You decided you’re going to participate in a walkathon for your favorite cause. But you’ve just found out they require you to raise a minimum amount. An amount that seems astronomical to you. What do you do?

First of all, good for you! Thank you for caring enough about the cause to put yourself out there and raise money for it. Our world is a much better place because of people like you.

Fundraising can be a fun journey. Here’s a simple 4-step process for successfully raising the minimum amount–and maybe alot more than that!

■RESEARCH
The first step in any fundraising effort is to research. By doing research up front, you–or you and your team–will lay a terrific foundation for achieving your goals. Here are some suggestions on what to do:

1.Determine how much are you are going to raise
Specifically. Not the “more-is-better” answer but how much? $1,000? $2,500?

This will often come from the minimum amount you need to raise to be part of the event. But what if you raised more? Figure out a specific dollar amount.

2.Find out if the nonprofit has different giving levels to recognize donors
Often nonprofits will recognize donors by assigning them to a donor level “Founders” or “Contributors” or “Patron.” Find out if the group you’re supporting uses these and if gifts given by your friends will be recognized in this way. It’ll help later on.

3.Develop a plan to reaching that goal
If you’re trying to raise $2500, it’s easy to fall prey to thinking you “only” need to find 100 people to give $25.

This just doesn’t happen.

We’ve been studying fundraising for decades. Although this sounds wonderfully egalitarian, experience shows that people give varying amounts.

Plus, if you only ask $25 from someone who’d gladly have given $100, you’re leaving money on the table.

To do the research of creating a plan, go to a tool like GiftRangeCalculator.com. Plug in the amount you want to raise and the calculator tells you what size gifts you need to ask for and how many prospects you need.

If you do it for $2500, you’ll get something like this [click on the image to enlarge it]:

You’ll see that it recommends your top gift be $625–the equivalent of 25 people giving $25! A tool like this is based on decades of fundraising experience and can really help you develop a map to raising the amount of money you need.

You’ll also see that if you get all the gifts recommended, you’ll actually raise $3200. I did this intentionally. I wanted this calculation to be conservative so that even if you miss some of the 49 gifts, you’ll still reach your goal.

I also did this because if your cause is worth fundraising for, it’s worth raising more than the minimum!

4.Research your prospects
The gift range calculator also recommends you list 5 prospects that might be able to make this gift. In our experience, it often takes five prospects for every gift. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your other four will say “no.” They will probably come in at a lower gift level. Especially if you do the next step well: engage.

5.Make a list
Now that you know how much you need to raise and how many people you need to get there, start making a list. List people according to how much you think they could give. Now isn’t the time to qualify your prospects. Just get them listed. Don’t say, “Oh, they won’t give.” Let them make the decision to give or not when you get to the step of asking.

■ENGAGE
Researching can feel safe because you’re doing important work but you don’t need to see anyone face-to-face. There’s very little risk. But research alone doesn’t raise any money. You need to engage with the prospects you listed.

Engaging prospects is like dating. You get to know what aspect of the nonprofit intrigues them and you get to share why you’re committed enough to do a walkathon. Since you’ll be asking your friends, you probably won’t need to take a lot of time on this step, although the first 5-6 gifts may need more intentional meetings.

Your major goal in engaging is to find out how to effectively ask the prospect. What are their hot button issues? What do they value? What about your cause would most likely be attractive to them?

When you call someone to get together, make sure to be clear on the purpose of the meeting. If you’re going to ask them for money, do them the honor of letting them know. Nothing is worse than being invited “just to talk” but finding out the real reason was to ask. Even if a gift is made, both of you leave feeling slimed and it costs you your integrity. Simply say something like, “I’d like to talk to you about your support of the XYZ walkathon.” This is vague enough to leave room for an ask if the opportunity comes up.

A portion of engaging can also happen online. Building your Twitter followers and Facebook friends can help introduce more people to your cause. Just be sure to be a human. It is social media, so talk about things other than the walkathon!

