There are many different fundraising ideas profiled on this website.   Fundraising events large and small, letter campaigns, online fundraising and others are included on my top ten list.  But more important than any one fundraiser, a nonprofit needs to have an overall plan.

Sandy Rees new Simple Success Fundraising Plan could help you put it all together.

Here is what one person had to say about her program:

“I’m new to non-profit and I feel lost and confused.  Your webinar and handout provided worlds of information that I really feel if utilized will help anyone in non-profit succeed because it can really help you get organized and keep your finger on the pulse of things.  Thank you for sharing this information!”

Paula Barnes, Founder

Horse Dreams, Macon, Georgia

To find out more about the Simple Success Fundraising Plan visit Sandy Rees’s website.

Grace Groner lived through the Great Depression, so saving money was her expertise. Nobody knew just how much she had saved until she died in January at age 100 and left $7 million to Lake Forest College, her alma mater…. “She could have lived in any house in Lake Forest but she chose not to. … She enjoyed other people, and every friend she had was a friend for who she was. They weren’t friends for what she had.”

Secret millionaire gives fortune to alma mater

In many subtle ways, philanthropy shines a light on a person’s true character.  Grace was a kindhearted person who generously gave to others, in  a planned thoughtful way.  It is amazing that she was so dedicated in her saving, and intentional about what she wanted to do with her savings.  There are lessons in financial responsibility here, as most younger generations are not good savers.  What we choose to do with our money, whether we are wealthy or not, says a lot about what we value as important.

From the nonprofit side, consider how your interactions with donors builds positive qualities in your own character, or tears it down.  Do you treat every donation as a real gift?  Whether it is a $10 or $10,000 do you thank the giver sincerely?

Consistent actions on the part of staff and consistently delivering on your nonprofit’s mission helps build a foundation of trust that people of all financial means will want to give to.

Photo courtesy of NBC

There are a lot of different ways you can add a one-mile fun run to your event and several different audiences for which you can tailor it. These events appeal to different age groups and exercisers in a way that longer races may not. It is ideal to use this event to reach the audiences you may be missing with your longer events.

Here are a few of the ways you can appeal to different audiences by adding a one-mile fun run to your plan.

Involve children. This length of event is an ideal way to include youth in your event. While a 5K can be too lengthy, a mile is an achievable and safer distance for children of grade school age. These events serve as an excellent way to get children started with participating in charity fitness events.

Promote family participation. You can hold the event solely for children, but it can be even more beneficial to make it a family focused event. Allow parents to run with their kids in the one-mile event to encourage families to get involved in fundraising for your charity.

Invite a more diverse group of exercisers. Depending on fitness level, successfully completing a 5K can take a significant amount of training and focus on running. Sometimes even walking a 5K can be a lot if someone new to exercise. A one-miler can make your event more approachable for participants who fall in this category. Some exercisers may never consider a 5K, but a one-mile event may spark their interest.

Draw in the non-competitive types. Long distance events can bring out the competitiveness in people. This isn’t a bad thing unless you are the non-competitive type. The nature of the event alone can turn off those individuals who like to exercise and raise funds, but dislike the feel of competition. One-mile fun runs are just that – fun! If you are already hosting a longer, timed event consider focusing your one-miler on completion. If you want to give out prizes for this event, consider doing it based on a raffle as opposed to finishing places.

A lot of people stopped by to sign up for the event or to ask questions about Alzheimer’s warning signs. Others walked by, smiling, but declined to stop. This is typical, because a general audience is going to generate varied responses. But one woman’s reaction to my efforts caught me off guard.

The woman walked up to my booth without really knowing what I was promoting. As soon as I said “Alzheimer’s disease,” she immediately put her hand out in front of her as if to say, “STOP.” She quickly said, “Don’t talk to me about that. My mother had that, and I had to take care of her for 12 years – I don’t ever want to hear that ‘A’ word again.” Before I had a chance to respond, she was gone.

Since then, I’ve had others respond negatively to my fundraising efforts, and overwhelmingly, their reasons have to do with the fact that they don’t want to think about Alzheimer’s disease. It’s depressing to them, either because they’ve watched someone die of it or they’re afraid they will develop it themselves.

Luckily, these people are the exception instead of the norm. Most people are open to the cause because they desperately want to find a cure. Almost everyone knows someone who’s been affected by Alzheimer’s. Even though it’s not an easy topic to talk about or think about, for most people, the desire to put an end to the disease overrides any discomfort with it.

