Fundraising With LEGOs

A dependable revenue stream that grows — ah, paradise!

Have a fundraising challenge that you want to crack? Do you want to be strategic with your efforts and get results? Weary of doing the same old, same old yet hoping for different outcomes?

Email me with your particular problem, and I'll arrange a quick consultation offering you a practical solution you can implement. I may even use your situation to share with my readers. Names are changed, of course!

I had the privilege of speaking with the executive director of a small arts organization a few days back. Taylor related the organization's need to expand the school-based arts program it executes for the local public school district. Apparently, it's a considerable success with a growing demand for it by school officials in the area. Sounds good: good work appreciated by those on the receiving end.

Taylor reached out to me with the query as to how to proceed with the organization's fundraising to provide for the school program's expansion. Should it focus upon increasing receipts to the general operating fund? What about a couple of targeted "major gift" asks? Is a planned giving effort to expand its modest endowment the way to go? Or perhaps, is another capital campaign the shortest route to success?

Based upon the financials, which Taylor supplied, acquiring the additional revenue for the proposed program expansion is well within this local group's ability.

It won't be successful using its current thinking, however.

Albert Einstein wisely said, "Our current problems cannot be solved with the level of thinking that created them."

When seeking to expand our efforts to change the lives of others, the leadership of well-meaning charitable organizations very often think in terms of putting the pieces of a fundraising program together to generate the revenue for a particular program or outreach effort.