This step is relatively comfortable too, so don’t get stuck here. Engaging can happen over a period of time or over a cup of coffee. But it won’t get you to your goal if you don’t ask for a donation.

■ASK
Asking is the name of the game. If you did nothing but this, you’d have some level of fundraising success. But now that you’ve done the research and the engaging, you’ll have much better odds at actually reaching your goal.

At this point, the prospect knows your goal and what a gift will accomplish. And you have an idea of an aspect of the nonprofit that would be more appealing to her. So asking is merely inviting them to participate at the level you want in the area they want.

Easy, right?

If you’re setting up the meeting, let them know it’s to talk about their “involvement in ” or “support of” or their “contribution to” the walkathon. At the meeting be ready to ask for a specific dollar amount.

If you just ask someone to contribute, they have no idea what “contribute” means to you. If you were asking for a gift from a $625 prospect, she might think a $25 gift was contributing. She has no way of knowing how much you were expecting.

Don’t worry about asking too high. I’ve never had anyone get upset about being asked for too much. They’ve laughed in my face! But they’ve never been upset. Often they say they’re flattered I think they could give that much.

If saying the specific amount is too intimidating, have your gift calculation with you when you make the ask. If you’re artsy, you could even make a gift pyramid with boxes representing the gifts needed at each level. The calculation print out or the gift pyramid gives the prospect a chance to see they aren’t asking to be the only donor. And it lets them give a gift that will help, even if not at the level you’re asking. (They might even see a higher amount needed and go for that!)

This is also where the research you did into your nonprofits giving levels can help. Say you’re asking a business to be the $625 donor. Not only will you be able to tell them how that fits their values, you can say it’ll be recognized by the nonprofit at the “[Fill in the blank] Giving Club” level.

Asking can be one-on-one, and probably should be for the bigger gifts. But asking can also be done in a group setting like a dessert reception. In fact, after each of your bigger donors say “yes,” ask if they’d be willing to host a dessert reception to help you fundraise. This could be a great way to introduce the cause to new people and raise money!

Also, remember that each “prospect” needn’t be a human. You may feel more comfortable holding a silent auction or a bottle drive or a shopping party where a percentage of the profit goes to your walkathon. All of these are legitimate. Events can be great in getting more press for your cause and creating buzz about the event. But I’d highly recommend locking in some of the top donations before going the event route. Many people will feel they’ve given if they’ve participated in one of these events, so going back to them for a personal donation might feel awkward.

■LOVE
No matter how the your prospects respond, they are always worth more than the amount of money you asked them for. Chances are, you’re asking your friends and your friends friends to support you in this walkathon. Be sure to treat them well enough to keep those relationships even after the walkathon is finished.

If a prospect says “yes,” it’s easy to treat them well. Thank them there. Write a note thanking them. Ask them to join your Facebook or event page so they can see the progress you make. And be sure to follow up with all your donors after the event.

If they say “no,” it can be a bit harder. First of all, the “no” may be simply that they are able to give at a different amount. Perhaps they just can’t give as much to this walkathon as they did to your last one. At bigger gift levels, some people might find it easier to pay in monthly installments or some now and pledge some later.

But the baseline is: be courteous to everyone. I’m embarrassed I have to mention this, but so many of us get so wrapped up in our cause and our fundraising goal, that we forget a simple lesson from kindergarten: play nice with each other.

There you have it! Following this simple 4-step process should make fundraising for your next walkathon much more fun and enjoyable! Remember, you’re doing an awesome thing raising money for your favorite cause! Thank you!

