Today, we will discuss the various things you should implement to strengthen your fundraising cycle.
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.
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 – 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.
Fundraising and Word Selection in Campaigns
Word selection can make or break your fundraising campaign efforts. How do you know when to use what word? The focus is always on how you wish to appeal to the audience and who needs to feel something. More often than not, the word that needs to be focused on, is the word ‘you.’
Boosting Online Engagement for Event Planning
Qualifying for grants requires additional sources of income. This takes the form of individual donors, other grant sources, and fundraising events. Fundraising events are not only a great source of sustainable revenue, they are also fantastic opportunities to encourage supporter engagement. This level of engagement makes supporters feel included and helps to reinforce what your organization does and how their support truly helps your organization achieve its goals. Fundraising events come in many forms: galas, street fairs, silent auctions, and more. Planning the event is crucial, and the supporter engagement must be planned intelligently to ensure strong engagement before, during, and after the event. This post is designed to assist you in utilizing the various online supporter engagement opportunities available to you.
Multichannel Donor Relationship Development
What are multichannel donors and why do you want them? Multichannel donors contribute to your organization in multiple ways. They donate through different platforms and volunteer their services to your cause. They will be the most engaged and most consistent contributors to your nonprofit organization’s efforts. So, how do you obtain multichannel donors?
Donor Stewardship
Procuring new donors is painstaking work and takes many hours for all development professionals in the nonprofit world. Much like the sales process in for-profit industries, closing on first time gifts can require continuous follow-up, repeat efforts to secure a conversation to close the gift solicitation, while ensuring that the donor feels heard, respected, and valued for their contribution to your nonprofit’s efforts. Closing the gift is not the end.
Board Best Practices
Every fiscal year, it is important for your Board to not only address the upcoming annual budget and financial reporting. It is also critical to review current board best practices.
Board and CEO Relationship
Running a nonprofit is a group effort. There are differences in responsibilities, but how can they work together to find the greatest results? More specifically, how can the Board assist the CEO or Executive Director to their best ability?
Marketing, Development, and Donor Acquisition
Marketing is entirely based upon understanding your target market. This is true for any business, and no different for nonprofit organizations. There are different aspects to marketing.
Board Member Philanthropic Involvement
It is essential that all members of the organization, including the board members, are actively engaged in all fundraising activities. To do so not only solidifies their purpose on the board, it also asserts their determination to see the nonprofit thrive. Disinterest relating to fundraising has to go beyond personal comfort and become something bigger than the individual. Charitable giving is currently rising above $400 billion in the United States. As thrilling as that may sound, it does not come by easily. Those dollars are in heavy competition with many others who feel that their organization deserves the funding more than yours. Personal donations, government grants, corporate gifts, private foundations, and other fundraising platforms are continuously expanding. Smaller nonprofits are not finding themselves on the positive end of the receiving stick.
Hiring a Grant Writer
Every nonprofit will seek grant funding at one point or another. Some wait years (or even decades) to begin this process. Others think that this is the way to start their nonprofit. It isn’t a simple as this. There are many factors at play when seeking grant funding. The writer is only one aspect.
The Importance of Governance
Choosing your board is a critical component to effective nonprofit management, obtaining 501(c)(3) status, and qualifying for grant funding.
Strategic Planning
Starting a nonprofit is time consuming and can be taxing. It is a major undertaking. Ensuring the proper forms are completed, articles of incorporation are complete, bylaws are completed, and the board is properly established is essential. The next critical step is generating your first strategic plan.
Tips for 501(c)(3) Compliance
Launching your 501(c)(3) and receiving that coveted letter of determination is just the beginning. In order to maintain your 501(c)(3) status, there are compliance regulations you must adhere to. Without complying with these regulations, you can lose your tax exempt status or even have your organization administratively dissolved due to failure to adhere to administrative compliance regulations.
Why Obtain a 501(c)(3)?
The importance of careful 501(c)(3) application and what it means.