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Running Head: FUNDRAISING FUNDAMENTALS 20
Fundraising Fundamentals
Fundraising can seem like a drain when compared to the fun and rewards of running
programs. Still, it is a component of running a successful organization. Learn about
developing a major gifts campaign and balancing that with annual gifts campaigns, special
events, and grant applications
Lecturer: Dr. Therese F. Martin, tmartin@tmartinconsults.com
Agenda
Introductions (10-10:30a)
Exercise – Your existing fundraising plans (10a-11a)
Lecture – The fundraising cycle (11a-12p)
Lunch (12p-1p)
Grant proposals (1-1:30)
Individual and Major Gifts (1:30-1:50)
Social Media (2p-2:50p)
Special Events (3-4)
Outcomes
AAACC Incubator Outcomes 2015-2016
1. Expand professional capacity for leadership by understanding one’s growth areas and
relevant strategies for personal and organizational resiliency.
2. Garner the skills and confidence to prototype a program that is response/reflective of
the complex context of their organization
3. Grow individual knowledge of tools useful in producing productive and satisfying
work cultures
4. Boost capacity for collaboration with partners, peers, and community members
prioritizing mindful listening and priority setting across complex situations
5. Develop a strong grasp of the fundamentals of design thinking and understanding of
certain techniques can be used to develop a new program or refine an existing one
6. Understand techniques for raising earned and contributed income and which mix of
sources best fit their particular organizational values, goals, and environment
7. Acquire confidence with the language and format of non-profit budgeting and finance
8. Improve the ability to tell the organization’s unique story to multiple audiences

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9. Build understanding of basic technology tools and develop a draft of a technology
plan suitable to organization’s budget, ambition and capacity
Course Outcomes
1. Garner the skills and confidence to prototype a fundraising program that is
response/reflective of the complex context of their organization
2. Understand techniques for raising earned and contributed income and which mix of
sources best fit their particular organizational values, goals, and environment
3. Acquire the language and format of non-profit budgeting for grant proposal writing
4. Improve the ability to tell the organization's unique story to multiple audiences
Introductions
Write your introduction. Who are you and why are you qualified to lead your
department/organization?
Public share: your introduction
Write how you would introduce your organization. This introduction is not your mission. It is
how you describe your organization in conversation.
Your organization exists because there is a need that no other organization or government
agency is addressing. What are those needs?

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Distill those needs into one or two over-arching themes.
Now, write a one-sentence description of the need and how your organization solves it, e.g.
Because area artists are not equally represented in exhibitions and as a political voice,
ArtSpan puts on SF Open Studios and lobbies for artists’ concerns. Mention the need first.
Name your organization. Keep your sentence to 30 words or less. (Feel free to write, scratch,
and rewrite.)
What you have written is your statement of purpose.
Share your statement of purpose with your neighbor. Make note of their suggestions. If you
like them, then incorporate them.

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Public share: Present your statement of purpose while you are standing on one leg. We are
confirming that your statement of purpose is a good “elevator pitch.”
Your Existing Fundraising Plan
Which are parts of your fundraising plan?
☐ Proposal writing
☐ Annual giving campaigns
☐ Membership campaigns
☐ Special events
☐ Major gift solicitation
☐ Matching gift campaigns
☐ Direct mailings
☐ Email blasts
☐ Social media campaigns
☐ Other
How often do you conduct each one: annually, biannually, twice per month, monthly, every
other month, weekly, other, as needed?
____________ Proposal writing
____________ Annual giving campaigns
____________ Membership campaigns
____________ Special events
____________ Major gift solicitation
____________ Matching gift campaigns
____________ Direct mailings
____________ Email blasts
____________ Social media campaigns
____________ Other

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If the circle represents a year, mark when you campaign for gifts and memberships and hold
special events. Mark if your campaigns are via mail, e-mail, or through social media.
Is it balanced and cyclical? Are you campaigning for money, at least, every other month?
Share your drawing with your neighbor. Explain your campaigns and events?
Ideally, you want to fundraise constantly and not overburden your staff. A four-person staff
with Host Committee teams of seven can handle two special events and two hard mail

