Featured Excerpt

All good fundraising plans have one thing in common: they show a diverse number of sources for their income. The board of directors plays a crucial role in selecting, implementing, and evaluating fundraising strategies. In addition to other ways that board members may participate in fundraising, they individually commit to raising and giving a certain amount of money, or commit to working by themselves on specific strategies with no financial goal attached.

It is a good idea for board members doing fundraising on their own to write up their plans. This ËcontractÓ allows staff to know when they might be called on to help, ensures that events donÁt happen on the same day or the same donors arenÁt solicited by several board members, and also helps to remind board members of their commitments.

In order for this method to work, the organization or the board fundraising committee should think of many specific ways board members could actually raise money by themselves. The fifty-three ways suggested below are not an exhaustive list, nor will they all work for every group. Few board members could use all fifty-three ways, but almost any board member should be able to use two or three of them.

All of these methods have been used by different volunteers in a wide variety of organizations. Some methods are much more popular then others. Some depend on access to certain resources.</p>

Presenting board members with fifty-three ways that would work for your organization helps counter the excuse, ËI would help but I just donÁt know what to do.Ó Having each board member write out a plan, with goals and a timeline, also gives them a sense that if they do their best with this plan, they will have helped significantly. Many board members feel that fundraising is never ending, and that no amount of effort is enough. ËWhatever I do, I could have done more and probably should have,Ó they say. This feeling of inadequacy leads to high turnover, burnout, and resentment in boards. Specific fundraising contracts can help avoid that result.

Following the description of the fifty-three ways board members can raise funds, there is a suggested format for a contract and examples of some completed contracts.

1. Give it yourself. This is the easiest way for those who are able, although if you are able to give this much money you should be helping to raise much more than $1000.

2. List all your friends who are interested in your organization or similar organizations. Decide how much you want to ask each one for. If you are not sure of an amount, use a range.Write to them on your own stationery, include a brochure from the organization and a return envelope. Phone those people who donÁt respond in two weeks. Some people will need 10 friends to give $100, and some people need 50 friends to give $20. Most people will need a combination of gifts of $100, $50 and $25.

3. Give part of the $1000. Then ask your friends to join you in giving $50, $100, or whatever amount you gave. This is most effective because you are not asking them to do anything you havenÁt done.

4. Set up a challenge campaign. Challenge gifts can be quite small. Tell people youÁll give $5 for every $25 they give, or will match every $50 gift up to ten gifts. For added suspense, make this challenge during a fundraising event. You or the host can announce, ËWe now have the Dave Buckstretch Challenge. For the next five minutes, Dave will give $5 for every new member that joins Worthy Cause.Ó

5. If your organization has several grassroots fundraising strategies in place, use them all:
Sell 100 raffle tickets (@$2) — $200
Give $200 — $200
Sell 10 tickets to the annual event (@ $25) — $250
Buy two gift memberships (@ $25) — $ 50
Get 12 friends to join (@ $25) — $300

6. Help with your organizationÁs phone-a-thon. Bring the names of people you think would like to join and call until you have raised $1000. Or trade names with someone in the organization and call their friends until you have reached $1000. This is particularly effective for people who are shy about asking their own friends for money but are not afraid to ask people they donÁt know.

7. Acquire mailing lists for your organization. If you belong to another group, perhaps you can set up an exchange, or perhaps you have access to a list of members of some other group. You can ask all your friends to give you the names of 10 to 15 people they think would like to join. You would need to recruit about 25 members at an average gift of $40. Depending on how ËhotÓ your list is, you might need as few as 200 names (to do a bulk mailing) or as many as 1500- 3000 (if you expect a 1²2% response). You would have to have a greater response if you wanted the mailing to pay for its costs and also generate $1000.

8. Give the organization something they need that is worth $1000, such as a new computer, filing cabinets, couch, software program, etc.

