For certain organizations like those that are non-profit enterprises, fundraising serves as the primary way of obtaining money for specific endeavors and operations which usually include a broad spectrum of concerns.

These fundraising efforts are usually targeted towards religious and philanthropic causes, research organizations, public broadcasters, and even political campaigns.

Aside from having a worthy cause or project and researching about the potential sources of funds, one of the most important aspects when getting into fundraising is through writing effective fundraising letters.

WRITING EFFECTIVE FUND-RAISING LETTERS

Despite the worthy cause of your project, a fundraising letter can make or unbreak you solicitation campaign. In order to avoid rejection because of ineffective fundraising letter, here are some tips you can use to get the fund or sponsor you need:

1. It pays to know your audience to have a good mailing list. This is one of the most basic things you need to consider when writing fundraising letters. By knowing your readers, you can easily determine the proper way of communicating with them.

You can also appeal to them once you are familiar with their values and interests. By having a good mailing list, you can also have an updated list of previous donors that can be the best candidates as sponsors.

2. Learn how to get your reader’s attention. It pays to use your creativity and imagination when writing letters. Using a creative “teaser copy” or a handwritten note that exudes a personal touch will definitely catch your reader’s attention right away.

You can also formulate your own “involvement device” in order to appeal to your readers’ heart by using vivid descriptions, anecdotes, and quotations. You can support this by using facts, and information and statistics.

3. Avoid too much formality. As much as possible, make your fundraising letter personal. You can do this by addressing the reader by his or her name to add personal approach.

4. Describe the benefits of giving in a mild manner. You can do this by telling your reader the specific details of your project and what will be the possibilities of the funds or gift collected.

5. Make the reader feel the project’s sense of urgency. By using your creativity, you can urge the reader to act right away. You can do this by briefly explaining why your request cannot wait and what are the possible scenarios once the project is nit carried out right away.

6. Never use fundraising clichés. Fundraising cliches will only bore your readers and they might think the project is nit worthy because little effort was exerted into it.

7. Use an effective “lift letter.” “Lift letters” are those short notes enclosed in the main letter. This serves as the summary of the letter and would appeal much to those who don’t have enough time to read long letters.

8. Don’t forget to use a “P.S.” This is serve as a last pitch in reminding your reader about your request.

9. Get rid of “stoppers.” “Stoppers” can be grammatical errors, confusing statements, or inappropriate remarks that may distract your reader while going through the request.

10. Lastly, double-check your copy. Before giving it out to your readers, double-check your letter for any possible mistakes.

Low Jeremy maintains http://fund-raising.articlesforreprint.com . This content is provided by Low Jeremy. It may be used only in its entirety with all links included.

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Arrange space for an on-going fundraiser where you can sort and display items people donate for sale. Open up the shop one or two days a month with the help of a volunteer staff. Promote throughout the year that you are accepting donations. Merchandise your items well, like other retail stores to increase traffic and sales.

Contact local stores about donating their merchandise that doesn’t move. The business can write it off as a tax deduction and get it out of their way. You benefit by having new items donated to your sale regularly.

In times when the budget is tight, fundraising may seem harder than normal to do. However, strategic fundraising requires good organization and resourcefulness-two things that come for free. Some tips on successfully holding a fundraiser with no budget is to plan carefully, encourage participation and take advantage of free publicity. When dealing with fundraisers on a very tight if not nonexistent budget, the number of participants will be very crucial to the activity’s success. Fundraisers with no budget will highly depend on the commitment of those involved, which is why a group of people with sheer determination is required of to organize such an activity. The following are some great ideas to raise funds on minimal to no budget at all.

Organize a Community-wide Garage Sale – Keep in mind that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. By getting the neighborhood to donate through giving away old things for sale, you instantly get a garage sale with all proceeds going to your cause. This is an easy and hassle-free way to get rid of all the clutter in the house without throwing things away. That old lampshade may be what your next door neighbor is looking for to complete his antique collection. Make sure to inform the community about the cause of the fundraiser. Clearer objectives will better motivate people to participate and offer their time and effort to be part of your cause.

