Developing a Fundraising Strategy

Asking for money is never easy, but it is nonetheless a necessity for most community groups.

While everyone seems to acknowledge that getting money into your organisation is important, the role of the fundraiser is often under-valued. It shouldn't be. Without sufficient funding coming in, groups can struggle to get their important message across, provide their services or indeed survive as a group at all.

For leaders of community organisations one of the challenges is ensuring that every Board member - and in fact everyone in the group - has some involvement in raising money.

The development of a fundraising strategy needs to be an annual exercise and should be evaluated and tweaked throughout the year as well. Your strategy needs to have the flexibility to react to new opportunities or to curtail activities that are either not practical or not profitable.

Getting started

The best way to get started is to schedule some time for your Board or those interested in fundraising to get together and thrash around some ideas and establish some goals. It can also be a good idea to get Board members to write up their own strategies for incorporation into the main document.

You need to assign overall responsibility for fundraising activities to one person. Even if you have a fundraising committee or outside consultants, one person in your organisation still needs to be in ultimate control of your strategy.

Next steps

All groups' resources, needs and strengths are different, and not all fundraising methods will work for everyone. The following points are designed to help you work through your organisation's options and arrive at the other end with a plan of what you want to achieve in fundraising over the next 12 months.

• Step 1: Outline your goals. What do you hope to achieve?
• Step 2: Research past fundraising activities - what has worked? And just as importantly, what hasn't? Conduct some informal research with members, friends, etc., collecting their good ideas and examples of what has worked in their groups to raise money. Refer to the Options for Fundraising help sheet and make sure you have all your fundraising bases covered.
• Step 3: Work out who your friends and potential friends are and who is willing to support your organisation - businesses, government departments, individuals, families, philanthropic trusts and foundations.
• Step 4: Detail a case to support each prospective fundraising activity - or reasons why they won't work or won't be profitable.
• Step 5: Decide on and then describe the methods you plan to use to raise funds (remembering the golden rule that diversity is the key to a good fundraising strategy). Set an estimated target for each method.
• Step 6: Set a timeline and a year planner noting good times for the organisation to raise funds. Pay attention to grant deadlines.
• Step 7: Allocate Board and staff responsibilities so that everyone knows what they will be required to do, and by when.
• Step 8: Send your draft fundraising strategy to the Board and a cross-section of the organisation before a final version is signed off. Incorporate comments and suggestions into the final document.

Legal obligations

When making an appeal for public funds there are certain laws you must abide by. There are different rules for each state and territory applying to different methods of fundraising. These rules are separate from the tax and incorporation laws that you are also obliged to observe.

To find out how fundraising rules will affect you, log onto www.ourcommunity.com.au/legals

What next?

Too many groups spend valuable time putting together a whiz-bang fundraising strategy, only to file it away and never look at it again. Don't make that mistake.

• Make fundraising a permanent item at all Board and committee meetings to ensure progress is monitored and momentum is not lost.
• Ensure that staff, members and volunteers are also aware of how important the fundraising function is to your group's survival. Run articles in your newsletters and communications featuring various milestones or fundraising activities.
• Document the progress of your fundraising strategy so that if you are struggling, the bells start ringing early enough to change tack. Ensure the strategy is updated and changed as circumstances do.
• Establish an evaluation strategy so that when you come to review your strategy next year, you already know what works, what doesn't, and what methods need to be tweaked.
• Ensure your organisation and leadership team are alert to new fundraising ideas and lessons learned from your own experience. If you see an idea that works, grab it and try to adopt and adapt it to work for your own organisation. Subscribing to Easy Grants will ensure you never miss a grant and Raising Funds will help to get your ideas bubbling.
• Ensure that you appropriately acknowledge those who have assisted you, either as volunteers, donors or sponsors. Acknowledgement can be expressed in your newsletters, on your tickets, in advertising, or in a personal letter from the CEO or Chair. If the contribution is significant, consider providing a plaque, framed certificate or some form of permanent acknowledgement (signage, dedication).