Still, I have a feeling that I’m not alone in this experience. Charity events that raise money to help those with AIDS/HIV or mental illness may face similar challenges. And because of ageism in our society, causes that focus on children may fare better than those that focus on older adults. I don’t have any hard data on this, but it’s just a hunch.

I’d love to see all charity events be successful, and all causes be embraced. But until stigma can be erased, we need to support each other in our diverse efforts. What do you think about how we can overcome stigmatizing barriers? Post a comment below.

Integrating Your Web Site and Database for Greater Donor Engagement by Robin Fisk, FundraisingSuccess

Are you new to blogging? Read this simple primer. by Sandra Sims, Cause Blogger

Online Outreach on a Budget - the January Nonprofit Blog Carnival, issueLab’s Footnotes

15 Nonprofit Social Media Stocking Stuffers and Resolutions by Pamela Grow, Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog

Posterous.com: Email Blogging for NonProfits by Rebecca, Wild Apricot Blog

Ensuring Your E-Newsletters are Read - Not Dead - On Arrival by Kivi Leroux Miller, Network for Good

Extreme Website Makeover: From Ick to Slick! by Katya, Non-Profit Marketing Blog

With the Pepsi Refresh Project the company will be giving up to $1.3 million in grants to businesses and nonprofits for fresh new ideas. The project is a crowd-sourced granting program where the public submits and votes on ideas, in various categories, that can change the world.

Go to RefreshEverything.com to submit a grant application or vote on other people’s ideas.

Over the past four years the Lowe’s Toolbox for Education program has provided more than $17 million to almost 4,000 schools across the country. They don’t just choose a few schools either. Lowe’s will provide grants to public schools and public school parent teacher groups – at more than 1,000 different schools earch school year.

Go to the FAQ Page to see if you are eligible for the Lowe’s Grants

Thanks to Step by Step Fundraising readers David Wallach and Brian Remmel for letting me know about these opportunities!

Creating “something to write” can be overwhelming for some people, so here are 12 auction-related ideas on what you (or your public relations volunteer) can post on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or other social networking sites to promote your benefit auction.

1. Announce donations: When an auction donation arrives, announce the item, thank the donor, and provide a link back to the donor’s website. Be sure to include a photo, if possible.

2. Ask for a donation to round out a package: “We need a florist to donate a bouquet to complete our Mother’s Day package at our Fabulous Fundraising Auction for Children.”

3. Testimonials: Auction fundraisers should be mission-focused. Keep your supporters updated with successes. For instance, “Peggy is off the streets, thanks to our non-profit,” or “Jeremy credits St. Stephens’s art teacher in giving him the confidence to pursue art in college.”

4. Event Preparations: Share a photo of the decor committee drawing backdrops for the auction, or the Gala Chairs meeting to send out invitations. This shows that others are involved in auction planning and preparing to attend the event.

5. Special announcements: Share news. “In just three weeks, we’ve surpassed 50 raffle ticket sales.”  Or, “Only 200 seats left before our school auction sells-out!”

6. Apply gentle pressure to past auction donors: A post such as, “We sold a lovely 2-night stay at the Fairmont last year, and are hoping they’ll donate again,” might work. Include a link to the hotel, and then contact the hotel so they see how you are treating them kindly – even before they donate.

7. Answer questions: Make the questions up, if you need to. “A new family to our school asked what was appropriate to wear to the benefit auction. Here’s our answer, and we included three photos of past guests.”

8. Create a list: You can create a list on almost anything. “Top 5 Reasons to Attend our Auction Fundraiser.”  “Three Ways You Can Volunteer That Will Take Less Than 2 Hours per Week.”

9. Seek specific volunteers: “Any math lovers out there? We need an auction clerk, and your primary job is recording numbers during the live auction. Any takers?”

10. Link to relevant websites: “In 55 days, our charity auction will be raising money for cancer research.  Here’s a link to fascinating article written by XYZ about the need for a cure.”

11.  Support your supporters: When you notice that one of your supporters (e.g. a school parent, a Board member, an auction donor) is mentioned in the paper, link to it and promote it. “Parent Joe Smith just got promoted and here’s the link. Way to go, Joe! We look forward to congratulating you in person at the gala next Saturday.”