Copyright © 2010 The Pitman Group, http://www.fundraisingcoach.com

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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1. Watch for donors who self-identify themselves. A donor who has a strong tie or belief in your organization and who has the means to make a large donation is your best candidate for a major gift. Many times, people will self identify by making a good-sized donation through the mail or at an event. You can usually multiply this kind of gift by 10 to 25 to determine the donor’s real potential (but not necessarily what you should ask them for at first).
2. Pay attention to the checks donors give you. Sometimes you’ll see a check that’s written out of a Trust or a special giving account. This can be an indication of the donor’s capacity to give.
3. Read the annual reports of other organizations to see if any of your donors show up in their major donor lists. It’ll give you a good sense of how much your donors are giving to other charities.
4. Consider using a wealth-screening service. There are services out there that will run your house list through a series of databases to help identify who on your list has deep pockets. Wealthengine and MAGIC are two of those. This provides you with a targeted list of potential major donors that you might have otherwise missed. But remember, just because they have significant wealth doesn’t mean they will necessarily make a large gift to you.
5. Show your Board of Directors a list of your current donors and ask if anyone knows any of your donors. You may get some really beneficial information about your donors that you don’t know.
6. Look for L-I-A in a potential major donor – Linkage, Interest, and Ability. A donor must have all three. Linkage is some commonality with your organization – usually they’ve received services from you as a client, someone they know has received services from you, or there’s some other reason that your cause hits close to home. Interest is the donor’s desire to help you. They are interested in what you are doing. Ability is the donor’s potential to give. They must have resources to be a potential major donor.

Remember that these donors are people who care about your cause. They are not ATM machines that you can go to whenever you need money. Treat them with respect and kindness, keeping them and their interests in mind as you work to build a relationship. The benefits will be priceless!

Sandy Rees, CFRE, is a coach, consultant, and trainer who shows small nonprofit organizations how to raise more money and grow their Boards. For free tips on how to raise all the money your organization needs, visit http://www.getfullyfunded.com.

Unhealthy Fundraisers Are Out

For decades now groups that needed to raise money would turn to two tried and true options that had been sold countless times before and were a sure crowd pleaser: cookie dough and candy.

Cookie dough has grown from a bake sale item to now include both frozen and dry dough, and buckets and preformed portions. A number of companies manufacture and distribute these dough’s in flavors as mundane as sugar cookie to the ones with ingredient lists too long for this article.

Candy fundraisers are the other sure-fire way to raise money. Groups only need to buy a big box of candy and then start selling it. Hershey’s and M&M’s, with their various lines, are the big players in this market. However, recent spikes in the input costs for chocolate manufacturers is making it harder and harder for candy fundraising companies to continue offering their products at the standard $1 price point.

The problem with both cookie dough fundraisers and candy fundraisers is that they are both inherently very unhealthy. Loaded with processed sugars and trans-fats, school boards, health officials, and parents are mandating a change in the fundraising world. They want new ways to raise money that don’t endanger the health of their customers.

New Fundraising Ideas

These health concerns, the desire for something new, and the recent surge in “going green” has led to a new fundraising idea; Green Fundraising. Green fundraisers allow groups to sell items that either help the environment, help themselves, or both.

Examples of green fundraising items include organic foods, reusable shopping bags, and trees and flowers. All of them are designed to improve health or to improve the environment. They are also intentionally different from anything seen in fundraising before. People have grown weary of buying the same fundraising products year after year and green fundraisers offer them something new. Healthy fundraisers and green fundraisers look to be very much the future of fundraising.

What Green Fundraisers Mean for You

This idea of something new in fundraising is proving to be very successful for the groups willing to try it. Customers have responded incredibly well to the notion that buying something from a fundraising catalogue doesn’t mean a donation with a cheesy gift anymore but can actually mean they get something they want, can use, and often times need. This approach to fundraising makes the job of the seller much easier as the products almost sell themselves.

Jordan Gottlieb
http://www.go-green-fundraising.com
Learn more about Green Fundraising
Learn more about Healthy Fundraising

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School fundraising is important. We all know that. Few school projects can take flight without the critically funding provided by the various fundraising initiatives launched by school PTAs or school PTOs. There are many types of fundraising initiatives and can be differentiated between product and non-product fundraisers. This article focuses on product sale fundraisers.

