I am blessed to work with A LOT of nonprofits. Unless they are HUGE, they don’t have the staffing budget to hire a FT fundraiser. That doesn’t mean that they can’t do well with fundraising. Here’s what I would do if I only had 4 hours per week to devote to fundraising.
Hour 1 - One lunch or breakfast per week with a major donor
Hour 2 – Social Media & Email Newsletter
Hour 3 – Handwritten notes to faithful givers
Hour 4 – Community Involvement and Event Planning
Isn’t this a neat mixture of old school and new school? If you concentrate your time on these 4 main areas, you will be able to have a wonderful presence amongst your current and potential donors. Remember, in fundraising, you want people to think of you well and often. Let me go into a little further detail.
Hour 1 - One lunch or breakfast per week with a major donor
Most likely, 80-90% of your funding comes from 10-12 giving units (single, married, family). If you take one of them out once a week, you will have quarterly meetings with the people who are the most invested in your ministry! That is awesome service. They will know what’s going on and they will know that you really do care about what they are doing for you!
Hour 2 – Social Media & Email Newsletter
You need to have a good presence on social media. Canva is a place where you can make stuff to post and schedule it out. There are others like it. You can even do it directly on facebook. I use about an hour per month do schedule out my posts. That frees up some of your time to quit thinking about social media and to focus on what you would like in your monthly newsletter. I would actually use your info in BOTH places. Use your social posts to make your newsletter.
Hour 3 – Handwritten notes to faithful givers
Hopefully you have some faithful monthly givers. They need to know that you think about them and care that they have chosen to support you so well. A handwritten note conveys that you care enough to sit down and think about them. If you don’t have many monthly givers – these notes can go to potential monthly givers to start building up that base.
Hour 4 – Community Involvement and Event Planning
You need events to be focal points of your ministry. They spread awareness and “juice!” Also, they give people opportunities to consider giving to you. Without them, people have to ask to give. In events, the ask is implied and maybe even asked right out loud! Haha. If you don’t have plans, use this time to dream about what you’d like to do. Read through my blog. Scour the internet to see what others are doing. Hire me for a comedy night! :)
Comments