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membership/giving drives. Conduct your drives one or two months after your special event
but not three months prior to a special event.
Grant Proposals
Audience
You need to consider who will read your proposal and make recommendations.
Panels and program directors interpret your proposals in different ways.
Panels. Government agencies use panels with open hearings. Panelists take home
binders of applications and make preliminary scores. Often, the agency designates one or two
panelists to present their understanding of the organization and its request. Some agencies
allow the organization to respond to questions while others do not. You might call an agency
if you did not receive a grant and ask what you can do better.
Program Director. Program directors work at foundations. The program director
makes a recommendation to the executive director as to whom to fund. The executive
director presents this to a board of directors/trustees. Program directors might visit your
organization and interview the executive director. It is a good idea to have your program
director attend this meeting.
The Missions vs. the Statement of Purpose
It’s probable that you and your board crafted the mission statement during a retreat
and spent a lot of time on it. The statement of purpose should be how you introduce your
organization or program. Write a statement of purpose for each of your programs.

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Explaining the Program and Outreach
Impact model. The impact model gives you a way to visualize your program.
(Bradach, Tierney, & Stone, 2009)
Theory of change. List what you do to in brief bullet points.

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Direct impact. When you perform these actions what do they create as a collective?
Who do you serve?
Unmarked box. The premise of this model is that you want what you are doing to
spread. You want to help more people than are in your current constituency. How are you
sharing what you do?
Indirect impact. On a broader scale, how does your sharing create local or global
change?
Evaluation. Grantors want to know what tool you are using to measure
organizational health and program outcomes. Your audit, financial review, tax return, and
Cultural Data Report are parts of the organizational health. Grantors also want to see a board
with fixed terms of service, regular rotation, and professional diversity. For example, an arts
organization that serves visual artists should not have a board of only those constituents. The
board should have at least one attorney and CPA (or other finance professional, CFA, CFM,
CFP). The board would be stronger still if there were a member that is a public relations (or
marketing) professional and someone who works in customer relations/sales/customer
database management. You want to demonstrate that there are no declines in constituents or
donors/members. If there is a 2% decline, explain it in the footnotes.

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The logic model. The logic model is a common way to analyze a program. (Note that
you can go to the link, which I provided, and download the template.) As with many
processes, you need to start with the end in mind. In this case, you need to decide if you are
using surveys, interviews, focus groups, or government statistics as your measurement
instruments. I strongly advise organizations to hire a consultant to draft surveys and
questionnaires. It lends credibility to your evaluation. I see many nonprofit questionnaires
that will lead to useless information. The question is set up incorrectly. The consultant does
not have to analyze the results of a survey unless you want to make a case for legislative
change. You can compare year-to-year trends. You should always have an outsider conduct
interviews and focus groups. Include evaluation expenses in all of your grant proposals and
budgets. If you don't secure the donation/grant, you won't have the expense. However, you
won't be able to cover the expense if you do not ask for the money.
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_exampled_Logic_Model.png)
Long-term outcomes. First, know who your constituents are. Are they artists, children,
both? Are your members constituents? How will the conditions of your constituents change?

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Intermediate outcomes. What social behaviors will change?
Short-term outcomes. What will people learn?
Board Giving
If your board does not give, you won’t receive many grants. Grantors want to see that
board members believe so much in the organization, that they will invest in it. When I submit
grant proposals, I submit pages of footnotes to the financial statements. Where it reads,
“individual giving,” I write, “5 board members gave $__ / __% of individual gifts.” Where it
reads, “special event income,” I write “12 board members bought $__ in tickets and sold __
number of tickets.” Where it reads, “in-kind income,” I write, “7 board members secured 20
gifts, totaling $__.” If your institution has art auctions, where it reads, “art sales,” I write “6
board members donated and raised $__.”
What can you add to your footnotes about your board giving?
Individual gifts
Buy tickets
Sell tickets
Secure in-kind donations
Gave art or experience (private music recital)

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Running Head: FUNDRAISING FUNDAMENTALS 20
There Is No Such Thing As Overhead
Everyone in your office is working on programs or fundraising. Allocate rent,
utilities, payroll expenses, etc. to programs and fundraising. We’ll cover this when we go into
budgeting.
Turn the Award into a Challenge
Your organization always needs money. After receiving a grant award, you should
send a simple, but direct email and social media blast. “We need to raise $___ by __/__/20__
to match a recently received grant.” Keep the amount modest – something that allows for a
win. If your operating budget is $250k and you just received a $10k grant, ask for $3k. You'll
need a way to receive the donations. Paypal and Mollyguard are great.
Individual and Major Gifts
Donor Bill of Rights

