Planned Parenthood found out recently that fundraising can be difficult and unpredictable.

Just recently the Susan G Komen Foundation announced it was ending its partnership with Planned Parenthood. Komen ended the relationship because Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the country and the new director had a difficult time reconciling their organization with that practice.

But as it turned out the publicity Planned Parenthood received from the breakup has encouraged lots of pro choice people to step up and try to make up the different. Planned Parenthood reported on Wednesday raising $400,000 in the 24 hours following its announcement that Komen was ending its partnership with the group.

So why bring that up here in our fundraising blog?

When we stopped and thought about what was going on we realized that the most important lesson from this was that you want to keep your organization and its needs in front of the public in general and your supporters specifically. That means sharing both the good and the bad news.

In this case the organization found itself in a difficult position and the cause of the problem was a political time bomb. But by having their situation made public they raised a lot of money that they would not have otherwise raised. It just goes to show you that remaining in the public eye is usually a good thing.

It remains to be seen what the long term affect will be on either organization but for now there are lessons to be learned.

Successful PTA Fundraisers don’t happen by accident. They happen for a reason.

Most successful PTA fundraisers begin and end with parents who are. So the fact of the matter is that it might make more sense to work on developing a group of parents who are involved with your school before you worry about fundraising ideas. The problem is that this is much easier said than done. Much.

The fact of the matter is that fewer parents have the time or desire to be as involved with their children’s schools as they once did. There are lots of contributing factors here but the one that stands out the most is that more and more households depend on two incomes now than ever before. That means there are far fewer stay at home parents who have the time to get involved at school.

The other sad fact is that there have always been a small percentage of people willing to volunteer. Where a well run PTA 10 years ago may have had a pool of a dozen dedicated parents who were the engine of the organization that has now become closer to 6 or 8 people. Those are the people who volunteer for lots of other things. They are probably also involved with their kid’s sports and their churches as well. There is only so much time these people have no matter how well intentioned.

So in order to have Successful PTA Fundraisers the PTA board needs to spend its time building its core of volunteers through all means possible. If you have a great core of parents not only will your school fundraising goals more likely be met but all aspects of your school will be improved.

That’s a certainty!

Times have changed and there is more to consider with Fundraisers for Youth Groups. In fact the entire process has evolved over the years.

Ten years ago youth groups typically counted on the kids to raise money. The group would hand our fundraising brochures and each child was expected to sell fundraising products to friends, family and neighbors. It was expected that the youth would take their brochure and knock on doors around their neighborhood. But those days are done for the most part.

Now more parents take control of fundraising. If the group is holding a cookie dough fundraiser the parent most likely brings the brochure and order form to work and solicits sales there. The same for candy fundraisers. Parents take the carrier of candy to their workplace and count on coworkers to buy the candy.

In the old days youth groups would offer incentives to the kids to increase sales. Those incentives were obviously geared toward the kids. But how well do child-based incentives work when its the parent who sells?

If you are going to offer incentives for your fundraisers for youth groups we suggest you develop incentives that excite the parents if you believe that the parents will be the main force behind your youth group fundraiser. That might take a little more effort than it did choosing incentives for kids.

If you have not changed with the times do not be surprised if you see diminishing returns on your Fundraisers for Youth Groups.

I just got off the phone with someone asking for Unique Fundraising Ideas and it got me thinking about whether there really were unique fundraising ideas or had most every idea been done before.

I probably should have just answered the question but decided to pursue the conversation with the caller to see what they were really looking for. It turns out they were not so much looking for a unique fundraiser as they were looking for something different than what the believed every other fundraising group in their town was selling.

So we talked about that. At the time she know other groups holding cookie dough fundraisers and promoting candy fundraising so she knew she did not want to do those. So we talked about unique fundraising ideas that she had not considered.

Interestingly she had never considered something like a flower bulb fundraiser. In fact when we talk to people about good fundraisers for the spring and fall we oftentimes suggest flower bulbs because they are competitively priced, relatively inexpensive and attractive products. Besides, more and more people like the idea of healthier fundraising and there is certainly nothing unhealthy about flower bulbs.

We continued the conversation and discussed some online tools that sound good but rarely deliver the outcome one would expect. We talked about the different options of fundraising products that could be sold. In that conversation we touched on lollipop fundraisers using seasonal shapes that made them unique to the time of year.

At the end of the conversation the woman decided on a flower bulb fundraiser but I came to realize that there may not be many truly unique fundraising ideas left. If you have any to share I’d love to hear about them.

One of the best ways to insure spectacular attendance at fundraising events is to have a celebrity attend or even speak to your group.

The Restoration, a faith-based event sponsored by the New Hope Gospel Church youth ministry program Extreme Fire, has been holding a fundraising event for 5 years. This year they expect to break all records.

They are bringing in Tim Tebow to speak to their group.

So how do you go about attracting celebrities to your fundraiser? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Look for local celebrities that personally know your organization or group. Possibilities include local television personalities, radio deejays, athletes or actors that grew up in your town or city. Since those people have roots in your community they will most likely not be as difficult to contact. Tracking down friends or family members is a possibility. As for on air personalities, those people are easy to locate.

When you contact the celebrity make sure you let them know why they would personally impact support for your group. We all have egos. Let them know they can make the difference and why. Be as compelling as possible.

2. Contact a talent agency. Talent agencies represent potential speakers and other celebrities. While most have engagement fees many will help charitable efforts that line up with their personal beliefs. You should obviously weigh the impact your desired speaker will have on fundraising efforts. Will the appearance raise a substantially higher amount of money? If so would that more than cover the cost of the celebrity?

