My notes about business of non-profits

Fundraising:

• Seeking financial support for a charity or cause
• Effort to build long-term relationships with supporters
• TLDR: Separate the donors from their money

Types of Gifts - may be solicited or unsolicited

• One time gifts
• Sustainer or recurring gifts
• Gifts-in-kind
• Volunteering
• Grants
• Planned gifts
• Stock gifts
• Matching gifts

Strategies to get donations

• Campaigns for major/planned giving (major = outright, planned = deferred)
• Peer-to-peer
• Campaigns for recurring giving
• Annual giving
• Capital campaigns
• Memberships (Society)
• Auction, contests
• Product sales

Appeal Methods

• Direct Mail
• Phone calls
• Print, TV, radio
• Proposals/case statements
• Events
• In-person meetings
• Online and Mobile
• Email
• Text
• Social media
• Crowdfunding

Fundraising needs

1. Clear mission statement
2. Compelling vision statement
3. Consistent branding
4. Measurable outcomes

Fundraising plan - Who, what, when, where, how

Metrics

• Cost per dollar
• Return on investment
• Donor growth
• Average gift size
• Donor Retention rate
• Donor Lifetime value

Case statement (i.e. reason for support your organization), 3-4 pages long with half text and half images + charts (statistics & impact results), include history, mission, vision and success stories

Questions to consider:

• Why YOUR organization?
• What makes you unique?
• What is lost without you?
• Why important what you do?
• Why should people care?

Effective emotional messaging needed.

• Highlight problem. Appeal based on anger, fear, frustration if problem is not solved.
• Inspire, storytelling
• Stay positive, associate your organization with happiness
• Use urgency
• Don't use shocking imagery
• Don't make audience numb to your appeals

Major Giving

• Large, well above average donation
• Threshold amount is different for every organization
• Common baseline = average annual gift x 100
• Types of major givers
  • Affiliates - look for social or business relationships (e.g. local bank)
  • Pragmatists - seek personal benefits for support (e.g. better treatment at a cancer center)
  • Dynasts - heirs to family wealth, who following giving traditions of family
  • Re-payers - reciprocate the benefits they or family members received
• 80/20 rule applies, sometimes it could be 90/10
• Major donors deserve the highest level of personalization, thanks (personal letter or article in newsletter etc.) and recognition (donor wall, other naming opportunities etc.)
• More reliable revenue stream

Donor Lifecycle

1. Identification
2. Qualification
3. Cultivation
4. Solicitation
5. Stewardship

Emotional game

• Turn donors into ambassadors of your organization
• Make it easy to share excitement: website buttons, peer-to-peer opportunities, email forwarding, Gear/swag, templates/icons/badges, social media

Why donors leave

• Other causes more deserving
• Current organization did not acknowledge support
• No recall of ever supporting
• Did not inform how money was used