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Major Gifts
Major gift solicitation is a peer-to-peer activity. In essence, you want to look at the
list of prospects and see if they know your board members or other individuals that are close
to the organization. Those individuals need to be willing to help you make “the ask.”
It's simpler to take someone out for coffee three times and then ask for a gift on the
fourth visit than it is to write a grant proposal or host a special event. Each time you take that
person out tell him or her about a recent program development. The first thing you need to do
is know that the person attends your fundraisers and gives to your organization. Then look at
how many times that person has attended events and donated. Have they answered the call
75% of the time?
You could test the waters by hosting a house party. This party is a type of special
event, but the guests are exclusive to potential major donors. Invite no more than 20 people.
Couples count as two people. The party takes place at a board member’s house. Keep the
guest list small. This is not a large-production event. Only the hosting board member, board
president/chair, and board members who have a connection to a potential donor should come.
The executive director and development director should attend. Everyone who attends needs
to be “selling.” Do not “close” any donations. If people express an interest in donating, make
an appointment to see that person at his/her office.
In some way, display your art with a slide show or video. Board members cover the
food and beverage costs and or catering. Keep it simple. Do not waste your in-kind
solicitations on a house party. You could have coffee and cookies on a Sunday. Host a
Saturday afternoon buffet of cold cuts and cheese with wine.
Make a list of potential prospects. You are always asking for a bigger gift. Do your
board members or other donors know that person? If so, list the prospect and the
corresponding board member (or donor).

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Activity. Asking for major gifts. We’re going to write two scripts: one for a donor
who responds to a story and one who responds to numbers. Then we will work in teams of
three to ask each other for money.

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Individual Giving
You’ll use your statement of purpose as the tagline of your individual giving appeal.
Put it on the envelope and in the body of your text. A well thought through individual giving
campaign that uses envelopes should cost you no more than $0.50 to raise $1.
You won’t receive gifts unless you ask for them. When you ask for them, you need a
way to receive them. You need an online tool for Internet depositing. It’s become trendy to
ask for $15 per month gifts. Doing so gives you a steady income stream. Make sure to leave
room for matching gift information.
Run your campaign two months after a special event but not two months before an
event. Generate donation acknowledgments within one week. If you receive 50 or fewer
donations per campaign, write a special note from the program director or executive director
on every acknowledgment. I also make phone calls or have my board members to individuals
who give to three campaigns in a row. If all you can do is leave a phone message and instruct
him/her/them to call you back if he/she/they have questions or would like to have coffee, you
have strengthened your bond with that donor.
You need a way to accept gifts of stock. Talk to your bank about a mutual fund.
Explain you’re a nonprofit. Find out the minimum amount of money that you need to
maintain the account and transfer that amount to the mutual fund. While you are talking to
the bank, you should ask for the name of the foundation and corporate sponsor contacts. You
want the name of a person, not just a Website.
Social Media
Announcements
You need to use a combination of email, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Use a
service such as Constant Contact for your emails. It is worthwhile to have a professional
email marketer work with you and create the template of your blast. You don't want the
design to change with every blast. It confuses your brand. Email blast monthly and link
people to content on your site. Do not put all of the content in the email. At the very least,
link to your mission statement and your donation page. Do not forget to include your
statement of purpose. Facebook and Twitter are platforms for fun, e.g. pictures from
programs and events, links to articles that are relevant to your organization, photos with staff
and major donors or corporate sponsors. Also, use Facebook and Instagram to call people's
attention to legislation and relevant rallies. Finally, use Facebook to point to your content on
LinkedIn.
Use LinkedIn to create content. Write three-paragraph summaries and lessons learned
from your programs. This sharing demonstrates transparency and is the action you take to
fulfill your indirect outcome.
Crowdfunding