9. Pledge $28 a month, and get two others to do likewise.

10. Teach a seminar on a topic you know: fundraising, knitting, organic gardening, organizing, proposal writing, environmental impact reports, gourmet cooking, dog grooming, starting your own business. Charge $50-75 per person, with a goal of 15 to 20 people. Either absorb the cost of promotion, or have enough participants to cover it.

11. Give some or a lot of things to your organizationÁs garage sale, making sure they are worth $1000, and then help to sell them all.

12. With four or five friends, have a spaghetti dinner at a temple, church or union hall or other big room with a large kitchen. Charge $10 per person and feed more than 100 people. You can charge extra for wine or garlic bread, or for dessert.

13. Have a fancy dinner at your home or a regular dinner at someoneÁs fancy home. Serve unusual or gourmet food, or have special entertainment. Charge $40 or more per person, and have 25 or more guests.

14. Get three friends to help you have a progressive dinner. Start at one personÁs home for cocktails and hors dÁoeuvres, progress to the next personÁs house for soup or salad, the next personÁs for the main course, and the last personÁs for dessert. Either charge by the course or for the whole package. To make it extra special (and much more expensive), get a limousine for the evening that carries guests from house to house, or have live music at each site.

15. Host a house party. Do not charge admission and invite as many people as you can. During the party, give a short talk about your organization and ask everyone to consider a gift of $25, $50, $100 or more (depending on the crowd). Either pass out envelopes and ask people to give then, or after the party contact everyone individually who came and ask for a major gift. Indicate that you have given and, if appropriate, how much you have given.

16. Get your gambling friends together. Charge a $5 entrance fee and have a poker evening, asking that every ËpotÓ be split with the organization. Individuals win and so does the organization. You can charge extra for refreshments, or include one or two glasses of something with the price of admission. (Watch the laws in your community on this one. In some communities it is illegal to gamble, even in your own home.)

17. Do one fundraising event every other month. This might look like:
Poker Party — $200
Fancy dinner (8 people × $50) — $400
Sell 50 raffle tickets @$2 — $100
Book sale — $200
Recycle newspapers — $100

18. Solicit small businesses, churches, synagogues or service clubs for $1000. If you are active in a church or you own your own business and are involved in business organizations or service clubs, this can be very effective. You can often raise $200-$1000 with a simple proposal and oral presentation.

19. Take a part-time job in addition to your present work and give everything you earn up to $1000.

20. Ask five to ten people to save all their change for three to five months. You save yours. Count it at the end of the prescribed time and use one of the other methods to raise the rest. (You may not need to.)

21. Ask two to five friends to help you put on a bake sale, book sale, or garage sale. You and your friends bake the goodies or get the books or the other stuff required for the sale, staff it and clean up afterwards. This is an excellent way to get people involved in fundraising without ever actually asking them for money.

22. For the fairly rich: Give your organization $13,000 as an interest-free loan for a year. They invest it, earn 8%, and at the end of the year, they give your $10,000 back.

23. Sell your organizationÁs materials, buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers, or whatever else they have for sale. Also, help distribute these to bookstores or novelty shops.

24. The Farming Out Method: Entice five friends to sell 100 raffle tickets at $2 each, or invite ten friends to raise $100 however they like. Share this list of suggestions with them. Give them a nice dinner at the successful end of their efforts (or a bottle of good wine, or a weekend away).

25. Get a famous or popular person to do a special event. Watch the costs on this, or you may lose money.

26. Invite people to your birthday party and ask that in lieu of gifts they give money to your organization.

27. Conduct a volunteer canvas. For one evening, you and a group of friends take literature to all the neighborhoods around you and ask for money at the door. Be sure to comply with city and county ordinances.

28. Lead or get someone to lead a nature walk, an architectural tour, a historic tour, a sailing trip, a rafting trip, or a horseback ride. Charge $15-$25 per person, or charge $35 and provide lunch. Advertise the event in the newspaper to draw in people from outside your organization.

