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Last month, we published fundraising mistakes 1-10. This month, we complete the list.
Excerpt from The Relentlessly Practical Guide to Raising Serious Money
11. Failing to Have a Strong Rationale
Before setting out to raise money, each organization must think through the rationale for its appeal: why do the funds need to be raised, what will they achieve, and who will benefit?
The mere fact that you and your board need money won’t stir people, no matter how well organized your effort.
Rather, with your case for support you must move your prospects emotionally and intellectually. They need to feel that, by contributing to your organization, life will in some way be better for them, for their children and grandchildren. They need to sense that their community—or even the nation—will be advanced as a result.
12. Failing to Cultivate Donors
Cultivation, a sustained effort to inform and involve your prospects, is needed for practically every gift—the bigger the gift, usually the more preparatory steps needed.
The best cultivation, which uses a mixture of printed matter, special events, and personal attention, takes place slowly over a period of time, sometimes years.
If there’s any secret to it, it is being yourself and cultivating people the way you would want to be cultivated. That is, with simple sincerity, not glitzy programs.
Donors give more when they can visualize an organization not as an organization but as people. Achieving that end is, in essence, the goal of all successful cultivation programs.
Filed under: Nonprofit Orgs
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