Werth-It Fundraising Blog

An interesting question came in this morning from Dolores in North Carolina.  She is part of a local organization that needs to raise about $3,500.  Also, at some point, they might want to raise about $60,000 to buy or build a building.  What should she do?

I think this is a common question, so I told Dolores that I would write this up in the Werth-It blog for other people who have the same concerns. 

The first thing I told Dolores is to check www.afpnet.org for a local chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.  That would help her connect with people who know the fundraising situation in her area and could perhaps give her advice.  Fundraising professionals are very nice people and I’m sure would be happy to spend a few minutes on the phone with her, helping her to brainstorm ways to raise money, just as I was.

Next, I suggested she pull together a group of people to help her, that fundraising alone would make it tougher.  Also, if she can’t convince people to help her, why would she be able to convince people to give her money?  Persuading people to help is like persuading them to give money; for some, helping is easier than donating, for others the reverse is true.  But if you convince people to help, you share the burden of work and you reach more people who can help you, as a group knows more people to ask for money than any one person does.

Dolores asked about a good size for a group, which I thought was a good question.  I suggested she get about 9-12 people in a room: it’s a size that’s small enough to have everyone be able to talk, but large enough that you can share all the work that needs to be done so that no one person is overworked.  However, to get that many people in a room requires about 12-18 people to be involved, as about one in three people won’t be able to make any particular meeting.  I’ve worked a lot with groups of this size and it’s manageable and effective.

While in the group, you can look at whether the actual amount needed is $3,500.  It might be that you need more or less money.  At the least, you want to be clear about what the money will go to, as people want to know what will happen with money they donate.  The clearer you are, the more likely someone else will give.

Dolores asked about writing grants.  I pointed out to her that the average grant has only about a one-in-four chance of being granted: there’s a lot of competition out there and not a lot of grantmakers.  Also, I said, it takes about three to six months to hear back, and it might take about 40 hours to write a grant.  That’s a lot of work for not much chance of success.  I did suggest to her, however, that she should check and see if there’s a Community Foundation in her county, as they may be able to give her advice on raising money.

I suggested that the most effective fundraising that Dolores could do would be to get together with one other person to create a small house party.  They can invite people they know to come for an hour, perhaps for coffee and dessert, talk about why the organization needs $3,500, and ask people to give what they can.  I’m sending a document to Dolores to help her with this: if you write me, Katherine Wertheim, at katherine@werth-it.com and request the “Hosted Event” document, I will send it to you for free now.  (Later, I might charge for it.)  It will tell you exactly how to have an event to raise money, using just two people and taking less than two weeks, for very little cost.

Dolores asked about whether it was a good idea to sell donuts outside the local Walmart to raise money.  I pointed out that selling donuts might take eight hours for a day for a couple of people, and while they might make $600, half of that goes to the donut company.  They can probably make about the same amount of money in less time by having a small event in someone’s home and just asking for money, and it would take less time, and it would also tell people about their cause, which doesn’t happen when you’re selling a product. 

Dolores was concerned that she lives in a rural area and that people might not be willing to give money.  I talked to her about all the ways that people spend money now, like buying coffee for $3 or $4 a cup or more, or buying things they really don’t need.  Americans are a generous group of people and give money when it’s needed; in fact, about seven in ten Americans gave money last year, and this goes up in times of crisis.

Dolores said that local people are more likely to pay $8 for a spaghetti dinner than to give money.  I replied that a spaghetti dinner would take more weeks to organize and would involve more people selling tickets, but wouldn’t raise a lot of money and would be hard to repeat frequently.  By doing local events in people’s homes, it takes less time to organize and complete, it takes less time for people to attend, you still have the social aspect of people getting together, but there’s less work involved and less money going for things like paying for spaghetti and tickets and flyers.  You’re also not hitting up the same people for money: different hosts will have different friends they can ask, and they can invite other people from their lives, like neighbors or people they know from their house of worship, for example.

When people give money, as opposed to buying a product or paying for dinner, more money goes to the cause.  You also build up a list of people who are interested in your organization and who can be asked for another donation again.  Dolores will need that list when they go back to raise $60,000 later. 

Even if Dolores can raise $3,500 now through donut sales and spaghetti dinners, that won’t help her when she wants to build a building later (the technical name for this is a capital campaign).  However, if she gets people involved in conducting home events and in attending them, and if people give her small amounts now, she can go back later and ask for more money for a larger project.  She’ll have a list of people who give — not just people who buy a product or attend a dinner.  She’ll also have a list of people who can throw small events, not just sell donuts or tickets.  Having small events now will help a lot later.

Dolores will learn a lot about fundaising and about her cause from just doing one event, and she’ll gather a lot of people together who will help her, which will make her fundraising life easier.  I wish her luck and I hope she’ll write back and let me know how things went.

I’m happy to help people like Dolores who have fundraising questions.  If you would like your fundraising questions answered, feel free to write me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com.

Good luck in your fundraising!