29. Start a pyramid dinner, or a chain dinner. Invite 12 people and charge $12 each. Get two people of the twelve you invited to invite 12 people each at $12, and two people from each of those two dinners to have 12 people at $12, and so on. HereÁs the income:
Your dinner $12 × 12 = $144
From your dinner $12 × (12 + 12) = $288
From those dinners$12 × (12 + 12 + 12 + 12) = $576
From those dinners $12 × (12 × 8) etc.
Twelve is used in this example because it worked very well for the Nuclear Freeze Campaign in California, which was Proposition 12. In many communities, most of the income for the campaign was generated by 12 × 12 dinners.

30. Collect cans for recycling. Ask all your friends to save their cans and bottles for you and turn them in to a buy-back recycling center.

31. Sell your frequent flyer miles to friends or donate them to the organization for a raffle. Watch the rules of the airline on this, but some airlines let you give away miles, and you may be able to sell your miles as long as you donÁt go through a mileage broker.

32. If you live in a nice house or own a getaway cottage in a beautiful place or an expensive city, rent it out for a week or a weekend two or three times during the year and give the proceeds to your organization. Or rent a room in your home for much less than the cost of a hotel room to people needing a place to stay while they are on business in your city. You may even make a new friend in the process.

33. Organize a service raffle. Get four people (one can be you) to donate a simple but valuable service that many people could use and sell raffle tickets for $10-$20 each. Keep the price a little high so you donÁt have to sell so many and so that the buyers have a higher chance of winning. Services can include childcare for a weekend or for any weekend night two weekends in a row; one day of housecleaning; yard work; house painting (interior or exterior), etc. Sell the tickets to neighbors, work mates and to other board members. Encourage people to buy several by offering discounts for multiple purchases, such as one for $10, 2 for $20, but 3 for $25, 4 for $35, 5 for $40. If you are really bold or live in a more affluent area, or have few friends, sell the tickets for $50 each. A full day of housecleaning for $50 is a real bargain, and buyers have a high chance of winning with fewer tickets sold.

34. Offer to do something your friends and family have been nagging you to do anyway and attach a price to it. For example, quit smoking on the condition that your friends donate to your group, or get your friends to pay a certain amount for every day you donÁt smoke for up to 30 days. Agree to match their gifts at the end of thirty days if you didnÁt smoke and to give them their money back if you did. (This method could be applied to other healthy behaviors, such as exercising or not eating sugar.)

35. Find out what items your group needs and try to get them donated. This is good for people who really hate to ask for money but who donÁt mind asking for things that cost money. Items that one can sometimes get donated include computers, office paper and other office supplies, office furniture (second-hand from banks and corporations as they redecorate), fax machines, adding machines, food, even cars.

36. If you or someone you know owns a small business that has regular customers who receive a catalog or announcements of sales, write them an appeal letter for the organization. Your letter can say something like, ËYou are one of my best customers. As such, I let you know about sales coming up and good things happening in my store. Today, I want to tell you about another good thing what I do when I am not minding the store.Ó Then go on to describe the group and ask for a donation.

37. Similar to #36, post this letter on your Web site. Link to the organizationÁs Web site and ask people to donate.

38. If the organization doesnÁt have a Web site or doesnÁt keep their Web site up, ask all your techie friends to donate $100 each and hire a Web Master.

39. Give it yourself. (This is so good I have to say it twice.)

40. Strategy with a long-deferred payoff (we hope): leave the group a bequest.

41. With similar hopes as above, get friends to include the group in their wills.

42. Ask friends who belong to service clubs, sororities, antique collecting groups, support groups, bridge clubs, etc. to discuss your organization in their group and pass the hat for donations. A once-a-year sweep of even small groups can yield $100 from each.

43. For the church-going: ask if your organization can be a Ësecond collection.Ó The church passes the plate for its own collection and then you or someone from your organization gives a brief talk (or sometimes the whole sermon) about your group and the plate is passed again; the proceeds go to your group.

44. A variation on the above is to organize a Ësecond collection SundayÓ and get as many churches as you can to take up a second collection for your organization on the same Sunday. Someone from your group will need to be at each service and give a brief talk. Second collection Sundays can be very lucrative: the Catholic Campaign for Human Development collects as much as $20 million on one Sunday in all the participating Catholic churches in the United States.

