Fundraising For Dummies E-Book

John Mutz

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 667

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The fun and easy way to raise money for your cause Fundraising For Dummies, 3rd Edition shows you how to take advantage of the latest strategies and resources available for raising money through everything from special events to online donations, in both good and bad economic times. The authors teach you how to market your organization using the most up-to-date tools and technologies available through the Internet. This expanded edition also offers information about philanthropy and tax law. * Contains new tips and techniques for creating materials that bring in contributions and support for the more than 1.4 million charitable and nonprofit organizations in the United States * Explains how to use social media to keep donors and volunteers engaged through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Web technologies * Covers grassroots online fundraising and how to host big events on a shoestring budget You'll also find tips on negotiating without alienating donors and developing long-term organizational goals. All these strategies are what makes this resource indispensable!

Leseprobe

Fundraising For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Putting Your Fundraising Ducks in a Row

Part II: Finding — and Winning Over — Donors

Part III: Telling Your Story and Building Your Brand

Part IV: Engaging Your Givers with the Right Campaigns

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Putting Your Fundraising Ducks in a Row

Chapter 1: Fundraising in a Changing Economy

Looking at the Stark Realities

Identifying cutbacks and understanding the reasons for them

Coping with staff reductions and shrinking budgets

Dealing with hard times that linger

Finding reliable sources

Finding Your Opportunity: A Crisis Is Too Good to Waste

Revisiting your mission

Paring your services (or pairing up to provide them!)

Nurturing the donor-agency relationship

Turning to cost-effective processes

Talking Up Your Successes and Building Relationships

Telling your story well

Engaging people who care

Developing relationships with key businesses and funders

Doing Your Best to Bring In the Dollars

Preparing Now for When Things Start Looking Up

Laying the groundwork to take advantage of an economic recovery

Moving forward with hope

Chapter 2: Identifying the Fruits of Your Fundraising Passion

Sparking Fundraising Action

Remembering why you signed on

Helping your donor catch the spark

Talking the fundraising talk

Building on Passion in the Nonprofit World

Competing for dollars

Keeping your organization going

Demonstrating Your Connection with Social Media

Chapter 3: Finding the Right Perspective: Fundraising Issues and Ethics

Inspiring or Selling: The Fundraising Debate Continues

Living with the stigma

Combining sales and ideals

Understanding the Ethics of Fundraising

Finding ethical standards organizations

Familiarizing yourself with the fundraiser’s credo

Debunking Fundraising Myths

Myth 1: It’s all about the money

Myth 2: You lie to get what you want

Myth 3: Your donor owes the world something

Myth 4: Wining and dining donors is all you do

Chapter 4: Writing Your Case Statement: Your Agency’s Reason to Be

Stating Your Case

Understanding what the case statement is and how you use it

Getting started with your case statement

Making the Case Compelling

A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing the Case Statement

Step 1: The mission: Why are you here?

Step 2: The goals: What do you want to accomplish?

Step 3: The objectives: How will you reach your goals?

Step 4: Programs: What exactly do you provide?

Step 5: Governance: What’s the anatomy of your board?

Step 6: Staff: Who are the people behind your services?

Step 7: Location: Where do you live and work?

Step 8: Finances: Is your organization financially responsible?

Step 9: Development: What will you do in the future?

Step 10: History: What successes are you building on?