12.  Call to action: Get your audience to act (or think about acting).  Something like, “Early-bird pricing on gala tickets ends tomorrow,” or “Get your gala dress at Lord & Taylor this weekend. The store has special occasion dresses on sale.”
These auction tips will get you started.  You’ll have fresh content in no time!

About the author: Sherry Truhlar of Red Apple Auctions LLC works with auction chairs and committees who want to plan their most successful charity auction yet.  In addition to offering the auctioneer “fast talk,” she works with clients nationally to teach them the tricks of auction procurement, audience development and marketing.  Many of the area’s most prestigious events are her returning clients, including the Washington Performing Arts Society, Larry King Cardiac Foundation, Camillus House, and the Washington Nationals Baseball Foundation.

Sherry regularly provides advice and tips for charity auctions on her blog at www.RedAppleAuctions.com/blog.  (c) 2010 Red Apple Auctions LLC. Reprinted with Permission.

So I paid a visit to their website to make a donation and copy the url.

I searched and searched for a way to give.  I knew that they had the capability because yours truly had set it up all those years ago.

After searching through several pages, I finally came across this paragraph at the bottom of one page:

If you would like to donate via the internet please go to www.JustGive.org or www.guidestar.org. Once on one of those sites you can just search for ORGANIZATION’S NAME. You will then be lead to our donation page.

Folks I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Aaugh!

One of the first rules of thumb is to make it EASY TO GIVE.

If you’ve been in the field of nonprofit fundraising as long as I have – particularly if you’ve been working with smaller organizations – you may well recall the time when boards argued endlessly about whether or not their organization should even have a website.

Ahem.

According to the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, while 2008 certainly wasn’t a red-letter year for fundraising in general, even in today’s tight economic times, nonprofit organizations showed a 43% increase in online gifts.  In fact, the total amount of money raised online increased 26% from 2007 to 2008.  Further, studies show that about half of those who receive your appeal for funds in the mail will go first to your website (the same holds true for that program officer reviewing your grant proposal, by the way).

It goes without saying that your organization should be collecting email addresses (my newsletter, The Grow Report, recently featured  simple, step-by-step instructions for setting up your web-site’s email opt-in box and systematizing your email newsletters).

Now, optimize your website for online giving by following these two simple rules:

1. Make giving an online donation as easy as possible.  Include a conspicuous “Donate” button on every page of your site.  Yes, conspicuous.  Yes, every page.
2. Include a hyperlink “Donate” button on every email sent out by every staff member within the signature line (and what’s to say you can’t request that your board do the same?).

Yes, I know you’re swamped.  Yes, I know your resources are limited.  Yes, I know that there’s more to online giving than these two steps.  Confucius say:  “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Then join me for a f ree call next Thursday, February 4 at 3:00 pm eastern as I present my “Simple Success” Fundraising Plan.  Register here for the call.

Here’s some of what you’ll hear:

• Why you need a fundraising plan
• 7 questions your plan must answer
• The optimum number of goals you should set
• How to create goals that you can reach
• My proven tool to keep yourself on track each month

Plus, you’ll hear about a virtual planning retreat I’m hosting in February.  It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before and I think it will be lots of fun!

Sign up now for this free call!

If you want to hear the call, but can’t be there with us, go ahead and sign up.  I’ll send you a link to the recording.

I hope to see you on the call!

Sandy

Basically the rule says that 20% of your efforts produce 80% of results.  This concept reminds us that effective fundraising is not just about the total amount of funds raised.  It’s also not just about the age old debate about the costs to produce a fundraiser.  Time, whether it’s paid staff or volunteer, is also really important.

In this worksheet I include a column for you to rate the time and effort it takes to put on a fundraiser.  Using a simple rating scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being very little time and 5 meaning very labor intensive you’ll rate each fundraiser. Which of those fundraisers deserve a 5?  Did that last special event where you worked round the clock for days (or weeks) ahead of time really produce the results you wanted?  If not, consider how you can either plan the fundraiser more efficiently or, if need be, completely revamp the concept or stop doing it all together.

On the other hand, maybe there are fundraisers on your list that take very little time at all.  Depending on the circumstances though, just because they don’t take much time does not always mean that you should keep doing them!   These fundraisers could be diverting your supporters’ attention away from your major fundraisers and from your goal of keeping them engaged with your mission.

With the 80/20 rule in mind, decide how you will reduce unproductive fundraising efforts and increase your focus on the ones that are most effective.

Click here to download this worksheet