Fundraising Startup List for Nonprofits

Written By Ted Grigg

It never fails to happen. Once a group of businessmen sit around the table for the first time together and find out that I am a direct marketer, they pull me aside asking for that favor.

"Ted, could you help us raise funds for our small nonprofit? We have 300 names, and we need about $250,000 a year in donations to do what we need to do to accomplish our mission. What should we do?"

So here is a small list that I give all of them now so they know that fundraising is not something you do on the fly. And it also takes money to make money.

Volunteers can do a lot. But they can't accomplish much without financial support. That is just reality.

So hopefully this list will help you when you encounter the same request.

Get with the board and make the sure you have a clear and marketable mission.

  1. Develop your fundraising goals describing how you will use the money with great detail. Make certain your board is involved in the goal setting and the broad strokes of how they will be involved in the effort.

    1. Sit down and write the action plan listing what you intend to do for the year and how you will do it.

    2. Write a brief situation analysis of your past activities and what you need to shore up to improve your fundraising results.

    3. All fundraising efforts take volunteers and money to complete. So develop the resource estimates of the costs and people you need for each fundraising activity. Incorporate this information in your plan.

    4. Describe the funding sources in your plan. Detail your present donor list and existing fund sources that renew from year to year.

    5. Finally, within the plan, develop a time line for each fundraising activity such as direct mail, foundation applications, major gifts and so forth.

What other steps would you add to this list?

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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