Overhauling an Outdated Case Statement

Sharing Your Case Statement

Formatting your case

From paper to online posts: Putting the case statement to work

Chapter 5: Organizing Your Team: Board Members and Volunteers

Seeing the Big Picture: How Boards and Fundraising Fit Together

Understanding the board’s duties

Knowing how your role fits with the board’s work

Enlisting the Board to Help Advance Your Cause

Helping the board help you in fundraising

Balancing the attraction of high-profile board members

Walking your Board through Tough Decisions

Slating and prioritizing your issues

Knowing when to use reserved funds

Figuring out when to launch into unchartered waters

Helping your organization find clarity in challenging times

Discovering the True Value of Volunteers

Seeking volunteers

Establishing a productive relationship

Using your volunteers as fundraisers

Making use of baby boomers: Retirees as volunteers

Chapter 6: Creating a Winning Fundraising Plan

Drafting the Perfect Plan

Starting with the case statement

Identifying your goals

Building a needs statement

Assessing your existing resources

Determining what you need

Setting your financial targets

Putting the all-powerful giving pyramid to work

Getting started with the right methods

Discovering fundraising markets

Avoiding Plan Busters like the Plague

Budgeting Your Fundraising Efforts

Making sure you include everything in your budget . . . but don’t overbudget

Figuring out the cost of raising money

Turning Elsewhere for Assistance

Knowing when to outsource

Using fundraising software

Part II: Finding — and Winning Over — Donors

Chapter 7: Getting the Lowdown on Your Donors

Finding Your Stakeholders

Recognizing Your Bread and Butter: Individual Donors

Understanding donor levels

Identifying possible donors

Doing Business with Corporate Donors

Finding Foundations That Care

Asking Your Board All the Right Questions

Where did you forget to expand your donor base?

Whom did you forget to ask?

Checking Out Potential Donors

Pursuing promising prospects

Finding the silver lining with unlikely prospects

Researching the Internet Way

Keeping Track of Your Donors and Their Contributions

Creating an effective donor information form

Keeping good donor records

Maintaining Confidence: The Issues and Ethics of Handling Personal Data

Chapter 8: Meeting Your Donor

Evaluating the Importance of a Visit

Preparing to Meet Potential Donors

Examining the Giving Relationship between the Donor and the Agency

Showing donors the value of their gifts

Getting more than money from your donors

Checking out what motivates giving

Considering Your Donor’s Context

Engaging donors with limited means (for now)

Connecting with affluent donors

Meeting reluctant retirees on their level

Cultivating the Initial Relationship

Chapter 9: Cultivating Major Givers

Seeking a Major Gift Today for Tomorrow

Finding the Holy Grail of Fundraising — The Major Gift

Planning your way to major gifts

Cultivating donors who have a lot to give

Recognizing Major Donors for Their Contributions

Meeting your donors’ expectations

Providing donor recognition

Chapter 10: Asking for a Major Gift

Pushing through the Fear by Focusing on the Greater Goal

Accepting that you have to talk about money

Understanding that no doesn’t equal failure

Remembering that you’re a donor, too

Checking Out Your Attitudes about Money

True or False: Money is an exchange mechanism

True or False: Money is the root of all evil

True or False: Money can’t buy happiness

True or False: Money talks

Figuring Out Who Should Ask for Money

Teaming up for dollars

Flying solo

Developing the Mechanics of Asking

Recognizing the equitable exchange

Using the tools of the trade

Knowing the donor

Checking out each step of “the Ask”

Moving Beyond No

Rating Your Yes-Ability

Following Up after “the Ask”

Chapter 11: Writing Winning Grant Proposals

Getting a Grip on Grants

Identifying Different Grant Givers

Choosing the Right Project to Get Funded

Starting from the ground up: Seed money

Expanding your reach: Program funds

Building for the future: Capital campaigns

Laying the Groundwork for Grant Seeking

Turning to your board for support

Developing a grant proposal writing strategy

Looking at the grant process, step by step

Finding the Right Funder

Starting your search for funders

Zeroing in on your fundraising category

Using local sources first

Working your way away from home

Digging deeper to find the right grantor

Inquiring about Letters of Inquiry and Grant Guidelines

Getting Down to Business: Writing the Proposal

Creating a comprehensive cover letter

Providing an overview with the executive summary

Introducing your idea

Stating your program’s needs

Outlining program goals, objectives, and evaluations

Detailing the program budget and budget narrative

Explaining your leadership, staffing, and location

Sharing your organization’s history

Including the necessary extras

Following Up on Your Proposal

Putting a Positive Spin on No

Seeing Your Grant as a Relationship

Part III: Telling Your Story and Building Your Brand

Chapter 12: Connecting for Profits: Sharing Your Story by Print, Mail, and Phone

Thinking through Your Communications Strategy

Evaluating your communications costs

Considering your communications options

Crafting a communications approach

The list! The list! Pull out your donor list!

