Your Needs Statement or Problem Statement addresses the issue that your nonprofit organization is attempting to solve. This important segment of your grant proposal must address the reason why this is a problem and why it is important to solve this problem. It is one of the most critical segments of your grant proposal.
How To Lose A Grant
Losing a grant that you applied for is not uncommon. Most grant applications fail. That does not mean it was wasted effort. In fact, many times, it is essential to apply and fail more than once in order to help a foundation build a file on your organization before they decide to approve you. The more familiar they become through you numerous requests, the more comfortable they become with supporting your cause. It also provides you opportunity to learn about areas you need to improve on in order to qualify and receive grant funding in the future. In this case, failure is part of the approval process.
Launching a Capital Campaign
Capital campaigns require significant planning and research prior to launch. Today, we will discuss the steps you need to take in order to launch a successful capital campaign.
Board Involvement in Securing Grants
Grants are often considered the focus of the grant writer or grant manager. Many nonprofits do not realize the importance of board involvement in the grant seeking process. The board does have responsibility in financial and legal oversight of the organization, but they also hold responsibility in facilitating pre-award participation to improve grant award success.
How Much to Request
How much do you request for each grant application? That is the real question. We have experienced many clients who think they should always ask for the maximum amount that the foundation offers. We do our best to try and help them understand how this works, but today we will write in more detail the process involved for a foundation to consider your request and how appropriate your request amount actually is in the larger scheme of things.
Budget Narrative
Writing a budget for your nonprofit is a basic requirement for successful functionality and for grant applications. However, it is more than just numbers in a line-item budget. In order to qualify for many grant applications, you must also offer a budget narrative.
Fiscal Sponsorship
Tax-exemption is only qualified if moneys were contributed to an IRS designated 501(c)3 entity. This also disqualifies you from grants until approved. This is where fiscal sponsorship comes in.
How Budgets Impact Grant Requests (and Funding)
Budgets are the mainstay for your annual funding planning and spending. These are required for a business to run and maintain an appropriate strategy in order to prevent loss and guarantee that expenses can be covered. This also affords the ability to see where shortfalls are and what is required to rectify that gap. Budgets also significantly impact your grant requests.
Tips to Strengthen Your Fundraising Cycle
Today, we will discuss the various things you should implement to strengthen your fundraising cycle.
Measuring Fundraising Effectiveness (Video)
Not sure how to measure your organization’s fundraising effectiveness? Or how to communicate the right message to your donors? Watch this video interview with Andy Davis, director of education at BoardSource. Andy explains how to discuss the cost to raise a dollar with your board members and how to steer the conversation with your donors from costs to focus more on impact.
Building a Modernized Fundraising Strategy
Nonprofits come in many shapes and sizes. Those who have been around a while are often quite confident in their traditional fundraising strategies. Unfortunately, we are living in an ever-changing world that requires everyone to stay up to speed with the new methods to achieve our organizational goals. Aging demographics means that those who were target donors are one portion of your focus and they may require a different fundraising strategy than the younger demographics who operate quite differently in a world full of technological advancement. This means that nonprofits have to have more than one fundraising strategy and skill-set to ensure the most effective outcomes.
Building Multiple Revenue Sources
The tools, resources, and knowledge included in this guidebook will help you to raise more money through targeted development strategies that are catered to your organization’s unique stage of development, strengths, and community resources.
This was not written by us. We have obtained this guidebook for you from Nonprofit Ready. The direct link
Planning a Fundraising Event – Event Follow Up
The final installment of our Planning a Fundraising Event focuses on the event follow up steps you need to take after the event. It is easy to assume that the work is done and all the money that was raised is all that will be raised, but that would be a mistake. The work is not complete after the event, and the fundraising for the event target is also not complete. How you take advantage of the excitement generated by the event after the event is over can have a significant impact on the overall funds raised and the impression made on donors. It can also impact your vendor relationships.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Auction
So you want to have an auction at your fundraising event. There are simple ways to do this using paper and pen. There are live auctioneers who can run the show. Then there are auction management software solutions. Today, we will discuss the many benefits of utilizing an online auction management software solution.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Fun & Games
Your event will have many entertaining facets to it. One component that is important to implement is something that makes the evening feel like it is an opportunity to have fun and play games. Games? Well, that can take many meanings, but the traditional concepts such as silent auctions, goal meters, and such are aspects that are frequently associated with competition and winning. These types of activities raise the level of excitement and motivation to participate. Don’t limit your fundraising efforts at the event to mere ticket sales or the traditional direct ask. Induce a social component which will bring a level of deeper community collaboration to participate and do what it takes to raise the funds. Plus, who doesn’t like to be a winner?
Planning a Fundraising Event – Promotion
You cannot have a successful fundraising event without effective and sufficient promotion efforts. Once you have everything in place or in progress, you can begin your promotion campaign to spread the news about your exciting fundraising event. You can simplify this process down to four steps.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Website
Today we will focus on why a website that focuses on connecting with your donors and encouraging immediate gift collection is the best investment you can make during and after your event. Your website is its own fundraising administrator that once set up properly, can continue to serve your organization long-term. It is especially helpful when it is used in conjunction with a specific fundraising event.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Partnerships
One of the most crucial things that your fundraising planning entails are your partnerships with local businesses. It is always a good idea to formulate relationships with local businesses throughout your organization’s ongoing efforts to assist you in easier collaboration, negotiation, and ideally better rates or donations to supply your fundraising events.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Theme
Every fundraising event has a theme. The theme sets the tone and the focus for the event and inspires donors to be taken on a journey of your choosing. This means, you need to consider what the donor might like to experience. Make sure this aligns with your organization’s mission and the program that funds are being raised for at the event. Best of all, you can make this fun!
Planning a Fundraising Event – Budget
The previous installment of Planning a Fundraising Event focused on setting goals. Within the goal setting, a budget will be developed. This is to help establish the concrete numbers necessary for the cost planning for the fundraising event as well as the establishment of a fundraising goal that exceeds this budget.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Goals
Every fundraising event starts by determining a fundraising goal. This is the purpose behind the event and the driving force that generates all activities surrounding the fundraising event. Although it might seem obvious, there are many who interpret a fundraising event as a general effort to raise funds for the overall functioning of the organization. Although this can be a goal, it is more critical to identify a concrete goal.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Volunteers
Every nonprofit understands the value of good volunteers. Some are great at handling the smaller time consuming tasks and others are great at generating public support. They can help to make your event run smoothly, and they can reassure donors that they are very pleased to be involved with the organization’s efforts. They are true advocates for your nonprofit in every aspect.
Planning a Fundraising Event – Staff
This is the first in an 11 part series to walk you through the steps of fundraising event planning. Planning a fundraising event is a major undertaking. As such, it requires a significant amount of planning and budgeting to ensure that the costs and efforts truly bring positive returns. Not only do you want to make your money spent on the fundraiser returned, you want to bring in an abundance of additional funds to provide for your programs and projects. Today’s focus is on staffing.