Environment-Friendly Christmas Ornaments – Get creative! Gather recycled materials and make Christmas ornaments out of old cardboard boxes, wrapping paper and glitter. This type of fundraising will be perfect for the holiday season when everyone’s in the mood for giving. Sell them at affordable prices and make sure to put the fundraising cause at the forefront of the sale. Be forward about your cause and make sure your patrons understand which charitable institution or cause the money will be going to.

Team Up with Recycling Firms – Collect old ink cartridges, cell phones and other broken or non-functional electronics to exchange at the local recycling plant or at Funding Factory (FundingFactory.com), a team dedicated to providing free fundraising support and materials. Every year, as many as 100 million laser printer or inkjet cartridges are disposed of in the United States alone. Collect as much as you can to receive a bigger monetary reward.

Cleanup Fundraiser – Organize a community cleanup project wherein participants will work towards gathering as much trash as they can to raise a considerable amount of money. Pledges for this type of fundraising will be tied to specific trash-collecting goals such as the number of pounds of trash collected. The cleaner the city, the more funds generated. Now that’s a great bargain!

Tofer has been writing informative articles for nearly 2 years on a variety of different directories, blogs, and websites. Her newest area of expertise is in fundraising discount cards. Come check out her website to learn more at http://www.fundraising-discount-cards.com.

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• No prizes are raffled off, only cash.
• The winner wins half of the proceeds brought in from the sale of the tickets. (eg. If you sell $1500 in raffle tickets, the winner gets $750 and your organization gets to keep $750.)
• Tickets are sold only at the event.
• Decide if the winner must be present to win.
• Set a reasonable ticket price based on your audience. Some events will do better if the tickets are $5 each. Others will greatly benefit if the ticket price is $100. Know your audience and set the price accordingly. People can always purchase more than one ticket if they can afford to.
• Set a specific time for the drawing to occur. This will keep people around at your event and help build the excitement.
• Have multiple people working the crowd to sell tickets leading up to the big drawing. In addition, have one person stationed at a set location so people who want a ticket know where they can get one.
• Periodically, announce over a loudspeaker where the prize jackpot is at. This will encourage others to participate as the jackpot grows.
• If the winner is still in attendance, payout the prize on the spot so you don’t have any follow-up to do.
• Note: Be sure to check with your state agencies regarding raffle licenses before holding any raffle event.

When a celebrity teams up with a charity, amazing things can happen. New donors can emerge. New sponsors can appear. Media “buzz” is especially easy to generate. Yes, a celebrity does seem to have that magic touch for generating more of everything.

Would you like a way to reach even more potential donors and sponsors? To have final bids on your celebrity “experience” reach just as high as they can go? Then you need eBay in your fund-raising toolbox.

Many charities have turned to eBay to auction off a celebrity experience or items with much success. Even Oprah Winfrey took her Angel Network auction to eBay earlier this year. Items sold benefited the Angel Network causes. The auction overall raised about $83,000. Items auctioned off included chairs from The Oprah Winfrey Show that sold for $64,000. Clothing items such as one of Oprah’s Chanel sweaters sold for $11,000. Ski gear that was autographed by Oprah sold for $7,600. The power of eBay is clearly strong for charities with celebrity items and experiences up for auction.

Jill Finlayson, author of Fundraising on eBay and former Senior Category Manager, states that celebrity experiences are top sellers on eBay. “Experiences do very well with non-profits. You can do them very large scale with celebrities, or you can do them at a much smaller scale such as San Jose did where you get to turn on the Christmas tree and flip the switch and have that experience, or maybe meet the major,” said Finlayson. Some experiences will have mass appeal, and others will have a real local appeal.

Finlayson encourages not-for-profits to turn to their board members for ideas for experiences to auction off on eBay, often they can come up with terrific, creative ideas. “They may know athletes or people might want to have lunch with them (the board members). Starbucks had a bid to visit the original Starbucks location and a tour and lunch with the chairman. If your board members know people who own or work at companies they if they can get items donated from companies so that people can bid on “get the first one that comes off the line”, even if the item is available in the stores within two weeks, this can be something very valuable. This is the equivalent of going to the theatre on opening night.”

