Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Fundraising Basics

Today there are more non-profit and charity groups than ever. On the one hand, this is a great development (I hope) - it means that as a society we are becoming more aware of a need to give to others. We even see that people are taking the necessary steps to ensure that we help others. On the other hand, though, the presence of so many non-profits creates a unique problem - "donors burnout."
In short, did you realised that there are more donation drive running across your neighbourhoods, TVs and newspapers?
The increased competitiveness of fundraising has created a whole new business: The Fundraising Business. There are consulting firms that will help you fundraise more effectively - for a price, of course. There are also many companies that claim that their fundraising efforts or products will make money for your non-profit in exchange for a share in the profits.
Many people assume that fundraising is as simple as holding garage sales or some other activities until enough money is raised. If you only want to raise a small amount of money for a specific purpose (eg. student's fund for college), this may be fine, but for many groups using this approach is too uncertain and too limited to be very effective.
If your group will be around for a while because your organisation runs on donar's support, then you will want to raise money consistently in order to keep your group going. You will need to learn many things in order to keep enough money coming consistently: Fundraising is not an easy activity and it does requires skills to achieve the best results.