The Key To A Successful Fundraiser
There are an abundance of factors to take into consideration when preparing for a fundraiser. But how do you ensure that all your hard work and preparation pays off? Below is an outline of the most important elements to keep in mind when putting together a successful fundraiser for your organization.
Define a Purpose
As straightforward as this seems, you might be surprised to see how many organizations lack a defined purpose for their fundraisers. One thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of your fundraiser is different from the organization’s purpose.
Knowing what your organization stands for and the groups it is trying to benefit through fundraising is a great thing to educate yourself in, but when someone asks you what the fundraiser is for, you might find yourself stumbling a bit because your organization’s mission doesn’t actually outline the purpose for fundraising. Your purpose can be as big or small as needed, but as long as you have something to talk about that is directly influenced by your fundraiser, you should be off to a great start. For instance, a nonprofit focusing on disaster relief may run a fundraiser to support the victims of a particular hurricane.
Set Realistic Goals
It would be a beautiful thing if each fundraiser looking to make a strong, positive impact on their community were able to raise a cornucopia of money and goods, but with the volume of beneficial organizations out there, this is difficult to secure.
This doesn’t mean you have to set your expectations low, though! Maintaining a realistic perspective when going into fundraising allows for your expectations to not only be met, but potentially surpassed. You’re also more likely to run a confident, organized fundraiser if your goals are attainable, as there will be less reason to feel discouraged at the end of the day.
Identify an Audience
If your goals and purpose are defined and realistic, this part should come easy. In fact, at that point, your audience will have been determined, so finding ways to access this audience and refine its identification becomes the next step. Where do you plan on fundraising? Will there be events? Will it be exclusively an online campaign?
All of these factors come into play when addressing your target audience. Once these factors are determined, it becomes primarily about making your audience feel comfortable, welcomed, and that their donations are going to the best place possible.
Promote, Promote, Promote!
Whether your fundraiser is in person or online, taking advantage of your social media platforms is a crucial part of running a successful fundraising campaign. Start sending out tweets, make Facebook events, share the event on LinkedIn…with this many platforms to promote your fundraiser on, you surely won’t run out of places to post and new people to attract.
Get out into your community and understand what it stands for. By knowing your audience, goals, and purpose and taking it to social media or other communication-based platforms, you’ll have the ability to be more concise about your focus and more control over the direction in which your fundraiser goes.