45. If, as a child, you collected something avidly that you now store in a basement, consider selling it. Coins and stamps are particularly valuable and have usually increased in value over the years. But your collection of rocks, toy ships or rockets, arrowheads, or dolls can also be valuable. When you donate the income from the sale, you can deduct that amount from your taxes an added bonus of this strategy, since you probably paid little or nothing for the items in the collection.

46. Have a sidewalk sale or garage sale for your whole neighborhood or building. Go around to your neighbors and tell them you will take their stuff outside and sit with it all day to sell it if they will donate half or all of the proceeds to your group. Since this is stuff people want to be rid of anyway, it is a good deal for them. In one apartment building with ten units participating in donating stuff, an organization netted $3,000 in one day. Three people from the organization helped with the selling. With a few high-ticket items, such as a washer/dryer or some nice lamps, you can make good money.

47. If you have an artistic bent, offer to design greeting cards to specification for organizations or individuals for a fee. If you are good at calligraphy, sell your skills to schools for graduation announcements, friends for classy but low-cost wedding invitations, or just fun certificates such as ËWorldÁs Greatest DadÓ for FatherÁs Day or ËOutstanding Friend.Ó Create unique Halloween costumes or masks. Donate the proceeds from your artistry.

48. Create a take-off on the Ëadopt-a-highwayÓ technique by naming budget items of your group as available for adoption. You could develop a flyer that reads, ËThe following items have been found near death from negligence and abuse. WonÁt you help? $25 per month will ensure that our computer is maintained. $100 per month will release our photocopy machine from toiling with no toner and a dying motor. (We can lease a new one.)Ó

49. An idea for people who live in border towns: Get permission to place a large container in stores or even at the airports of towns near national borders. Have a sign that asks people (in several languages) to throw in any coins or paper money they have not exchanged.Many times people leaving Canada or Mexico donÁt have time to exchange all their money or cannot exchange their loose change. Multiply this times hundreds of shoppers or travelers and you can make a lot of money. UNICEF does this in many European airports.

50. Hold an ËIÁm Not AfraidÓ Auction. You can do this with just a few friends or hundreds of people if you have enough items to auction. You survey a few people (and use your own common sense) about what things need to be done in their home of office that they are afraid of or would really rather not do. This is different from a service auction  there has to be an element of dread in the activity. For example, some people cannot wash their windows because their apartment is too high or the second story of their house is too high and they suffer from vertigo. If you are not afraid of heights, you can sell your window-washing service (bring a sturdy ladder). This goes for drain cleaning, minor roof repairs, antenna fixing, etc. Or, if you are unafraid of cockroaches or spiders, you can offer to clean out that dark corner or garage or basement for a small fee. Snakes can be found in gardens and woodsheds, but maybe that doesnÁt bother you. The problem doesnÁt need to be as serious as phobia. How about allergies to dust, pollen, weeds? If you donÁt have them, you can mow, sweep, clean for a fee. By marketing it as an ËIÁm Not AfraidÓ Auction, you also have the option for people to name something they need done to a group of volunteers, and then have a volunteer say, ËIÁm not afraid to do that.Ó In that case, you will need a set fee for service.

51. Similar to the suggestion above is the ËDetails Auction.Ó This is for all your friends whose desks are overflowing with papers or who canÁt get their receipts in order to give to the tax preparer or who complain they can never find anything. If you are a well-organized person, offer to clean up their desk, get their Rolodex in order, file their papers, etc. If you like to shop, sell that to people who donÁt and do their holiday shopping for them, or buy birthday, baby shower or niece/nephew presents for them. Anything that people feel they cannot control is the organized personÁs fundraising dream come true.

52. Find out which of your friends (perhaps this is true for you also) work in corporations with matching gift programs. Then ask them to donate and get their gift matched for your organization, and ask them to ask their co-workers to donate and get their gifts matched.