The reason why I feel an article like this is so critical is that turnover is so high in PTAs. With membership turning over almost entirely every year, mistakes and the lessons learned are rarely passed along. In order to help make all our school fundraisers more successful and launch all our necessary projects, I hope in creating this list that schools will better achieve their goals. So enough blabbering, here is the top ten list on the mistakes you ought to avoid and be successful from knowing it.

1. Promotion or the lack thereof

School fundraisers that are well planned and researched often fall short in promotion. Marketing is critical for all successful businesses and is preached to all those in the business community. Making something is worthless if no one knows what you are doing. The message here is you definitely have to make a plan to promote your school fundraiser. Choose not to and you may as well not run one at all. A few ideas are letters sent home to parents or an email blast.

2. No Goal

Choosing a goal, a realistic one, is important. School fundraising PTA’s often set goals that are far too unrealistic, often on the high side. If you need to raise $X, you need to get an idea of how much you need to sell. A simple formula is X = Profit Margin x Sales. If you have a profit margin of 40% and need to raise $10,000, you will need to have your community pay $25,000 to you, assuming there are no other fixed costs. Putting it this way may will make for more realistic goals, goal that are achievable.

3. Not Communicating What You Are Raising Money For

One thing everyone who buys a product from a school fundraiser wants to know is what am I helping to accomplish. Fundraisers for a school PTA are good, but to build a school garden might be more attractive. Communicate this in your promotion. All you volunteers will be more motivated to sell products and communicate the project to their customers if they believe in it. This also fits into planning, plan this in advance. Talk to everyone involved. Set a goal everyone will work together to achieve.

4. Selling The Wrong Thing

You could have done points 1 to 3 perfectly but are selling coal (or any other unattractive thing). With many schools moving away from chocolate, you will have to look to offer things that are in demand. You may want to focus on products that are staples, such as coffee or cleaners, that people already need to buy in times when the economy is doing poorly.

5. Focusing On The Wrong Numbers

One thing most PTA’s preach is profit margin and they are right, high profit margins are better than lower ones. More money from what is sold that stays with the group is best for the group. But there is one big caveat and here it is; selling products that are overpriced are far less attractive than those priced affordably. If you buy a chocolate bar for $1 and sell it for $2, your profit margin is 50%. If you sell it for $3, your profit margin is 66.7%. But in order to boost that profit margin, you are likely to turn away a lot of potential purchasers. What is often better is to offer fairly priced products. Remember, raising money isn’t about profit margins, its about profit. And profit has two elements, profit margin and quantity. Sell more. Raise more.

6. Selling At The Wrong Time

Talk to any elementary school parent and they will tell you this. School fundraisers come far too frequently. So frequently that they won’t support their school’s fundraisers at all. Most fundraisers happen in the fall. Jamming in many fundraisers is most definitely a bad idea. I’d suggest spreading fundraisers out over the year or running more successful fundraisers each time. Very few fundraisers work well at the end of the school year because parents have already given up. Running a green fundraiser around Earth Day in April can lend to a better solution.

7. Not Enlisting Enough Volunteers

Fundraising can take a lot of effort. When choosing a fundraiser, remember there are multiple points where work is involved. The first is distributing any order forms and selling the product. The more volunteers here the better. The second step is collecting payment. For online systems, the volunteer time here won’t be needed and is clearly a benefit. I would recommend to shy away still from online only fundraisers as catalogs are tried and tested. Finally, when the products are sent, they can go straight to the customer or you will have to sort them. If you have to sort the fundraising products, plan on having many volunteers. If the fundraising company takes care of it, sit back and relax. But remember this one thing, the more the company does, the less profit you are likely to receive.

8. Forgetting The Hidden Costs

High profit margins are great. Everyone loves 50% profit margins. They look so attractive. But if its too good to be true, it probably is. This common saying lends itself to fundraising just as all others. Many 40+% fundraisers do one of the following: charge for shipping, charge taxes on top rather than taxes included, charge for order forms, charge for prizes or charge for even the order forms themselves. Be sure to ask in advance! This makes a world of difference.