Currently on eBay one popular celebrity charity auction is the Gwen Stefani The Sweet Escape Tour VIP Experience. The winning bidder will get to sit in the front row and meet Gwen after the show. All proceeds from the auction benefit Orangewood Children’s Foundation & Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC). Dates for her April and May 2007 concerts are listed, so there is more than one chance for someone to win. As of this writing bid were in the 2,000 range and are still going on.

Another popular celebrity auction involved many celebrities for the charity Sixdegrees.org. Sixdegrees.org is an organization that celebrities can create an online badge describing the charity that they support and raise money for that charity. Non-celebrities and charities themselves can also create badges to raise money for charities.

Six degrees held a celebrity auction with items from a wide variety of celebrities on eBay including Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Heather Graham, Tara Reid, Perez Hilton and Elle Fanning. Their auction items were very popular and their website had a link to their eBay auctions so their supporters knew about their eBay auctions.

Whether you are auctioning off a celebrity experience or items, online auctions are a powerful fund-raising tool that can connect you with many potential bidders.

Abigail Beal is a contributor at http://StepbyStepFundraising.com which provides information about a variety of fundraising options from events, to letters, to product sales and more. Visit the website to find out more about The Online Auctions for Charity.

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• Contact a local corn maze, apple orchard, or fall festival to see if they will partner with you.
• Ask them if your organization can help “sponsor” a day.
• Let them know that there will be no cost to them other than the cost of discounted tickets or sales. Your group will handle the marketing and publicity to bring in a large group to the event.
• The venue can offer you tickets or certificates to sell in advance.
• For each ticket or certificate that you sell, you get a percentage of the proceeds.
• To make it even more attractive for your supporters, see if the venue will let you sell the tickets at a discount. For example, regular admission is $10. Advanced tickets sold by your organization can be sold for $8. The venue can agree to take only $5 of the sale, leaving your organization with $3 profit per ticket.
• Plan a time and area for your group to gather at the venue so supporters can meet up and spend the day together.
• Ask if it’s okay to bring in apple cider, hot chocolate, popcorn or baked goods to sell to your group as well. This can bring in additional revenue for your group.

Take lots of pictures and make it an annual event that families can look forward to year after year.

Coordinate the end of the eBay auction with your live event so that those in attendance can see who the winners are. Schedule all the eBay auctions to end within a few minutes of each other. Encourage people to use their smartphones to bid up the items. Provide a few laptops for those that don’t have smartphones. Project your eBay pages on a large screen so everyone can see the action and final bids.

Produce flyers promoting your eBay items and distribute them to others who may be willing to support your cause but who are unable to attend the live event.

Fund raising is always a fun thing to do. You get to beat your brains to a pulp, hand over all your money to some worthy cause and go home with nothing to show for it but a big thank you. Oh but what a great feeling those thank you’s are. One of the most popular ways of raising funds for that worthy cause is through the running of a tricky tray. A little history of the tricky tray. For starters, they weren’t always called tricky trays. Back in the good old days, they were called Chinese auctions, but in an effort to be politically correct, the term Chinese auction was done away with, at least in most parts of our civilized society. The term tricky tray has been used ever since.

A tricky tray is really nothing more than a massive raffle. Instead of raffling off just one item or even a couple of items, what you’re basically raffling off is a room full of items. Depending on how much stuff you can get your hands you may actually end up with several rooms full. So where does all this stuff come from? That’s the hard part.

The items auctioned off in a tricky tray are basically donated, either from the people running the tricky tray itself or from store owners in their various neighborhoods. Most store owners are pretty cooperative when people come around asking for items to donate, but there are some who clearly place signs in their windows that say, “no donations”. It’s getting harder and harder to run these things all the time.