Printing Only What You Need

Saving money on printing

Showing progress with an annual report

Taking the Direct (Mail) Approach

When direct mail works: Asking current donors to give again

When the most direct mail is e-mail

Figuring out what to send

To Call or Not to Call

Making your callers the good guys

Knowing your no-call responsibilities

Working the phones with a positive attitude

Chapter 13: Projecting Your Image in the Media

Getting the Media Exposure You Want

Realizing what the media can do for you

Making the first contact

Coming up with story ideas for the media

Working in Sound Bites: Public Service Announcements

Looking Good on Television

Seeking airtime on the small screen

Preparing for a television interview

Remembering on-air cues

Taking Advantage of Print Opportunities

Making yourself quotable

Fixing mistakes in print

Leveraging Online Coverage

Posting your story everywhere

Filling a need for news with news feeds and blogs

Crisis Control: When Media Attention Is Unwanted

Getting the crisis under control fast

Drafting a disaster control plan

Chapter 14: Social Networking: What’s the Connection for Your Organization?

Getting Started with Social Media

Surveying the basics of social media

Identifying who uses social media and what they can do for you

Building a Community of People Who Care

Feeling all a-Twitter

Connecting constituents with LinkedIn

Sharing the love on Facebook

Understanding What Your Social Media Users Want

Visibility and voice: Here we are!

Engagement and opportunity: Let me help

The freedom to choose: I want it my way

Taking the Plunge into Social Media

Making sure your messages work together

Tracking and evaluating results

Creating credibility and security in social media

The Big Dilemma: To Ask or Not to Ask?

Chapter 15: Getting the Most from E-Mail and E-Newsletters

Making the Case for E-Mail

Being Smart about E-Mail Campaigns

Figuring out who should receive your e-mails

Knowing what to say

Writing an e-mail that gets the results you’re looking for

Avoiding E-Mail Mistakes

Don’t use e-mail to spam

Don’t be a sloppy e-mailer

Understanding the Power of E-Newsletters

Catering to your donors’ interests

Creating your e-newsletter

Adding multimedia pizzazz

Automating e-newsletter delivery

Keep ’em coming back

Chapter 16: Ramping Up Your Web Site

Seeing How a Web Site Helps with Fundraising

Putting Your Web Site to Work for Your Organization

Evaluating your Web site

Building credibility for your organization

Adding Content and Keeping It Fresh

Putting your contact information front and center

Including information that saves time

Writing content yourself

Using existing materials

Linking to content on other Web sites

Considering the value of online media

Attracting Visitors to Your Site

Showing up in search engine results

Getting linked by other sites

Collecting Donations Online

Chapter 17: Extending Your Brand Online

Knowing Your Branding Basics

Assessing Your Brand

Tweaking your brand

Developing brand strategies

Blogging Your Way to Funds

Figuring the cost of blogs

Building your brand with an effective blog

Publishing Online to Boost Your Branding and Credibility

Getting published

Creating good online content

Joining Online Communities: Discussion Groups

Checking out nonprofit discussion groups

Promoting yourself through discussion groups

Partnering Online through Affinity Programs

Connecting with People through Association and Special-Interest Sites

Part IV: Engaging Your Givers with the Right Campaigns

Chapter 18: Organizing, Implementing, and Celebrating Your Annual Fund

Understanding the Basics of Annual Funds

Designing Your Annual Campaign

Setting your goals

Timing your annual fund

Assembling your team

Choosing your fundraising tools

Rating your organization

Putting the Plan in Place

Understanding your approach: Donor research and planning

Choosing your materials

Five signs your plan is falling flat (and what to do about it)

Evaluating (And Celebrating) Your Annual Fund Drive

Planning for Next Time

Chapter 19: Planning a Special Event

Seeing How a Special Event Benefits Your Organization

Planning, Planning, Planning!