9. Not Being Organized

This rule is simple but easily overlooked. Many volunteers have other projects and things on the go and its easy to forgot to stay organized. Make a list of everything that needs to be done, by whom and by when. Check the list as it becomes complete. Have a backup plan if someone is sick or if there is more work than what is expected. It makes a world of a difference.

10. Forgetting About The Media

Are you raising money in a special way? Many groups raise money for special charities. Send a press release to the local media. This will get the kids on TV and excited and garner a lot more visibility to what you are trying to do. Hey, you might even get a land a spot on Oprah!

This list doesn’t cover all the mistakes that school fundraisers often make but I hope it will make your fundraiser that much more successful. Have any tips or want to ask a question, you can shoot me an email by visiting my website below.

Good Luck!
Green Corey

Corey Berman is a recent graduate of Economics with a passion for steady-state economics which focuses on sustainability in economic development. He currently runs Green Students Fundraising, a company dedicated to greening and improving the elementary school fundraising industry.

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This school fundraiser can become a much anticipated event each year, with parents scrambling to get the best deals to replace the items their kids have outgrown over the summer.

It’s a feeling I’m sure many of you have had. That sinking sensation in your stomach when you know you’ve got to hit up your co-workers for cash to support your child’s school fundraising project. We’ve all been there. You hate to impose on the people you work with, but the school needs it, and there’s a great prize your kid wants. You can help by selling to as many people as you know.

Is it possible to actually solicit financial support at work and not become a dreaded member of your staff?

The answer is yes, but it’s tricky and you must really walk a fine line to avoid this negative reputation.

1. Make Sure You Support Their Kids’ Fundraisers

This is the most important tip. I know that this recommendation is going to cost you money, but if you don’t buy chocolate chip cookes from your co-worker’s kid, she’s not going to buy from yours. Office fundraising is definitely a quid-pro-quo arrangement. You will have a lot more confidence asking someone to buy from you if you’ve already bought from them. This is just one of those occasions in life where it’s going to cost you to be a parent. So, unless your office bans this kind of fundraising activity, you’ve got to jump with both feet into this game.

2. Develop Good Relations Year-round

If you’ve got kids in school, you can count on having fundraisers in your life. Therefore, unless you plan on officially opting out of the entire process of fundraising (which is a possibility at some schools), you’re going to have to play the game. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you work on your people skills year round. Of course, you’ll develop relationships with people naturally, but it wouldn’t hurt to be political and not make any enemies. The more friends (or at least acquaintances) you have, the more customers you have.

3. Make Subtle Comments about How Much Your Child has been Growing at Their School

This goes along with number 2. While you’re busy making friends with your co-workers, feel free to slip in subtle references to how much your child is growing at his or her school. Something like, “Wow, last night I went to my son’s Christmas program, and I was amazed that they are doing calculus in first grade now. What a benefit! I’m so glad my son and all the other kids have this opportunity.”

4. Don’t Act Any Differently Toward People who Turn You Down

Of course, not everyone is going to buy a magazine subscription or World’s Finest Chocolate although you and I know that they should. And although this might annoy you just a little, you must not let it show. You must treat the people who said no to you with as much respect and friendliness as you would your biggest customer. You never know the reason why you didn’t make the sale. It could be bad timing financially, and that’s it. That doesn’t mean that this same person won’t buy from you the next time. So, keep the doors of communication and friendship open and hit them up the next time you’ve got something big. Make sure you don’t develop a reputation for holding a grudge when someone doesn’t buy your stuff. That’s the surest way to make enemies on your staff.

5. Only Pick the Best Fundraisers to Bring to Work

It is also very important to be judicious when deciding when to hit your co-workers up. All schools hold numerous fundraisers each year. There may be a fall carnival, Christmas wreathes, a cookie dough sale, an auction, and a golf outing, all in the same year.

I would strongly suggest not bringing every one of these into your place of employment. If you do, someone in the shipping department might get some ideas and you could wind up on a slow boat around the globe.

