Fundraising Tips

But first do your research. You’ll have narrowed down your search by looking through a funding directory or a funding website and have identified the trust as one likely to consider your cause or project. You’ll know about their history, their patterns of grant-giving and the amounts they give. You’ll have looked at their website to learn even more.

Once you’re armed with all this knowledge – call them. Talk about your organisation and what you’re trying to achieve in terms of outcomes; ask them what types of project they would be most likely to support and what would be a reasonable amount to ask for. Pick up any little snippets or tips that will help you in completing the application form.

And now, having significantly increased your chances of application success, you’re ready to complete the application form.

Most fundraisers sourcing trusts from a book naturally start from the first page and work through the alphabetical listings.

You can increase your chances of fundraising success by opening the book towards the end and working backwards; or increase your chances further by using www.trustfunding.org.uk and let the search engine match the trusts to your criteria.

Want to double your chances of getting that grant? Read the eligibility criteria. Then read them again.

It may sound simple, but research carried out by the governmentfunding.org.uk team last year showed that over 50% of applications to central government departments were unsuccessful because they failed to meet the basic eligibility criteria. By making sure your organisation and the work you are proposing is absolutely 100% eligible for funding you are instantly doubling your chances of success.

In some cases that may be more difficult than it sounds, especially with statutory programmes using a language all of their own to describe their funding programmes. If you are not sure, or need clarification, get in touch with the funder and check - it's as much in their interests as yours that your application is relevant. A five minute phone call could save you hours, or even days of work on an application for funding that no matter how good it is, won't be successful.

Special offer: Organisations subscribing to governmentfunding.org.uk before 30 April 2008 get a free and updated 40 page “Government Funding” chapter from The Complete Fundraising Handbook. Find out more at http://www.governmentfunding.org.uk/Page.aspx?SP=316

by Amy Rosser, Project Manager for DSC's governmentfunding.org.uk

“My Granddad is divine compost because he has grown these good things in his children and grandchildren. It is because we teach these things to our children that they will in turn teach them to theirs; the impact is eternal.

How do you incorporate this within your fundraising message? By making sure that you show how generosity ripples outwards. Do not stop at saying a donation will take a homeless person off the streets. Talk about what they will do when they are off the streets. Who will they meet and what will they do? What acts of goodness will they now be able to do?”

This article is by Jonathan Farnhill and is an extract from his book, The Porcupine Principle. Download the full chapter below.

There are indeed ‘born’ fundraisers who simply go out and ask people for money, often with spectacular and continuing success – you have probably come across one or two of them. But they are few and far between and you do not have to be one of them in order to raise lots of money.

Fundraising programmes fail nearly always for the same reason – short term pressures have meant that fundraisers have simply not got around to putting in the fundraising time.

They are probably funded by short-term grants, or by unsatisfactory service agreements with statutory agencies. They knew that this was leaving them in a vulnerable position but the pressures of coping with day-to-day needs of their beneficiaries have overwhelmed their plans to change this situation.

And then, too often, they find they have left it too late and are facing an immediate crisis that funding, seldom a short-term activity, cannot resolve for them in the time available.

The good news is that those who have indeed formed a reasonable fundraising plan, and then put the necessary time and resources into implementing it, nearly always succeed. I hardly ever meet people who say that they have tried asking people for money, but they have said ‘No’.

Extract from Effective Fundraising: An informal guide to getting donations and grants (£12.95) by Luke Fitzherbert. Buy now
The text is the resource for DSC’s training course, Effective Fundraising I. Register now

‘Making the ask’ is, at its heart, nothing more than asking potential donor for funds. Done properly, it is an effective method of raising large funds for organisations. Done badly, it not only doesn’t raise funds but also wastes the good will of individuals and harms the potential of the organisation to do its work.

By far and away the greatest problem encountered in meetings between a fundraiser and potential donor is the reluctance of askers to actually ‘make the ask’! All too often, a pleasant conversation ensues – about the organisation and its merits, the project in question, the potential donor’s relationship to the organisation, the donor’s family and business life – but, tragically, an actual ask is often not made.

In preparing and rehearsing for the meeting, the key designated asker should have practiced saying and must now deliver the following (or similar) words:

“Would you be prepared to join us in supporting this project to the level of xxx,xxx?”

If askers fail to deliver on this key responsibility, all else is lost.

The response – “Silence”

After the ‘ask’ is made, the askers must await a response, in silence! All too often in key asking circumstances, askers deny themselves the prospect of obtaining a major gift by not waiting in silence for a response. They will continue to talk about the project, or worse, start to suggest reasons why it might be inopportune or inappropriate for the potential donor to give. In other words, they start talking the potential donor out of giving. Silence prevents this possibility.

Excerpt from Quick Guide: Making the Ask £5.00 by Frank Opray. Buy now

By John Baguley

1. The Pareto principal
80% of your income can come from 20% of your supporters. Learn who they are, develop the relationship, and approach them for more until the ratio comes true.

2. ‘My friend the fundraiser’
People tend to give to people, not organisations. They give to help end suffering, so in your fundraising bring them as close to the victims as possible but become their friend in the process, and build up the relationship for long-term giving.

3. ‘Thank you!’
Always say ‘thank you’ and say it promptly. It is common courtesy and shows respect for your donors and gratitude for their generosity. If you do not say ‘thank you’ you do not deserve another donation. Thanking people helps to comment your friendship. Do not try to get out of it.

4. How much?
Always let people know how much you would like them to give. It makes them feel comfortable and makes you look competent. If there is no indication of the amount you need people worry that they may be thought foolish for giving away a lot, or mean for giving just a little. Whilst they deliberate the immediacy goes out of your request, and you may lose the donation altogether.