Once all the items have been acquired, the next step is to set them all up. Presentation is everything and therefore you just don’t throw them on the tables. What you should try to do is arrange the items in a way where they go with each other. In other words, if you’ve gotten a number of donations such as perfumes or stuffed animals, you should try to have them all grouped together. This way, people who are interested in one type of item don’t have to go very far to put in their tickets. Which brings us to how this works.

The system itself is basically very simple. There are companies that make special cards for these types of raffles. A person will buy a card, which might contain about 20 tickets and will then break up the tickets into individuals and throw the individuals into tin cans placed next to each item. After all the tickets have been placed, the drawings begin. One ticket is chosen from each tin can. If you’ve got 300 items to raffle off, this could take quite a few hours. This is why these fund raisers usually include the selling of food during the event.

Tricky trays are great fund raising activities. Even though most of the items aren’t really worth much, people love winning things. It’s the thrill of the chase that makes a tricky tray fund raising gala something to look forward to.

Try running one some time. You won’t be sorry.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Fund Raising

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The number one concern of any PTA should be helping the school to be the best that it can be. That means being there to help teachers, chaperoning field trips, and planning family events at the school to get other parents more involved in their students’ success. One huge area of interest for all PTA’s is fundraising. And even though raising money should never be your number one concern, it is absolutely imperative to have great PTA fundraisers to fund all of the other activities you plan throughout the year.

So since you know you are going to be doing some sort of fund raisers, you will want to focus on maximizing your PTA fundraising profits. It just doesn’t make sense to spend all of the time that a PTA fundraiser requires and not raise as much money as you possibly can. So how do you go about maximizing your revenues?

The smartest way is to treat your PTA fundraising efforts as if they are a retail operation. This metaphor extends to all areas of fundraising and translates well as there are a number of parallels between retail operations and PTA fund raising efforts.

The first thing you would consider in either endeavor is what kind of product will sell best in your area. You wouldn’t set up a surf shop in the middle of Ohio just like you wouldn’t have a steak dinner to raise money for the vegetarian club. Obviously those are some silly examples, but you should get the idea that you really need to think about who it is you will be selling to and what they are likely to buy.

You also need to consider your “competition”. You may have never thought of other schools fundraisers as competitors but they are, and so are the Little League fundraisers and the Girl Scouts fund raisers and all of the other groups raising money in your area. People are generous, but at some point they have spent all of their donation dollars and there just isn’t anything left. So you will want to stand out from the crowd or at least differentiate your program in some way from all of the others in your area.

Pricing also will be a big concern for PTA’s selling products to raise money. Just like in a retail setting, there is always a fine balance between pricing items low enough that you sell a high volume and pricing them high enough that you earn a great profit. If you search around you can find fund raising companies with products that sell at substantial discounts to retail prices while still offering excellent profit margins to your PTA. These are the programs you want to pick from.

Marketing is something that is only discussed at a very few PTA’s. It’s just not a topic that most people feel they have enough experience with to be comfortable executing effectively. The thing is though that doing almost anything will be better and more effective than not marketing at all. Just like a small retail operation, your PTA likely doesn’t have, or isn’t willing to spend, a large number of dollars on spreading the word about your products. But you don’t have to. Marketing your PTA fund raiser can be as simple as putting up a sign in front of the school so that parents picking up their kids are reminded that you are raising money. You can print off flyers to hang in coffee shops and other local businesses telling people about your fundraiser. And then there is always the most effective marketing tool, having the students call friends, family, and neighbors to sell products. Remember, marketing doesn’t have to mean a TV commercial or a fun jingle, it’s just spreading the word and it is very important.

And really, that is what it all comes down to – picking the right line of products and offering them at a great price and marketing them to customers. Hopefully this “retail-centric” view of PTA fundraising helps you look at your money raising efforts in a different light and leads to increased sales for your PTA.

One great resource for PTA fundraising ideas is a company called Go Green Fundraising. They are focused on helping schools differentiate and improve their PTA fundraisers by offering healthy and eco friendly products and programs. With profits as high as 80% and many programs that are free to start, they are definitely worth checking out!

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Traveling Potty Fundraiser