Putting together the best team

Selecting an event

Deciding the when and where

Setting expectations

Budgeting for the special event

Setting a timeline

Black Tie Optional: Organizing an Online Event

Using Webinars to inform and persuade

Chatting online with celebrities

Following Up after the Big Event

Measuring goodwill

Evaluating the event’s outcomes

Saying “Thank you!”

Gathering event lessons for next time

Chapter 20: Building Buildings, Nonbuildings, and Futures: The Capital Campaign

Gearing Up for the Big Campaign

Exploring Capital Campaign Types

Building bricks-and-mortar campaigns

Checking out endowment campaigns

Putting together project campaigns

Running combined campaigns

Selecting a Champion

Staging the Campaign

Testing the waters: Campaign feasibility

Setting your goal

Identifying lead gifts and challenge gifts

Going public

Following up with your capital campaign

Debriefing everybody

Chapter 21: Securing Major Gifts, Planned Gifts, and the Challenge Grant

Making a Perfect Match

Deciding on the major gift amounts for your organization

Getting to the heart of the major giver

Valuing the relationship: Stewardship in action

Creating a major gift strategy

Preparing for Planned Gifts

Getting the gift that keeps on giving

Differentiating planned giving from other types of giving

Timing is key: Knowing when to start

Gearing up for planned giving

Making Money Go the Extra Mile: Challenge Grants

Understanding how challenge grants work

Managing a challenge grant

Chapter 22: Engaging the Corporate Giver

Understanding the Attitudes behind Corporate Giving

Making a difference in the community

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours: Cause-related marketing

Finding the Right Corporations for Your Organization

Using the local community hook

Discovering where the CEO’s heart lies

Finding out what serves the company’s interests

Approaching a Corporate Donor

Researching the corporation ahead of time

Knowing your value to the donor

Putting together your presentation

Following up in a businesslike way

Chapter 23: Building and Growing Endowments

Endowing the Future

Understanding what an endowment is

Deciding whether you can (and should) build an endowment

Building an Endowment

Getting your board to buy in

Explaining the value to donors

Making an endowment part of your overall fundraising effort

Managing an Endowment

Providing oversight and establishing policies

Seeking professional help to manage endowment dollars

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 24: Ten Predictions about Fundraising

Huge Amounts of Wealth Will Be Transferred

Givers Will Become More Savvy

Attorneys General Will Become Major Regulators of Nonprofits

Women Will Play a Bigger Role in Giving

E-Giving Will Grow

Nonprofits Will Go Commercial

Nonprofits Will Increase Their Role in Community Leadership

Inheritance Tax Law Changes Will Change the Giving Game

Corporations Will Jump on the Cause-Related Marketing Bandwagon

Fundraising Costs Will Be Scrutinized

Chapter 25: Ten (Plus One) Great Opening Lines

“How about a little good news?”

“Would you like to watch the birth of a baby elephant?”

“Hi, Mrs. Jones, I just left a meeting where we were discussing . . .”

“I recently visited the program you sponsored. Very inspiring! I’d love to show it to you sometime.”

“Now, how can I help you?”

“Research shows that giving is good for your health.”

“You have no idea how much good your last gift did for our organization!”

“More people go to zoos today than go to all sports activities combined.”

“Seven out of ten of our city’s families use United Way services in their lifetime.”

“Hey, I just received this great picture! The new wing of the library is finished!”

“Cute dog!”

Fundraising For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

by John Mutz and Katherine Murray

Fundraising For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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About the Authors

For more than two decades, Katherine Murray has specialized in writing how-to books for general audiences on a variety of topics, ranging from business to technology to parenting. A number of years ago, Katherine’s writing led her into the nonprofit world, when she volunteered her research and writing skills to help selected nonprofit organizations with missions close to her heart. Since that time, Katherine has completed a certification in Fundraising Management from the IU Center on Philanthropy and become a kind of “fundraising coach” for small and struggling nonprofits. Katherine’s recent books include Green Home Computing For Dummies with coauthor Woody Leonhard (Wiley) and First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (Microsoft Press). As a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists, she writes articles and blogs about earth-care issues. You can follow Katherine’s Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/kmurray230

