Excerpts Series: Quick Funding Strategies
In this training we walk-through 10 Principles of Quick Funding Strategies. It’s important to lay the groundwork for some ideas around fundraising and bringing cash into the organization. In this excerpt, we will only cover the first three. If you would like to learn them all, take the training - only $69. Click HERE to check it out. There is also a lot of crossover with another one of our trainings, Donor Development. Click HERE to see that one.
Principle #1: The Law of the Nonexistent They. We’ve probably all used that term “they” referring to the unknown masses…
“Well, they say”, or “They say that we should…”. Who are they? The idea I want to convey is that there is no group of individuals — they — just waiting to give your organization money. Sometimes we might be tempted to think: There has to be one person. If I could just find that one person who is waiting to give funding to my organization. If I could just find that one person that could support this particular program.
We have got to get rid of that idea — that there are people we haven’t discovered yet just waiting to give. That group doesn’t exist. Anonymous individuals, people that don’t know you or have no connection with your organization are not out there just waiting for you to find them so that they can give you funding. Sometimes we live in this fundraising fantasy land. We’ve got to put that idea to the side. Again, they just don’t exist.
People will invest in your organization if you give them reason to.
We talk often in Donor Development about the engagement to investment continuum. Until people are engaged in your organization, meaning they know what you do, that you’ve connected with them and educated them about your organization — they’re not going to invest.
There’s an important lesson here. Do not look for that magic person that we think exists somewhere out there. Our goal is to really understand that fundraising, even quick funding, is about connecting with individuals or even groups of people. Once we have the ability to connect with them, then we’re able to tell our story and give them a reason to give to our organization and support our work.
Principle #2: Communicate that your organization has something of value to offer.
As a nonprofit, we want to communicate that our nonprofit has something of value that we’re offering the community. We do the work because it makes a difference. We know why we’re in this work and we know the difference we’re making. We probably have some data, but we also have stories of people that we’ve helped. We know why our communities are better for us being in them. That’s the conversation — that’s what we need to communicate with potential donors.
What difference do we make in the community?
What difference might we make in the life of this donor or people that they care about?
And what difference do we make for those that we are actually serving?
Individually raising dollars from people (which is a part of donor development) is really a conversation between the person with funds and us, the organization. It’s all about relationship. Anything that we talk about in terms of development and really, fundraising in general, is about relationship.
Specifically, when we’re talking about raising money from individuals, we work on building a connection between you and the person that you’re going to be approaching to help you. All of this leads to Donor Development, which is really about making sure there’s a conversation between us as an organization and people that could potentially invest in our work.
Principle #3 Effective Donor Development comes as a result of telling your story.
No one can tell potential donors your story as well as the people who are personally invested in your vision and mission. Building relationships with donors or telling the story to people that we’re trying to get to invest is effective. Especially when we are sharing our heart with them and telling the story about why we’re involved with this organization.
People who are devoting their time are the best walking billboards for your nonprofit. Whether staff, or a volunteer or a board member, when you involved, you are giving this organization that you are representing your most valuable resource — your time.
So in order to tell the complete story, we need to do a little bit of homework and know our fact and figures. We need to know the data points which spell out why this work matters.
We also need to know the personal impact that this work has on the people or the community that we’re serving. Those feel good stories that probably every one of you have.
How has this organization impacted you?
Why are you here?
What difference does this organization make to you as a person that’s devoting time?
Whether you are on staff or a volunteer or a board member, you’re being impacted by this work. Knowing that personal story is so important.
We want to be intentional in our telling. Some of the Quick Funding Strategies we’ll talk about involve storytelling. Giving an opportunity for us to tell other people about why we’re involved and why this is important. We are laying the groundwork. We need to make sure that we have a good sense about the storytelling piece and the impact that this organization makes.
