Fund Development Plan – Fundraising strategy
To achieve fundraising success for your organisation it is important to do research of the fundraising efforts of your organisation.
Vision / Mission:
It is important that your fund development plan reflects the mission and vision of the organisation. For this exercise please start your plan with the vision, mission and objectives of your organisation.
Fundraising Policies:
What are the fundraising policies of your organisation. Where do you mobilise resources from, who may you not contact for money.
Example: The Women’s Fund South Africa approach International Foundations, Bilateral donors and
International Grantmaking NGO’s for funding to cover the operational cost of the organisation,
Corporations for events and grantmaking, Individuals as general reserve and grantee network meetings.
The organisation does not approach the following companies for funds: Drugs, Arms, or any company who in public has a bad labour policy.
Ten percent (10%) of all income will be reserved for new projects. (Pilot programmes).
Values of the Organisation:
The organisations that are value driven will ensure that their values are clearly reflected in their fund plan. It is important to include your values in the fund plan. Determine the core values of your organisation and make sure that your communication, marketing and other material do reflect the values of your organisation.
Example: If you work elevate the status of children make sure that your fund plan also have tiers of giving. If your organisation place value on volunteers make sure you create opportunity for your donors to also volunteer or provide goods / service in kind.
Active Donors:
Active donors are all the donors who donated money to your organisation in the past 18 months. List the donors and where they are from / what kind of donor…
Example: Ford Foundation , Amount, International Foundation
Jenny Scott, Amount, Individual donor
Foschini, Amount, CSI
I have included a funders list for you to use for this purposes. It is also a good way of keeping track of all your donors.
Laps donors:
The list of “laps” donors will include all the donors who have NOT giving money to the organisation in the past two years. This is the list of donors who were a donor before but who for some reason do not give money to the organisation any longer. Some donors have a policy to donate for three years and then start relationships with other organisations. (Their Board policies). They may have also lapsed because the previous fundraiser did not report or did not submit proposals or request, or it may have been a once off donation. The most important fact is that they have funded your organisation before and do you the work of the organisation and are already aware of your work. It may take less time to renew the relationship than to foster new relationships. (Please also read the article on relationship building on the blog: http://tipstina.wordpress.com
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Determine your biggest donors:
What is the donor giving history, do you have multi-year contracts, how diverse is your funding base? It is very dangerous to rely on one donor only and you need to determine from what sources do you receive the most reliable resources. It may be from individual donors – this is mostly the case for LGBT sector. It may be government contract – Philippi Trust or it may be corporate donors in the case of Amy
Biehl Foundation.
Also try to establish if their has been a huge change in the donor activity in your organisation and what is new, what has changed or what is the impact on your organisation.
Examples: Too many staff changes or Board Changes and the donors lost confidence in the organisation, new funding criteria in Funding world – now focus on MDG 3 ( www.millenniumdevelopmentgoals.org
)
The funder’s vision has changed – no more working with Women and Violence but with both men and
Women and Violence.
This information is important when you prepare a list of prospect and where most of your effort should be directed to….. It is also important information when you prepare your proposals.
What do you want to raise money for during the next TWO year’s :
Important now is to use your organisations strategic plan and prepare a list of projects / programmes that you need to raise funds for during the next two years. Remember that if you work with
International donors the funder will take more than six (6) months to make a discision and most corporations will need at least 3 months. Lotteries and many government funders need longer.
You also need to have Board agreement on how to cover the cost of the operations when very few local donors provide funding for salaries. Part of the organisational work plan it is important to also work with the financial team and prepare a two year budget for the projects / programme.
Determine the fundraising goals of the organisation!
Organisational details:
Make sure that you have the following attachments available:
Annual report, two years audited financial report, legal documents NPO Certificate, Trust Deed and Tax exemption certificate. It is also better to prepare a full profile of your Board and of the senior staff members. Very often this will help in developing trust in the organisation. If you have a small document on the history of the organisation and on the success of the organisation, you will find it easy to prepare the proposals for funding. Please remember that ordinary word documents are good and you can use grafts, tables and various other applications to make your work visible. Make sure your website – even if it is small is updated and the relevant information above should be available.
Board / Staff involvement:
Fundraising is not a ONE MAN job or One Women job but the responsibility of all the members of staff and Board. It is important that you recognised the role and responsibility of all members of staff. The
Board and the Executive Director should have a major role in the fund plan. Most Executive Directors
(Director) would delegate 60% of their time to fundraising and visibility building. You should identify when and how the Leaders of the organisation will be involved in the fundraising for the organisation.
We are now ready to do the Fund Plan (Strategic Fundraising Plan)!!!!!!!
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Things to remember that will need to include in the plan:
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Do you have a plan for prospecting, cultivating, engaging, appreciating, upgrading and retaining donors.
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Do all staff members, Board, volunteers and donors know the fundraising goals of the organisation and do they know what role they need to play in securing the funding.
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Do any of the staff members, Board and Volunteers need more training on fundraising and visibility building. (Elevator speech and formal representation of the organisation) Can every one “make a case” for the organisation. Many organisations know that the receptionist are equally important in securing a big donation.
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Does every one in the organisation know and understand that the organisation need to invest resources (time and money) to build and grow a good funding base.
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At this stage it is also important to ensure that your organisation has a clear communication strategy. How will you communicate with your donors, how many times and what will you do to remain on the “radar screen” to leverage more funding.
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How will you evaluate and change the plan to ensure that the organisation achieve the fundraising goals.
One of the great quotations from Women’s Funding Network:
“You are building an institution. You are moving forward a mission and vision that can change the world. There is NO need to apologize for funding those elements that propel forward your work. It will benefit your fundraising efforts to empower your organization and our donors to invest in a long-term, viable and healthy institution that makes vision possible.”
Thank you
Tina Thiart http://tipstina.wordpress.com
Email: thiart@worldonline.co.za
Telephone: +27 21 783 5953
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