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The Fundraising Planner:
A Working Model for
Raising the Dollars You Need
by Terry & Doug Schaff
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Reprinted by permission of Jossey-Bass, a company of John Wiley & Sons. |
Donors want to know that their contributions will be well spent. They want to know before they make a contribution. We all know that past performance does not infallibly predict the future, but it does give donors a framework from which to look at your organization. That’s why relevant excerpts from your organization’s history of accomplishments can help donors appreciate your ability to accomplish the goals you set.
Generally speaking, the more recent your stories and examples the better. Your use of history will differ, however, depending on your organization. The "Venerable Art Museum" may have over one hundred years of accomplishments.
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WHERE TO OBTAIN THIS ITEM Jossey-Bass Customer Service 350 Sansome Street San Francisco, Calif. 94104 Local phone: (415) 433-1740 Fax: (415) 433-0499 Toll-free phone: (800) 956-7739 Toll-free fax: (800) 605-2665 Web site: http://www.jbp.com To purchase this item online, choose a bookseller:
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A Two-Step Process to Create Effective Appeals
Creating a core communications piece involves two steps:
- Gather your ingredients. Answer the first four questions that address the concerns all donors have. Lengthy grant proposals not withstanding, answers to these basic questions will provide the core for most funding proposals you write.
- Support your answers. Present true stories about your organization’s accomplishments, mini-case studies that act as proof of your organization’s ability to follow through on its goals and objectives. When appropriate, create more credibility by supplying information about who else supports the organization. ...
We assume you have access to all the elements of your organization’s case statement, most probably in the form of several documents that cover the twelve knowledge categories mentioned earlier. You have the mission statement, written materials on programs and services, and the relevant budgets. Given time to reflect, you could probably come up with phrases in response to all the donor question. In fact, it would be helpful to do that now. Think of statements that express what you would most like to communicate about your organization. What would you like donors to remember about it? Take your time. There isn’t just one correct answer to each donor question but many possible answers.
Expand on Your Mission Statement
Using elements of the organization’s case statement will streamline the process of answering donors’ questions. What your organization is trying to accomplish is reflected in its mission statement and organizational goals. The former addresses the societal needs that your worthy cause addresses. The later grounds the philosophical statement with intended actions. Both help determine what makes your nonprofit distinctive and deserving.
Define Evaluation Tools
How many events will you nonprofit put on? What is the proposed schedule? What numbers and kinds of audiences are expected to attend? Determining organizational objectives involves putting due dates to goals and quantifying them. These measurable criteria can be used as the basis for accurate, honest evaluation of programs and services.
Use Your Project Budget
How much does your organization already have committed to its project? Where are you going to get the rest of the funds? How much do you want to ask from the donor you are writing to? Answers to such financial questions can completely redirect a communication. Accurate figures lend credibility and confidence to an appeal. Letter appeals do not always need to present the details behind your funding request, but you should be ready to supply and explain them upon request... .
Support Your Answers
Of course, you don’t want to send donors just a list of the top ten reasons to give to your worthy cause. You want to reflect your organization’s personality, not just a group of dry facts. You want to point to relevant parts of your organization’s history that prove that it can follow through on its mission, goals, and objectives.
The ingredients of your basic funding proposal will include positive statements about your organization, backed up by relevant examples and stories about its history. You want to select stories that involve prospective donors emotionally. Think about the Save the Children campaign. Every ad has a picture of a ragged child in it. Seeing that forlorn young person standing barefoot strikes a strong emotional chord and makes the reader contrast the child’s life with his or her own comparative well-being. We’re not saying that you should always aim your message straight at the donor’s guilt complex. The point is that pictures and stories can communicate emotionally as well as factually. Select stories that will make others care about your organization. Paint verbal pictures. And of course, if you have a particularly telling photograph, use it.
World Monuments Fund brochures include side-by-side pictures of buildings before and after restoration. It’s a dramatic effect. The impact of WMF’s work becomes immediately and tangibly apparent. This is the impact you want to create with the stories you select to support your organization’s work.
As you consider your answers to the questions in this chapter, begin thinking about the types of donors you want to reach. You want to motivate people to care about your organization. You want a positive response to your program. Charitable appeals that engage the intellect alone get responses like, "Sounds like a great cause. Good luck, but let me think on it; I’m overcommitted right now," instead of, "Count me in. Tell me how I can help." An effective way to begin to develop the communications that will convince your donors that your organization is worth caring about is to add interesting, heartwarming stories about your organization to your basic answers to the donor questions. Such stories can have a powerful effect, giving you a better chance of raising fund for your worthy cause. ...
[Y]ou will need to tell each story in more detail so that it addresses four points, as the following story about a youth orchestra does. This orchestra doesn’t just travel around the country playing great music, it builds audiences for its performances and for classical music. Audience building is an important aspect of what the orchestra tries to accomplish, and the story backs up the orchestra’s claim to that accomplishment:
In each of its cities, the orchestra sets up Concert Committees that include business, political, and educational leaders as well as local citizens. The partnership with the City of Dallas in 1993 became a model for working with Chicago in 1996 and will be used to shape a program in cities in 1999 and 2000. The orchestra’s Dallas City Council worked with the Mayor, the Dallas Orchestra and scores of volunteers in mobilizing the city’s resources, down to organizing buses so that city youth, senior citizens and handicapped -- individuals who would not otherwise have done so -- were able to attend concerts. Fifty-two families hosted musicians in homestays and attended the concerts. Our extensive preconcert press campaigns helped publicize performances. Volunteer groups such as "Hospitality Dallas Style" helped out, raising money to pay for the dinners and other expenses of hosting the group, and assisted in audience development. The result -- The Meyerson Symphony Center was packed with capacity crowds that thoroughly enjoyed the performances.Here are the four points to consider when coming up with your own stories.
- Be clear about the goal of the story. The story in the example has a goal of showing how the orchestra builds audiences.
- Describe obstacles faced by the organization. The story in the example says that audiences for classical music are unavailable to broad-based audiences.
- Describe steps taken to overcome the obstacles (this is the heart of any story). The story in the example shows how the orchestra worked with local community groups. It formed a Concert Committee to mobilize city resources so that people "who would not otherwise have done so" were able to attend. Families that hosted musicians attended concerts. Press campaigns helped publicize concerts. And prestigious volunteer groups raised money and involved themselves in audience development.
- Present a picture of the result. The story in example tells readers that "The Meyerson Music Center was packed with capacity crowds that thoroughly enjoyed the performances." The phrase "capacity crowds" offers a measurement of the result.
What’s the concept behind the story? The orchestra works with its concert communities to build enthusiastic audiences. That could easily be an answer to the question, "What makes the orchestra special?"