My recommendation would be to talk to a person in charge of fundraising at your school and ask him or her what the fundraising plan for the entire year coming up is. Once you know, think about your strategy at work. Are you really going to get that many people wanting to come to your school’s carnival? If not, don’t push the issue. On the other hand, if you think you’ve got some folks on staff who have a sweet tooth, by all means, push it hard.

You can also “spot fundraise”, which is a term I’ve developed for the practice of targeting specific individuals for certain fundraising activities. For instance, you may have a person on your staff who has four little kids. Perhaps, these folks would love to bring their children to your school’s carnival, especially if there are things for toddlers to do. Or, perhaps you’ve got a golf nut on your staff. He’d be a perfect person to approach for the golf outing. No need to bother everyone else about these niche events if you don’t think it’s worth it.

6. Make as Many Passive Announcements as Possible

In a work-place environment, the best way to make a sale is to have the customer approach you. This way, you know you haven’t put any unwanted pressure on anybody.

But, people won’t approach you, unless they know what you’ve got going on. I would, therefore, ask my supervisor if it were ok to hang a flier on an employee bulletin board or place a small notice in the company newsletter. It would also be great if they would let you send out a short email to all the staff announcing what you’re selling for your child’s school. Make sure to fill the flier or ad or email with as much information as possible for a potential customer to make a decision- dates available, price, varieties, etc. If you work in a large office with many departments, don’t forget to add how you can be contacted.

Conclusion

While it would be nice if we never had to ask people for money, the reality is that if we have kids in school, we’re going to have to do this at some point. We’ve all encountered someone who went about this task in all the wrong ways. We don’t want to be THAT person. Use the above advice to keep your friends, raise the money, and not be relocated to the basement office.

About the Author: James Berigan is a former school principal who enjoys guiding schools with their fundraising efforts. He writes for the Top School Fundraisers blog which includes a variety of ideas for elementary school fundraisers and PTO or PTA Fundraisers.

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Sometimes you need to raise funds in a hurry. It’s easy to think, “We should have established a fundraising plan earlier!” That may be true, but it doesn’t help now. Here are some ways to raise modest funds in a pinch. Because institutions like foundations, government, and service clubs typically take more than a month to make funding decisions, your best bet to raise money in 30 days usually involves asking individuals for donations.

Each of these techniques can raise a lot or a little depending on who is doing the organizing. For example, a house party in one organization can raise $500 in one evening, while in another it can raise $100,000. In either case, the amount raised is likely to be a significant help towards whatever financial situation you are facing. Every technique is one we have seen first-hand to be effective. 

1. Have a phone-a-thon three days in a row, Monday through Wednesday of one week. Get all the board members to gather at the organization’s office (or one of their offices) at 5 pm. Practice how you’re going to ask for donations on the phone. Provide pizza or refreshments and make a party of it — a little food and drink can go a long way in supporting the right atmosphere for fundraising. Divide up the lists of members, donors, clients, patrons, neighbors, or whatever other lists you have. Call them. Take a break every 45 minutes to swap stories. Go home at 7:30.

2. Together, a board member and the executive director can ask government, foundation, and corporate funders to renegotiate grant and contract agreements. Everyone knows the economy is in turmoil — it won’t be a surprise to your funders if your grants, contracts, and donations are down. Ask for a meeting, for example, with a county funder, and see whether they would be willing to have you provide fewer shelter nights or fewer senior meals, without reducing your contract payment. Tell a foundation funder that the grant they gave you to hire a second librarian needs to be spent just to keep the first librarian. Many funders appreciate the significance of board leadership on these matters, and remember: obtaining an agreement for a lower amount of services for the same money is often as good as getting more money.

3. Send out a 2-page letter to your members, volunteers, and donors. Explain that you are on a 30-day fundraising campaign and ask for a donation. If you can, follow up with phone calls.

4. Give yourself a birthday party, half-birthday party, or some other party, and tell people that it is a fundraiser for the organization where you volunteer as a board member. Have a donations box at the door or food table and have a volunteer sit there and ask people (in a friendly way!) for contributions. You don’t have to make a “pitch” . . . just thank people for coming and making a donation to something that’s important to you.