5. Testing, testing, testing
Until you test, you do not know. You can have a hundred theories about your fundraising programme and your donors, but until you actually run one idea against another you do not really know which one works. It is easy to do in some cases, such as direct mail, and harder in others, such as advertising – but it is essential in all cases. Always try to learn something each time you carry out an idea, and always test ideas on the smallest statistically relevant sample possible.

Principles 6-10 appear in Successful Fundraising by John Baguley, £16.95 available from DSC. Buy Successful Fundraising

John Baguley is delivering the opening plenary at DSC’s Fundraising Conference on 27 October 2008. Register now

1: Be proud to be a fundraiser

Our efforts enable good works to happen. Everywhere throughout the world the voluntary sector is growing and increasing its contribution to improve the lot of the human species and to make the world a better place in which we live. Fundraisers play a significant role in this, for without us voluntary action wouldn’t happen. We provide the resources that fuel philanthropy. Without our contributions the great machine that is the voluntary or nonprofit sector would grind to an ultimate halt.

So we should defend and promote fundraising, but only when we can do so with hand on heart. We should be our own fiercest critics, to ensure that we constantly strive to refine and improve what we do.

2: Believe passionately in your cause

As a fundraiser you must believe passionately in your cause if you are to have any chance of communicating that passion and commitment to others. Never be ashamed or embarrassed by your passion or afraid to show it in public. On the contrary be proud of it. When backed by the actions it inspires, passion such as this is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better.

3: Be honest, open, truthful

Shouldn’t need saying this, but it does. Donors expect fundraisers to be consistently and scrupulously honest; they have the right to do that. They will repay you harshly if they feel you have let them down. More than on most other professions(except perhaps the police or the clergy), donors expect to be able to rely on what fundraisers tell them. Other members of the public may be less trusting, and this is both a major problem and an opportunity for us.

4: Be faithful

Always stick to your promises. Let donors see that you are honorable and trustworthy. Stand by your organisations mission, and don’t compromise what it stands for.

5: Be prepared to take a (calculates) risk.

The cautious, heads-down culture of nonprofits these days doesn’t engender runaway fundraising success. We seem to think risk is bad and that playing safe is good, that being different is wrong and being the same as everyone else is right. To stand out is to draw attention to yourself. Perhaps people now prefer imitation to innovation. But it's only if we are prepared to take a few carefully weighed and well calculated risks that we are ever likely to see real breakthroughs.

6: Be respectful of donors, and show that respect even when they are not present.

The unwelcome but increasingly widespread use among non –profit supporters and even fundraisers  of that unflattering term 'chugger' should lead us inevitably to examination of the terms fundraisers often use to describe their donors. Respect from the organisations they support is something most donors automatically expect. But that respect doesn’t always follow, Fundraisers, I find, frequently refer to donors and other supporters in terms that might not be able to help their aspirations of building lasting, mutual beneficial relationships.

When we write our fundraising letters we should always imagine we are writing to our mother or someone equally close and vulnerable for whom we’d rather die than offend. And when we gather in our conference halls, seminars, and workshops, we should picture in our minds a group of our donors standing at the back of each room, listening intently to our proceedings.

Nothing we say or do should confuse or offend them or make them feel in any way uncomfortable. In the same way as we should respectfully regard our donors we should also picture our beneficiaries, the people our cause exists to help. Such images should not just influence how we behave, what we say, and what we do, they should also inspire us and remind us that when we talk about donors and others we should always show due respect.

This includes showing respect in the labels we stick on donors, the terminologies and titles we use to describe them, singly or in groups. I’ve always railed against the term lapsed donors, for example. It sounds almost biblical, like fallen women. How dare they lapse, these people? Worse still are the terms some fundraisers apply to various segments of their databases. I’ve heard otherwise nice, polite fundraisers refer to groups of their donors and former donors as the residue, the leftovers, the dead pool, and the sediment.

How would you like to be thus described? I rest my case.

• Respond to new needs as they emerge. You are at the front line of social provision. The needs you identify today will be met by the established services of tomorrow.
• Two heads are better that one. Get together with colleagues to bounce ideas around. Or just wallow in a warm bath!
• Start with your current work, your current projects. What are the next steps? How could things be done differently or better? What new needs are emerging from what you are doing and what can you do about them?
• Ask your current, previous and potential users. What do they think about the situation now and in the future? What would they do in your position?
• Also, keep as eye on the “marketplace” – see what others are doing. Get hold of other organisations’ annual reports. Look at the emerging social business sector. Keep in touch with social trends, emerging fashion and fads.
• Write down ideas as soon as you have thought of them, however half-baked or ill thought-out they appear. If you don’t, you’ll forget them. If you do, you can develop and refine them over time.
• Bring in outsiders who have no preconceptions. This can provide a degree of “lateral thinking” which will be useful. You know how the buses or the health services should be run, so it is a good bet that outsiders can teach you a thing or two. Stop thinking about what you can do and about “all the problems and difficulties”. Develop a positive can-do attitude to your work and your organisation.
• Go back to basics. Forget what you are doing now. What might you be doing in an ideal world to deal with the problem or need? Look at your organisation’s objects or purposes as enshrined in the founding documents and think about what you would do if you were starting from scratch.
• Somewhere, there is an idea which is just right for your organisation, which will be easy to raise money for, which will enhance your credibility and public image, and which (hopefully) will solve all your financial problems…for ever!

From Writing Better Fundraising Applications by Mike Eastwood & Michael Norton, available for £14.95 from www.dsc.org.uk/publications