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Right now, I'm not a fan of crowdfunding. The expenses are steep, and the results can be
mixed. If your announcement system and PayPay and Mollyguard are reliable, then
crowdfunding is a waste of money. You can compare fees by looking up the "Top 10
Fundraising Sites" at www.crowdfunding.com.
If you are monitoring who raised what, such as a marathon, then the crowdfunding
method works well. In these instances, a person is using an online customer management
system and scripts that you generate to create personalized messages for individual people.
Setting this up can cost $10k or more.
Special Events
Special events are fun. However, they do not generate a lot of money when you
compare the time that goes into producing them. You could spend upwards of $0.75 to raise
$1. Think of special events as awareness generators and prospecting tools. Set the income of
special events with low expectations. You need at least six months to plan a proper special
event. Remember even if you are collecting tickets at the door and no money trades hands,
you still need a liquor license.
Theme
Your event and the activities within it should be mission-based. For example, you
should not host a cocktail party or dinner without exhibiting your program. If you serve
children, invite them to perform. Performing arts organizations should not auction visual art.
It detracts from your mission and confuses your brand. If you are a performing arts group and
cannot accommodate live performances, have video or a slide show running.
The Committees
You need some people with connections to help you sell tickets and oversee logistics.
The committees are the Honorary Host Committee and the Host Committee. You will name
the Host Committee with the name of your event, e.g. The Art Launch Committee.
Honorary Host. You may have an Honorary Host Committee or an Honorary Host.
Either the Board President/Chair is in charge of this committee. Comb your list of existing
and prospective major donors for names. Also, ask any high-profile person. Make it clear
how many tickets you would like that person to buy and sell and have that person sign a
memorandum of agreement. Do not make this request over email. Call that person. Always,
contact the Mayor's Office and your district representative if he or she would like to join.
Even if the government official cannot buy or sell tickets, give that person four. List your
board president/chair as a member of the Honorary Host Committee. If the Mayor or the
representative attends the event, invite him or her to speak. Sometimes, they will send an aid.
That’s fine. Have that person speak.

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Host. The host committee does the heavy lifting. They work with staff to deliver to
the timeline that staff sets and secure in-kind donations and corporate sponsorships. This
committee will meet at least monthly. The chair of the Host Committee speaks at the event.
Volunteers
Use the minimum number of volunteers possible. Volunteer management takes time
and energy. Volunteers eat and drink. The staff person who is managing volunteers should
only deal with three, four, or five people. If you need more people than that, then designate
volunteer captains. Make sure that you train the volunteers, at least, two days before the
event and on the site. The executive director, development director, and chief program
director should not do the work of volunteers. They need to talk to guests.
Corporate Sponsorship
Corporate sponsorship is the bread and butter of an event. You need to start working
on corporate sponsorship, at least, one year before the event. Corporate sponsorship is not a
donation. Do not ask a corporation’s foundation to sponsor your event. You need to talk to
someone in marketing. Corporate sponsors want “eyeballs.” You need statistics that indicate
who attended your past events and any information that indicates that these people are
potential customers for the corporate sponsor. You need to survey your audience.
Treat in-kind donors as in-kind sponsors. Give them the same respect and placement
in your materials as you would a cash sponsor. Regarding placement, you need to establish
the cost of being a title sponsor, presenting sponsor, and tiers of sponsors. The tiers depend
on the "value of your eyeballs." At a variety of donor levels, you need to decide on logo
placement or name placement and the costs to place items in gift bags, have a table at your
event, and include a coupon or announcement in your collateral. At each level of
sponsorship, give away a certain number of tickets. Have title and presenting sponsors speak
at your event.
Never send a menu of sponsor levels to a prospect. Do your homework. See if your
board members have a connection to anyone within the company or small business. Call for
an appointment and then email the potential sponsor with a prospectus. That prospectus
should name only one level of giving and list the corresponding benefits. You can always
invite the sponsor to look at a higher or lower level of sponsorship. Never “give away” the
levels. If you don’t have someone giving at the $250 level, do not “bump up” the $200
sponsor.
The chair or president of the Board of Director/Trustees will act as Master of
Ceremonies. If he or she does not want to be the MC, then the duty falls to another board
member. The speaker order is the title sponsor, presenting sponsor, government official(s),
Host Committee Chair, the executive director. These speakers do not need to speak one after
the other. Give your audience a break. The government official may need to leave. Be
prepared for that person to speak at an unpredicted time.

