Looking for Donors? It's Inside Out

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 and hoping for different outcomes?

Email me with your particular problem, and I'll give you 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!!

Last week, I received an email from the executive director of a small faith-based organization that serves inner-city children in an after-school tutoring program. The folks at this nonprofit do good work, and they're getting outstanding outcomes with the students they tutor.

The challenge that Brenda faces is one that is all too familiar to small organizations like hers. She feels that she's "fishing out of the same holes" for donors as every other humanitarian organization in her relatively small community. How can she grow her donor base and — at the same time — scale her fundraising revenue?

Like many organizations, Brenda feels that hers has asked everyone it knows. Its current efforts consist of presentations at group meetings at the churches of the founding denomination and letters to identified names. The last mailing netted only a 1 percent response rate.

The board chair, being one of the original founders, is squarely in Brenda's corner. As you would expect, there are a handful of stalwarts that keep the revenue flowing through their personal generosity.

After a few further inquiries, I offered Brenda a place to begin to acquire new donors and to move more of her current donors to investor status.

Although most of the board members make some sort of gifts each year, there is no formal annual board campaign. There is no unifying drive around which board members take ownership, thereby coming together as a team. Giving through events is conflated with direct mission-based giving. There is no firm accountability between board members.