John Mutz is a fundraising expert and speaker who has an extensive array of fundraising credits. He was named 1997 Volunteer Fundraiser of the Year by the Indiana Chapter of National Association of Fundraising Professionals. In 1999, John served as Chairman of the United Way of Central Indiana, which raised more than $36.5 million. From 1996 to 1998, John served as Chairman of the Indianapolis Zoo, where he chaired a $14.5 million fundraising campaign for White River State Park Gardens. From 1989 through 1994, John was the president of the Lilly Endowment, one of the nation’s five largest private foundations, which supports the causes of religion, education, and community development. The Endowment included in its grant-making activity special grants intended to improve the financial viability of nonprofit organizations. During his time there, the Lilly Endowment made the grant that brought the Fundraising School to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). In addition, the Endowment initiated the GIFT program, which utilized matching and challenge grants to create a network of community foundations that now covers all 92 of Indiana’s counties.

In 1988, John was the Republican Candidate for Governor of Indiana, during which time he raised $4 million for the campaign. He is also co-founder of the Indiana Donor’s Alliance, a statewide organization of community foundations. In addition to his board positions, John serves as a regular speaker for the Executive Leadership Institute (National Association of Fundraising Professionals), the National Council of Foundations, and the Center on Philanthropy. He has also been a speaker for the Rocky Mountain Council of Foundations and Hillsdale College and has given dozens of speeches to community foundations. John served as Indiana’s Lieutenant Governor from 1980 to 1988 and in 1999 retired as president of the state’s largest electric utility. He currently serves as Board Chairman of Lumina Foundation for Education, a billion-dollar private foundation which supports access and success in post-high school education.

Dedication

To the tens of thousands of caring volunteers, staff, and development professionals who do all they can to give of their time, effort, and wealth in supporting the causes close to their hearts. Because of you, the world keeps turning.

Authors' Acknowledgments

We would like to thank a number of people who have helped us by volunteering their anecdotes, fundraising tips, editorial prowess, and technical expertise during the writing of this book. First thanks go to Burton Weisbrod, Dan Yates, Marc Owens, Robert Payton, Ken Gladish, Peter Goldberg, Jeff Bonner, and Ken Bode, for their professional expertise and insights. Thanks also to the folks at Wiley, in particular Erin Calligan Mooney, Vicki Adang, and Amanda Langferman for their great, timely, and insightful help as we prepared this third edition. We are appreciative of Tammy Zonker, who reviewed the manuscript. A big thank you to our families for encouraging and supporting us in the midst of late nights, long hours, and looming deadlines. Special thanks go to Carolyn Mutz for getting us together to write this book and for creating the opportunity for a great collaboration.

Lastly, heartfelt thanks go to all the volunteers, staff members, and leaders in the many nonprofit organizations we have served throughout the years. We’ve been touched and inspired by your dedication and persistent work to make this world a better place, and we hope that this book makes your goals seem more reachable than ever.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Victoria M. Adang(Previous edition: Jennifer Connolly, Kristin DeMint)

Acquisitions Editor: Tracy Boggier

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Editorial Program Coordinator: Joe Niesen

Technical Editor: Tammy Zonker

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Editorial Assistant: Jennette ElNaggar

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Composition Services

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Introduction

Chances are you were initially drawn to nonprofit work because of a cause you cared about — whether that cause was homeless families, environmental concerns, cutbacks in the arts, or public policy issues. You heard or saw something that touched your heart, and your mind opened up to the possibilities of doing something to help. Maybe your checkbook opened up, too.

Whether you wound up helping as a volunteer, joining a staff, or serving on a board, you most likely connected with the agency because, first and foremost, you believed in the work it was doing. At some point, you realized that the role of the fundraiser is right at the heart of the organization. After all, without funding, the agency wouldn’t be able to do any of the good work that got you hooked in the first place.

As you certainly know, fundraising in any economic climate is a challenge, but raising funds in a time of financial upheaval is a challenge of new proportion. Not only is your organization vying with other groups for donors’ attention, compassion, and financial gifts, but now you must swim against the tide of economic uncertainty, reduced assets, and general insecurity in the market. How do you encourage donors to give when they’re fearful about their finances? How can you demonstrate the good stewardship of your group and share your success stories — all while reducing costs and furthering your reach? Is it possible to connect with your donors in new ways during economic hardship, honoring their contributions and inviting their engagement no matter how big the check they write today is?