While its not possible for many groups to get nationally known people to attend their event you might be surprised at speakers and attendees that can impact your fundraising results.

There are different school fundraising cookie dough companies and different school fundraising cookie dough products you can choose as you probably already know. So how do you choose the best option?

Start with the easy decision. Do you want to sell frozen cookie dough or something that does not require refrigeration? Most large groups gravitate toward frozen cookie dough fundraisers because that’s what people expect. But there are dry cookie miz fundraisers you can choose from as well. The benefit of the latter is that there is no refrigeration needed which makes distribution a lot easier and less strict time wise.

The next decision is whether you want to sell tube of cookie dough or boxes of preportioned cookie dough. Historically more people have sold tubs. There is no definitive reason why other than its been around much longer. However more and more groups choose preportioned because its much easier on their customer. They can pull a few cookies out of the box, put them in the oven and bake only what they want without thawing the cookie dough or finding a scoop.

Now there is a new program where you can sell frozen cookie dough that is shipped directly to your customer. Many people call it home delivery cookie dough fundraising. Essentially you sell ecoupons that your customer use like gift cards to purchase tubs of cookie dough online. The price per tub is a little higher but it includes shipping. Many groups like the idea that there is really no delivery of products other than the e coupons.

So what is the best school fundraising cookie dough in our opinion?

There is a program where you offer the top selling cookie dough in slightly smaller tubs that sell for only $10 per tub. We believe this is the magic price point where people are more than happy to buy your product. Many of the name brand or national brands sell tubs of cookie dough for $15, $16 or more. Based on feedback we get that price is simply more than people care to spend.

CLICK HERE for details on the top cookie dough fundraisers.

Turn on any news show and you’ll hear analysts and pundits forecasting economic doom and gloom. Their reports are filled with words and phrases like “economic downturn,” “soft economy,” and the dreaded “recession.” While the jury is still out about whether or not we’re really in a recession, now is a great time to recession-proof your fundraising effort.

Weak economies can be very helpful for nonprofits. During such times, organizations are forced to be leaner and more efficient. Then when the economy rebounds, they’re in a much better position to take advantage of it.

But economic downturns can also be perilous times for nonprofits. When faced with a recession, many nonprofits make bad choices that limit their growth. Some of these mistakes can prove fatal.

3 Mistakes to Avoid

How will this economic climate affect your favorite nonprofit? Will you fulfill your mission or will you fold? That depends on whether you make these deadly mistakes:

• spend less on fundraising
• become pessimistic
• apologize when you’re asking

Spend less on fundraising
Whether we like it or not, asking for money costs money. When you’re looking for budgets to trim, costly mailings and fundraising activities will seem like obvious opportunities. But exercise extreme caution.

Most fundraising efforts can be tweaked to improve their effectiveness. These tweaks can either reduce cost or increase money raised. But I’ve never seen a fundraising effort raise more money by being eliminated.

In a recent study I did, I discovered our organization’s direct mail program raised more money during the years we sent out more letters. This was counter-intuitive to me. I’d worked for a couple years to eliminate mailings and focus exclusively on the people deemed most likely to make a gift. But in that time of trying to cut expenses, our annual fund dropped by around 30%! Fortunately, this year we’ve increased our mailings and have already raised as much in six months as we did the entire previous year.

Spending less on fundraising can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Less investment can result in less being raised which leads to further cuts and even less raised. Tighten budgets where necessary but be very careful when making cuts to fundraising programs.

Becoming pessimistic
The top fundraising professionals are some of the most optimistic people alive. The minute they start being gloomy, people begin holding on to their wallets. Ever wonder why the stock market drops when pundits prophesy uncertainty? No one wants to invest in a questionable deal. It’s the same sort of self-fulfilling loop with fundraising.

As development professionals, we’re inviting people to invest in our mission. Our cause makes the world a better place regardless of the economy! That’s not going to change. We need to continue to shed light on the good things happening around us. We don’t need to be Pollyanna, but we do need to continue to see the silver lining.

Apologizing when you’re asking
When we keep hearing how bad things are, it’s easy to get awkward about asking for donations. But timidity is a sure-fire way to not raise money. We need to continue getting out from behind our desks and inviting donors to give.

I’m certainly not advocating being brash or arrogant. We do need to understand that many of our donors may not be able to give at the same level. This is where we can be compassionate and understanding. And our relaxed understanding of people’s financial realities can make them even stronger proponents of our organizations in the future.

But there’s nothing compassionate about not asking.

Stay Positive and Succeed

Whether the economy is soft or strong, one sure way to raise less money is to stop asking for it! The best way to recession-proof your fundraising is to keep doing the things that raises money and to do it in a way that strengthens relationships with donors, helping them become evangelists for your cause:

• keep on making wise investments in fundraising efforts,
• stay upbeat, and
• continue to compassionately raise support.

Combine these ingredients and you have an excellent recipe for strengthening your nonprofit fundraising in any economy!

About the Author: Marc A. Pitman, CFCC is the author of Ask Without Fear! and the founder of Fundraisingcoach.com. His fundraising books and nonprofit seminars specialize in helping fundraising executives reconnect with their passion.

This article is part of the Fundraising in Challenging Economic Times series.

Here’s a list of each of the articles in this series:

1. Recession Proof Fundraising by Anisha Robinson Keeys
2. 3 Suggestions for Raising Money in Tough Economic Times by Jim Berigan
3. When Foundations Say “No” by Aaron Atwood
4. Succeed at Fundraising Despite a Recession by Marc Pitman