have asked to be removed from
your list - needs to be included so that volunteers know
who to contact. Careful mention must be made of who is
to contact which donors and you need to be careful to
remark which donors have already given or have made a
response to your query. This will prevent you from annoying
people with numerous requests.
-
Services
you need to arrange before you start fundraising. Do
you need to arrange to take credit card donations (many
donors today find this the most convenient way to give)?
You will certainly need to arrange for some pamphlets,
letters, or other media to communicate the basic facts
about your non-profit. You will also need to formulate
tax receipt slips that can be given to donors for their
gifts. In addition to this, do your volunteers need to
be trained? Do you need fundraising software because
you are expecting a large volume of donors?
-
Write down
your fundraising goals and how far you still need to
go to meet them.
-
Are these
questions that need to be answered before you start fundraising?
If you have any questions - about legalities, zoning
laws, marketing, recruiting, donors - list them. Beside
each question, list a few resources that could have the
answer. Then divide the list up among the group and have
each person look up the answers to their questions. This
way, you will have all the information you need before
you begin.
-
Your fundraising
ideas, each described in full. Arrange fundraising plans
that target grant-giving agencies, individual and group
donors, and companies. Casting your net wide ensures
that you will be able to find the money you need.
-
A time line
that shows what parts of the fundraising plan will be
put into action - and when and by whom. List all the
steps that need to be taken to make the fundraising a
success, put a deadline on each item and assign it to
someone. This is your action list.
-
List any
resources at all that you have that might be useful.
Have a list of who has what resources. That way, if anything
is needed, each member of your group will know who to
contact.
-
Describe
what the big picture is. Yes, you want to raise money
to help the environment, or to save a park, or to build
an animal shelter. However, you need to write down the
best possible scenario as well as the things you are
committed to doing. Sometimes, as it happens with fundraising,
you may not be able to raise the money for a specific
purpose, but you may be able to find a way to accomplish
a goal.
For example, you
may want to raise money to build an animal shelter within
two years’ time. You may have a hard time fundraising, but
while fundraising you may encounter people who are willing
to donate work time or a building to the cause, which will
help you reach your larger goal. Too many groups focus on
the money sums of fundraising.
While these sums
are important, if you keep your actual goals (what the money
is supposed to do) in front of you at all times, you may
find ways of accomplishing your real goals regardless of
what happens to your money goals during recruiting.
With a fundraising
plan, you need to work on paper, writing ideas and action
items down. The idea here is to move from general ideas and
goals to specific things and items. Try to create action
items whenever possible, and assign a person and a deadline
to each item. At the same time, though, stress the importance
of the larger goals to the team.
The idea is to
get as much of the action items done as possible, but if
a team member finds a way to come closer to the larger goal,
they should pursue that avenue of action as well. Such a
plan is concrete enough to get your non-profit going, but
is flexible enough to ensure that your real goals are always
what you are moving closer to.
 
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