Fundraising For Dummies, 3rd Edition, answers these questions and many more, offering practical, tried-and-true ways to raise the funds you need in any financial landscape. Whether you run a one-person development office or chair a 20-member board of directors, this bookwalks you through the process of assessing your fundraising climate, getting ready to raise funds, preparing a far-reaching fundraising plan, gathering your resources, and putting your plan in place. Additionally, this book shows you how to find and work with donors, set up a variety of fundraising campaigns, and explore effective, low-cost ways — such as reducing your four-color print budget and beginning to use social marketing techniques — to get the word out about the good your organization is doing in your community and around the world.

About This Book

No matter where you are on your fundraising journey, this book is here to help you find just what you need. You don’t have to read it cover to cover to find value, but we do suggest that you start by taking a look at Chapter 1, which gives you a sense of the factors that influence raising funds in a shifting economic landscape. Then feel free to wander where your interests and most urgent needs lead you. When we cover a particular topic in more detail elsewhere in the book, we include a cross-reference so you can easily jump from chapter to chapter to read up on the areas that interest you most.

Throughout the book, we strive to make ideas and phrases easy to understand, putting things in simple terms with advice straight from the school of practical experience. The idea is to give you effective fundraising techniques fast — ideas you can put in place right away — without requiring you to spend a lot of time with complicated concepts that will rarely, if ever, affect what you do in real-world fundraising for your organization.

Conventions Used in This Book

We use the following conventions consistently throughout the book:

New terms appear in italics and are closely followed by an easy-to-understand definition.

Boldface text either indicates keywords in bulleted lists or highlights action parts of numbered steps.

All Web and e-mail addresses appear in monofont.

When this book was printed, some Web addresses may have needed to break across two lines of text. If you come across a two-line Web address, rest assured that we haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So when you’re using one of these Web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending that the line break doesn’t exist.

What You’re Not to Read

Sidebars — the gray boxes set apart from the regular text — are side topics that may be interesting but aren’t exactly essential to the fundraising topics at hand. Sidebars may point out the background of a term or practice, for example, or give you additional details on a topic mentioned in the text. If you want to speed through the book and skip the sidebars, go ahead; no need to feel guilty.

Foolish Assumptions

We made some assumptions about you as we wrote this book. Basically, we think the following:

You’re a current or aspiring fundraiser.

You’re feeling the impact of the shifting economy and want practical ideas for effective fundraising.

Whether you have 20 years of experience or are just starting out, you’d like some fresh ideas and advice that will help you use the best approaches and technologies available today.

You may be anyone from a full-time staff member to a volunteer charged with fundraising tasks.

You don’t have a huge staff or open-ended budget.

You care about the mission you’re raising funds to support and want to make a positive difference.

You don’t have time to waste; you need to get to work right away with ideas and tools that can help you succeed.

How This Book Is Organized

Fundraising For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is organized into five different parts, with chapters arranged to walk you (more or less) through the process of preparing for, creating, implementing, and evaluating a cohesive fundraising system.

Part I: Putting Your Fundraising Ducks in a Row

Part I is all about your readiness — as an agency — to set up a fundraising system. Long before you start taking those checks to the bank, you need to make sure your organization is ready to raise funds. Getting ready involves gaining a sense of the climate in which you’re planning to raise funds and identifying the factors that may impact your efforts. It also means getting a clear sense of the organization. What’s your organization’s mission? Why do you do what you do? Whom does your agency help? What does your board do? This part of the book helps you evaluate and answer these questions — and many more — to make sure that you are, in fact, ready to roll out your own fundraising plan.

