[Closed] Fundraising - hints and tips?

There are a number of issues you need to consider in developing a fundraising strategy:

What your charity does, who are the beneficiaries of its services, the outcomes and impact of the services it provides are the basic building blocks. Many charities - particularly smaller local ones - are not good at articulating such things.

There is a big difference fundraising for a large national charity which already has a strong brand and support e.g. British Heart Foundation, or a well known local one such as a Children's Hospice where there is an 'emotional' connection, and smaller local charities which might not be seen as 'sexy' e.g local advice agencies or a drug and alcohol charity. In the latter cases you will probably have to do more work communicating the 'benefits' - economic, social and environmental - that the charity provides to the community in which they are based.

The 'benefits' or outcomes may need to be linked to the aims of the business - for an advice charity for example firms of lawyers or financial institutions can be good sources of funding as there is a clear link between the charity and the potential donor. Find out about the Corporate Social Responsibility aims of the business from their website or annual report (may also identify the key decision maker you need to contact).

The other thing you need to clarify is whether you are aiming for the business to provide general unrestricted funds, or funding to support a specific project.

Decide what you want the business to do - provide funding corporately, become the organisation's charity of the year, encourage the employees to donate through payroll giving, or even just encouraging members of their staff to raise funds through running in the local half marathon.

Also think about how you are going to communicate with the organisation once they have decided to support you, so you can tell them about the impact of their donation(s) and hopefully encourage them to continue their support.

You will also need to identify key decision makers and influencers in each business you approach - this will take time. It might be worth finding out if other staff members or volunteers in your charities have any connections into local businesses.

Will there be / what are the benefits to the business donors?

You will also probably need to give a personal presentation / meeting with these decision-makers - who from the charity is going to do this. It should probably be the Chief Exec and ideally one of the trustees.

Fundraising from businesses is hard work and very time consuming, especially for small charities who do not have the capacity of larger charities.

Also consider approaching local grant making trusts, and also your local Community Foundation - [url=www.communityfoundations.org.uk]See website[/url]

The Directory of Social Change have some info and guidance around fundraising and produce a useful book (which has a cost). Also go to your local business library they often have some useful information - certainly the Bristol one does.

Hope some of this is useful.

Thanks v much - some really useful info there.
Confirms my initial thoughts about how to go about it and what the issues might be. (I work in Marketing and the basic methodology of defining objectives and understanding your audience's needs is the same...)

possibly speak to your local voluntary services, they usually have a person who specialises in sourcing funding. our local person operates [url= http://www.bfunded.org.uk/ ]this website[/url], you should have someone/something locally to get advice from.