5. At a board meeting, bring a list of the organization’s 30 biggest donors and, at the meeting, divide them up among the board members. Call to get an in-person appointment with each donor to explain the organization’s situation and to ask for a donation. At the appointment, ask for a donation that is twice as large as the previous donation. “We really appreciate the $500 you donated last year. Would you consider doubling that gift and making a $1,000 gift this year?”

6. Ask all board members (and anyone else) to post an appeal to their own Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn networks, saying something like: “I’m a volunteer for this organization, and we’re on a 30 day blitz to raise needed funds. Please help me meet my goal by giving a contribution to ____.”

7. If you have lots of members and volunteers, have a garage sale. Get a huge amount of stuff together, sell it on both days of a weekend. Have a couple of great organizers do a barbecue at the event — perhaps with foods related to your organization’s work. Who can resist the lure of the one dollar item bin at a garage sale or a one dollar hot dog?

8. Ask your biggest donor to make a challenge grant. “We need your help to raise some special money right away. Would you consider making a gift of, say, $20,000, contingent on our raising $20,000 within 60 days? That would help motivate us on the board as well as the people we ask.”

And now for some “don’ts”:

• Don’t say you need donations because you’re in a financial crisis. Say, “We are determined to get through this economic time, and we need your help.”
• Don’t promise that you won’t ask for another donation. Instead, say, “We know we are asking you to stretch to help our clients right now. This is an unusual situation for us — we do raise money every year, but this is an especially important year.”
• Don’t ask for a loan instead of a donation. If someone offers you a loan instead of a donation, say, “Your offer of a $2,000 loan means a lot to me. But I can’t accept a loan on behalf of our organization. Could we ask you instead for a donation of $100 per month for 20 months?”
• Don’t accept a pledge as a substitute for a donation. If someone offers to pledge $500 by the end of the year, ask for $250 now and the remaining $250 in September.

Blue Avocado editor Jan Masaoka wrote this article with New York fundraising consultant and coach Burke Keegan, who says, “If you need money right now, it’s going to be major donors, honey.” You can order Burke’s book on fundraising by clicking here.

Offer the plants for sale at home events, through the school website or newsletter, distribute flyers and give each student an order sheet to sell to their family & friends.

This event can work at all times of the year. For Easter, the plants might be Easter Lilies or Tulips. At Christmas, they might be small potted evergreen trees or poinsettias.

If your nonprofit is new, one of the first steps you will take is to develop a comprehensive fundraising plan. A formalized fundraising program includes establishing an annual fund and raising money from donors who give because they believe in the work you are doing, not because they get something in return.  Here are some things you can do to find those first donors:

1. Ask your Board members to write letters to people they know asking for a donation to the organization. This can play out a couple of several different ways. They can each do their own thing or you can write the letter for them and they supply the addresses. Fundraising is based on relationships, and these should be some of the strongest relationships you have.
2. If you have volunteers in your organization, add them to your list of names. Some volunteers will give money and some will not, but when you’re starting from scratch, this is another good source of names.
3. Every time you’re speaking to a group or just representing your organization in a group of people, ask for those who’d like to be on your mailing list. Even if you only get a few takers, it’s worthwhile. That’s a few more names you can add to your list.
4. Be creative. Think about places where your best prospects are likely to gather and then get in there with them. I worked with a domestic violence shelter once and we exhibited at a women’s expo. We gave out information and signed people up to volunteer or to be on our newsletter. We came away from a two-day event with several hundred new names. 

Once you have people on your list, take good care of them because you don’t want them to leave. Don’t inundate them with appeals. Make sure to respond to gifts promptly with sincere appreciation. Invite them for a tour of your organization and be purposeful in building relationships with your new donors.

Sandy Rees, CFRE, is a coach, consultant, and trainer who shows small nonprofit organizations how to raise more money and grow their Boards. For free tips on how to raise all the money your organization needs, visit http://www.getfullyfunded.com.