Fundraising

There are no core differences between marketing a profit business and a non-profit business. That is a critical thing to know.  Both need to make money,
and have a strategic marketing plan before they set out to do it.  In fact, the sooner you and your board start thinking like a for profit business, the better. The recent trend toward developing “social enterprise”is all about thinking beyond the thrift store. You may find that starting a business to support your non-profit is easier than traditional fundraising. Depending on your board, resources, and community support, this may or may not be a good idea for your organization.

Fundraising: the very word strikes fear in the hearts of people everywhere.
“Ask me to do anything but that!” You’ve heard it 100 times.  I agree many people don’t like asking for money, but for many, I believe it is because they haven’t found a comfortable way to do it. They need to have options, and find a good fit for them that makes it easy to share their passion when asking for support.  Matching the right person to the right job is half the battle.

Have the right tools to get the job done. One of the difficulties of sharing a passion about your charity to a donor prospect is that they cannot know the intimate details like you do. It’s difficult to create excitement with a brochure, even if it is well done. This is where Video Production can be extremely effective. You can bring your world to the donor on a DVD or thumb drive and give a dynamite presentation.

OK, so this is the worse economy we have seen in a long time. Granted, we are in tough times, so that means you have to get creative with new ideas. But that’s the fun part, at least from my perspective.  When I was faced with trying to create something other than a black tie dinner, I created “Rock-A-Way The Night” a VIP community fundraiser that spanned from 1989 through 2002. It became so popular the tickets sold themselves, and that was because I targeted people’s entertainment dollars, not their charity budget. But we’ll talk more about that in special events.