Fundraisers like you
I've mentioned before I'm a big Kay Sprinkel Grace fan. She's the high priestess of value-based fundraising, and we should all be her acolytes. If you don't have a dog-eared copy of Beyond Fundraising within arms reach of your desk, I just don't know how you can call yourself a fundraiser.Now for the last few years Kay's been helping the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's revise its entire funding strategy. For as our dear federal government continues to reduce funding for open discourse, public television is increasingly turning to "viewers like you" for support. Traditional telethons soliciting millions of individuals for small donations can no longer fill this gap. So like other agencies that have traditionally relied on large membership bases -- the YMCA comes to mind -- CPB is shifting its focus to major donors and planned giving.
Fortunately for you and me, they've published all of their campaign tools on two public websites, Major Giving Now and Planned Giving Now. I doubt there are two more comprehensive, comparable resources available online. From planning, prospecting, cultivating, soliciting and stewardship, its all here with detailed case studies and worksheets for you to use, whether you are fundraising for public television, a community college or an animal shelter. If you are familiar with Kay's work, it doesn't take long to see her hand at work in all of these materials.
If you like what you find, why not consider making a donation to your local public television station today?
Labels: Fundraising_Resources
2 Comments:
I'm looking for metrics on fundraising. Specifically, how to build a "pipeline" of donors. In other words, if I need to raise $1M, how many people should I target? Is there a formula that says per capita giving is roughly $50, response rates are roughly 1%, therefore I need to hit XXXXXX amount of people to reach my goal?
To raise a million dollars you'll need to ask 4355 donors, who will give 871 gifts, averaging $1,148/each, ranging from $100,000 to $200.
Okay, raising a $1 million dollars is not that simple, but if you want metrics for planning, these might be the right numbers for you (or not). Within any group of donors, giving will be spread out with a a couple of major donors giving large gifts, a few more donors giving mid-size gifts, with the remainder giving smaller gifts. We call this spread the giving pyramid.
Every situation is different, but what you need is a "gift chart," a simple planning tool to tell you how many gifts and prospects you will need to raise a specific amount of money. The chart will help you see whether you have sufficient prospects at various levels to meet your fundraising goal. The trick then is to develop a plan to to identify, cultivate, and solicit prospects, and steward donors, at each giving level with appropriate strategies, allocating your resources based on the potential gift amounts.
Here's a link for instructions on how to build your own chart.
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