Fundraising Basics

Successful fundraising requires following certain fundamental steps. Here are 2 things you need to do with every fundraiser:

1) Improve community awareness of your need

2) Increase community awareness of your offering

Everybody reading this instantly thinks, “Yep, we’ve got that covered. Everyone in our group knows what we’re doing.”

Let us take a closer look and see, shall we?

Creating Awareness Of your Fundraising Need:

1) Can your need be expressed in a single sentence?

2) Has everyone in your group memorized that sentence?

Test your group from top to bottom.

Randomly ask people to tell you why your group is raising money.

I certainly assure you that you’ll be surprised at how weak the various answers are.

In many teams, more than 50% of those involved with the fundraiser won’t be able to tell you in a single sentence the specific reasons why they are raising cash.

What about outside your group?

Can you honestly say that you’ve exhausted every possible method in getting the word out to the community about your fundraiser?

Does everybody know why you’ll need cash?

Have you done each of these?

Flyers

Posters

Press release

Roadside signs

Newspaper coverage

Public service radio announcements

Pre-kickoff letter, postcard, or email campaigns

Or, are you currently assuming that all you have to do is tell somebody that you’re doing a fundraiser and that they will be glad to assist?

2 problems with that approach. One is that most of your group can’t successfully talk your need.

The second is that you’re currently assuming that your group has more than enough prospective supporters to fulfill your objective.

Both these problems restrict your potential outcomes.

Consider these 3 points:

One, in case your need isn’t conveyed clearly and concisely, it will not be understood and internalized as a deserving cause by your prospective supporters.

Two, if your sellers do not really understand your group’s need, then they won’t push as hard to meet that need.

Three, if your need is not common knowledge in your community, then your fundraising job will probably be that much harder.

Consider “getting the word out” as being similar to softening up the beachhead during the Normandy invasion. In the event you do not do the advance prep work, you’re much more likely to meet a hostile response.

Creating Awareness Of your Fundraising Offering

The second fundraising fundamental goes hand-in-hand with creating an awareness of your need.

Creating an awareness of your offering is just as important as telling individuals why your group needs money.

Your fundraising need and your fundraising offering should be closely linked in all of your communications.

At the same time you’re getting the word out, you need to ensure the message gets through on exactly what your group is doing to raise money.

Just as with expressing your need, everyone in your group ought to be able to sum up your fundraising offering in a single sentence.

That sentence should also reinforce the emotional basis that is derived from recognition of one’s need.

So what in the heck does all that mean?

Place simply, if somebody believes your require is real and agrees using the worth proposition of your offering, they’ll help you.

And what’s your fundraising worth proposition?

It’s a summation of your offering, combined with a reminder of your need, that is expressed in a way that shows each prospective supporter of what’s in it for them.

In other words, your prospect needs to:

1 – Be aware of your need

2 – Be linked to it on an emotional level

3 – Be in agreement that your offer has real value in it for them

Getting your need and your offering across to as many potential supporters as possible is the heart and soul of fundraising.

Take the time to develop single sentence statements for your fundraiser covering both of these fundraising fundamentals.

Teach everybody in your group how to talk these basic value statements when they talk to potential supporters.

Conclusion

Executing well on these fundraising fundamentals — communicating your need and communicating your offering — guarantees that your fundraiser will be a smashing success.

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