What would your organization do with more money?

by Amy Casey

Do you ever worry that your organization will have too much money – that you won’t be able to find ways to spend all that extra revenue? When you stop chuckling, think about what it would be like to have that kind of problem. Training in some basic and powerful strategies can make your fundraising that successful.

People get involved in non-profit organizations because they believe in the cause, not because they’re expert fund raisers.

My husband Tom and I were typical examples of enthusiasm over experience. Tom was a basketball coach and wanted to raise money to renovate the school gym. We thought, “How hard could it be?” So we dove in and found out it was actually pretty difficult! You can imagine our disappointment when the money we raised with our first tournament was only a third of our goal. If we had only had someone to teach us how to raise money, we could have had greater success.

So we reached out to more seasoned fund raisers for their strategies, along with making up some of our own. The next few events were much more successful. When the building renovations were done, we had money left over! We had to find other school projects that needed the extra money.

With that experience and many other fund raisers behind us, we now share our tips and tricks with other fund raisers to achieve the same kind of success.

One of the best fund raising tips we learned is to get everything donated. Not only the items for an auction or raffle, but everything from your vehicles to your letterhead.

Getting everything donated is a strategy that benefits everyone: it helps the organization do more good, impresses your supporters when they see their money used wisely and gives business donors great public relations in the community.

So approach your business or individual donors to contribute money toward your fund-raising training. The small amount they’ll spend on coaching or seminars can pay off immediately by helping you raise and keep significantly more money. You might want to start planning now for how you’ll use all those extra funds.....

Amy Casey is a Fundraising Coach and co-founder of Raising Greater Funds. Download the free Fund Raising Event Workbook and find great fundraising ideas and low-cost training even your non-profit budget can love!