53. Think of a store or service related to your organization or where a lot of your members shop. Ask the store to donate a percentage of profits for a certain day or week, or even forever. You can also explore this with mail-order firms. Then you advertise widely to friends, family and members that JoeÁs Florist will give 2% of each sale during ValentineÁs weekend to anyone identifying themselves with your group.

As you can see, almost all of these strategies involve asking for money and giving money yourself. These are the basic premises of fundraising you must ask, you must give. Everything after that involves creativity, imagination and a sense of fun.

Samples of Fundraising Commitments by Board Members or Other Volunteers

Sample agreement form to be filled out by volunteers:
I, ____, will help Effective Organization raise $____.
My Gift: $ ____.
Indicate how payment of this gift is to be made. (i.e. by pledging monthly or quarterly, or one lump sum, etc.)
I will also:
1. ____
Goal: $ ____.
Staff help needed: ____.
Date of event: ____.
Date to begin planning event: ____.
2. ____
Goal: $ ____.
Staff help needed: ____.
Date of event: ____.
Date to begin planning event: ____.

I am interested in more training in fundraising. ___ YES ___ NO
You may contact me for other fundraising efforts. ___ YES ___ NO

Here are three examples of how people filled out similar agreements. Their names and organizations have been changed.

Example 1
I, Matthew Cornwall, will help Community Organizing Project to raise $250.
My gift: $5/month = $60
I will also:
1. Ask four friends to pledge $5/month. I hope at least 2 will say yes, which makes $120. No help needed.
2. I will sell $70 worth of raffle tickets. (If any of my friends win the cash prize, I will ask them to donate half of it.) No help needed. I will ask my friends by May, and sell the raffle tickets before the drawing. You can also ask me to help with other events if you need me.
Signed: ____.

Example 2
I, Jane Mahoney, will help the WomenÁs Rights Organization raise $1000 in the next calendar year.
My gift: $250, paid in one lump sum in January.
I will also:
1. Organize and teach a seminar on organic gardening. I plan to have 20 people come at $25 each. I will pay for advertising.
Goal: $500
Planning: I will need some help finding a free room for the seminar, but no other staff help is needed.
Date of seminar: March 15.
Date to begin planning: Jan. 15.
2. I will contribute my couch to the garage sale. It is worth $100, but I will sell it for $50. I will buy a classified ad in the city newspaper telling people where to come to look at it. I will also help at the sale.
Goal: $50
Date: Whenever the garage sale is.
Planning: I need the staff to tell me the date of the sale a month in advance so I can get the ad in the paper.
3. I will work on the phone-a-thon. I will bring the names of 25 people and call them myself that evening, and will call anyone else I have time for.
Goal: 20 people actually joining @ $15 = $300
Date: June 15
Planning: No staff help needed for my participation in the phone-a-thon.
Note: I plan to go $100 over my $1,000 goal, so that in case something goes wrong I will still make my goal.
Signed: ____.

Example 3
I, Carol Benson, will help the Advocacy and Action Task Force to raise at least $500.
My gift: $50 paid in one lump, as soon as I can.
I will also:
1. Solicit a new computer for our office. I will work on this until March.
2. If that fails, I will solicit a fax machine. (I know some people in the office supply business so I think I might succeed.) I will work on that until May. No staff help needed, I donÁt think, but if there is, IÁll give plenty of notice.
3. If the above two fail, I will have a barbecue at my house on the Fourth of July. At least thirty people will come and pay $10. Goal: $250 (I will take $50 out for my expenses.) Staff help needed to send out invitations and prepare food.
4. I will get two other board members to help me do a big bake sale at Suburban Shopping Center. We will get all the baked goods donated and be there all day Sunday, June 14.
Goal: $200 (maybe more)
Maybe IÁll do the last two anyway even if the first one or two are successful. DonÁt plan on it, though, and donÁt ask me to do anything else unless you are truly desperate.
Signed: ____.

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BY KIM KLEIN. EXCERPTED FROM THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS © GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING JOURNAL. GFJ