FlashPoint Top Fundraising Tips Series: Post 1

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This update is the first in a series of blog posts adapted from the FlashPoint Top Ten Fundraising Tools and Tips first presented to the Marshall County Firefighters Association in June 2011. 

This series includes significant links to previous FlashPoint blogs. For more information on FlashPoint strategic planning facilitation and/or custom fundraising training for your department, click here.

1. Everything about effective fundraising is built about the lives you save and change every day in your call response. Make this a central theme of your written and verbal communication activities for your fundraising. Click here for more thoughts on the lives your work saves and changes.

2. The most effective fundraising happens in follow up to great strategic planning. For more thoughts on this process, click here.

3. According to an 2010 giving patterns study by the GivingUSA Foundation, 73% of giving in the United States comes from individuals, 14% from foundations, 8% from bequests and 5% from corporations. Focus your fundraising efforts accordingly. 

4. Call reports and donor tracking should be equal priorities. For the full details on this top tip, click here.

What are your favorite fundraising tips? Share them below.

Internal Exercises to Build Your Fundraising Capacity

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The tremendous work you do to save and change lives offers great opportunity to connect donors and your mission. Where do you start to develop that capacity? The following internal exercises can lay a firm foundation for expanding that capacity. It typically works well to tackle one exercise per meeting. 

1. Conduct a written survey of all your current members that confirms:

     a.  Their employer (including if they are a retiree)

     b.  Whether their employer offers any grant program and who to contact for further details

     c.  Whether their employer offers any matching gift program and who to contact for further details

FYI, you may find in this outreach that 501 (c) (3) status is required by the employer to qualify for any of their programs.

2. Assign a volunteer to be a story guardian. Have that volunteer interview willing members who have stories to share that illustrate the impact of your great work. Aim to have 3-5 touching stories in the hopper at all times for potential fundraising communication use. For an example of such a story from the Decorah Fire Department, click here.

3. Gather three to five members with strong community knowledge and appreciation. During the meeting, brainstorm as many answers as possible to the following questions:

     a. Who has supported our organization in the past?

     b. Who do we know particularly appreciates our work?

     c. Who in the community would we like to have know our mission more?

     d. How might we involve these people more without initially asking for a gift? Activities might include:

         i. Offering a tour of your department

         ii. Conducting a Citizen's Academy for greater understanding of your work

         iii. Offering non-response volunteer opportunities with your organization 

         iv. Gathering this support list just to ask their input on your plans

What ground work are you currently laying for expanding your fundraising capacity? Share your experiences and thoughts below.