Part II: Finding — and Winning Over — Donors

Part II introduces the all-important donor and helps you understand what role he or she plays in the effectiveness of your overall fundraising plan. Who are your donors and where can you find them? What motivates a donor to give? How can you lessen your chances of hearing “No!” on your donor calls? How equitable is the agency-donor relationship? How can you write a winning grant proposal that speaks directly to the grantor about the good your organization does (and how a grant would help you do even more)? This part introduces you to these donor-related aspects of any fundraising system and helps you prepare for your eventual dialog with your donors.

Part III: Telling Your Story and Building Your Brand

Much of your work as a fundraiser involves telling the story of your organization in a compelling and engaging way. Whether you’re sending mail pieces, working with the media, writing grant proposals, using social media and e-mail approaches, or updating your Web site, understanding what your donors see, hear, and think about your organization is key to ensuring that you’re building the brand value you hope to create. When your name and work are synonymous with compassion, quality, service, and good work, your donors will be glad to be part of your organization and will undoubtedly want to get closer. This part helps you use all these means — and more — to engage your donors in a way that enables them to give gladly.

Part IV: Engaging Your Givers with the Right Campaigns

As a fundraiser, you find out quickly that different campaigns enable you to connect with different types of donors in different ways. You fund your year-in, year-out operations with your annual fund. You purchase new playground equipment with the help of a special event. You build the new library building thanks to the dollars raised for the capital campaign. You can go after major gifts from corporations and foundations, or you can decide to build an endowment for longer-term financial security. This part explores these different campaigns and provides advice about when you should use each campaign, what to expect from them, and how to evaluate the campaigns so you can do more of what works next time.

Part V: The Part of Tens

In typical For Dummies fashion, this part of the book lists a few collections of ten items, grouped around a particular subject. Chapter 24 offers ten interesting ideas about changes on the fundraising horizon that may impact your work in the years to come. Chapter 25 offers great opening lines that you can use to engage your donors right off the bat. You never know when one may come in handy.

Icons Used in This Book

If you’ve ever used a ForDummies book before, you know that each book has a lot of little pictures on the pages, showing you what’s special and important about a particular paragraph. Here are the icons we use throughout this book:

Anything having to do with money, people, and time lends itself to analysis. This icon draws attention to quantifiable ways that the fundraising landscape has changed over time.

This icon highlights useful concepts and practical information.

Basic “how-to-do-it-better” ideas appear with this icon so you can do things correctly from the start.

Pay close attention to the information listed with this icon, or your fundraising campaign could be a bomb.

Where to Go from Here

Well, you could take the afternoon off and go watch the Cubs play . . . but more than likely you’re now fired up and ready to tackle some of the fundraising issues you face. Before you begin, however, review the following fundraising truths:

Fundraising starts with passion.

People want to give — even in tough economic times.

You help donors achieve their goals. (Giving truly is good for both the donor and the organization.)

Fundraising is a noble endeavor.

Don’t believe these truths? By the time you’re done reading this book, you will. In the meantime, sit back, feel confident that you’re not alone out there in the big world of fundraising, and enjoy your trip through Fundraising For Dummies, 3rd Edition. Feel free to start at the beginning, or move to the topics that interest you most. Go wherever your fundraising heart takes you!

Part I

Putting Your Fundraising Ducks in a Row

In this part . . .

Before you can start bringing in the big bucks to fund your organization, you need to begin at the beginning — by figuring out the lay of the land and getting a sense of what’s possible in your fundraising environment. Anytime you start something new, you have to take some time to get your feet under you and become familiar with the basics of your task. And in times of economic upheaval, being able to assess your starting point — and envision your end goal — is more important than ever.

This part of the book introduces you to the foundation of your fundraising efforts: your passion, your mission, your board, and your message. Use this part to put the cornerstones in place as you begin building your fundraising approach.

Chapter 1

Fundraising in a Changing Economy

In This Chapter

Keeping your thumb on the pulse of the economy

Discovering your opportunity during an economic downturn

Finding success by building relationships

Taking advantage of an upcoming economic recovery

Chances are you love a challenge. You probably also enjoy people, have a passion for your cause, have skills that help you communicate easily, are personable, and know how to focus on details while keeping in mind the big picture. In your heart of hearts, you also may have a never-say-die belief that good causes need good people to raise the funds that keep them going.