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Schedule
This is an ideal schedule. One year before the event set the time and location of the
event and choose the Host Committee Chair. Remember that depending on what type of
organization you are, you might want to avoid certain dates. For example, visual arts
organizations want to avoid first Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Diligently, call other
organizations and work to avoid conflicts.
Once you establish this, start working on corporate and in-kind sponsors. You want
the sponsors to cover the costs of the event so that the tickets are pure profit.
Nine months before the event, identify the full Host Committee members, have your
first Host Committee Meeting, and then meet monthly. Have those individuals continue to
work on sponsorship. Six months before the event, identify a graphic designer. At five
months, turn on your online ticket sales and send a “Save the Date” message. Depending
upon how fancy your event is, you may want to use mail rather than only using a digital
message. Make sure the Honorary Host and Host committees have what they need to sell
tickets. Do not commit to any volunteers.
Two months before the event, mail the invitation. Since you are using postal mail and
you can reach many people through the Internet, you might want to limit your mailing list.
Two months before the event, have the Host Committee begin to meet twice per month. If
you are using Volunteer Captains, identify those now.
One month before the event, speak with the Host Committee and Volunteer Captains.
You need to vet and invite 100% of the volunteers that you would need. You need to have a
reason to invite a volunteer and explain the event time and mandatory meeting date. These
individuals should have a strong link to your organization and be un-inebriated at the time of
the event. I like to invite those who benefit from the organization and people who donate
consistently at a low level. Reward those who give you $20 per year. They are invested in
you but can’t afford a $40 ticket.
One month before the event, assemble a list of past event attendees and donors.
Assign board members to call particular people on the list. If the board member has a special
connection to someone on the list, make sure the board member has that person on his/her
call sheet. Board members can be shy. Reassure them that they are not selling tickets. They
are leaving messages, thanking people for past support, and reminding these individuals that
the event will take place soon. I spoke to a board member who was rather introverted but
later told me that she loved making the calls and connecting with people who were
enthusiastic about her organization. She made certain to find them during the event. While
none of them became major gift prospects, they continue to be supporters and look for her at
events.
Three weeks before the event remind your volunteers to come to the mandatory
training. If people cancel, return to your vetted list and invite more volunteers. Two weeks
before the event, train the volunteers. You or the Captains should remind the volunteers of

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the statement of purpose. Then, walk volunteers through the entire space, including safety
exits. Every volunteer should understand what is happening at each station, the order of
speakers, liquor laws, and his/her station and duties. Have each volunteer sign a
Memorandum of Agreement to volunteer, hold the organization harmless, and remain sober.
The timing for setting up, hosting, and breaking down the event will vary. Without
exception, volunteers should arrive one hour before the event. Because the volunteers and
staff remain sober, I like to have an after party at a late-night restaurant or bar. To me, this is
an event expense. I buy one drink per volunteer and some appetizers. Many times a volunteer
will insist on throwing some money into the pot. Count that as a donation. Be sure to invite
the Board of Directors. They probably won’t come. After all of the time that goes into
breaking down an event, they are probably asleep.
Conclusion
Envision fundraising as a cycle. Now, use the circle to plan when your annual
gift/membership drives, special events, and major gift research will take place.

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A solid fundraising program requires planning. Establishing a cycle takes trial and
error. Look at the fundraising cycle and determine what responsibilities can the staff
complete or oversee. Remember that, at small organization, the executive director and
development director need to focus on major gift solicitation and grant proposals. With this
in mind, mark the fundraising cycle with any known grant application deadlines.
Public share: Your final fundraising cycle.

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Recommended Reading
Bradach, J., Tierney, T.,Cacija, & Stone, N. (2010). Delivering on the promise of
nonprofits.The Jossey Bass Nonprofit Reader, pp. 222- . 238. San Francisco: Josey
Bass. Retrieved from
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NAD8IXtTWrgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA2
22&dq=delivering+on+the+promise+of+nonprofits&ots=Q0RRf94HFf&sig=Ma0UI
woqSRUPzsdmcDJA4aTDB-
E#v=onepage&q=delivering%20on%20the%20promise%20of%20nonprofits&f=fals
e
L. N. (2013). FUNDRAISING IN THE CONTEXT OF NONPROFIT STRATEGIC
MARKETING: TOWARD A CONCEPTUAL MODEL. Management : Journal of
Contemporary Management Issues, 18(1), 59-78. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.webinfo.ndnu.edu:8080/docview/1418199977?accountid=
25323
Staecker, D., & Reid, J. (1994, Jan). Understanding the fundraising process: 8 steps every
nonprofit leader must know. Nonprofit World, 12, 8. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.webinfo.ndnu.edu:8080/docview/221332643?accountid=2
5323
Brooks, A. C. (2004). Evaluating the effectiveness of nonprofit fundraising. Policy Studies
Journal, 32(3), 363-374. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com.webinfo.ndnu.edu:8080/docview/210559886?accountid=2
5323
Waters, R. D. (2008). Applying relationship management theory to the fundraising process
for individual donors. Journal of Communication Management, 12(1), 73-87.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13632540810854244