Where Do I Find The Right Donors For My Fundraising Activity?
Of course, you want to reach all the donors you can. The more people you appeal to for money, the more yes responses you are likely to get. For most non government organisation , and especially for small non government organisation, though, the very logistics of trying to reach all possible donors are simply impossible. Advertising in every newspaper and on every television show and trying to visit everyone in a city in a direct appeal is simply a lot of work - and a huge expense.
Most non government organisation can only contact a limited number of people, so you will want to do one of the following:
1) Contact as many people as humanly possible using the budget you have.
2) Contact only those smaller amounts of people who are likely to support your non-profit.
In almost every case, option #2 will result in more yes answers on a smaller budget. To understand why this is, consider the way each fundraising campaign would work.
Lets say that two groups in the same community had a similar mandate and similar budgets. For the sake of argument, lets say that both are women's centers with a small $1000 budget each.
The first center decides to use all the money trying to reach all the donors it can. Volunteers go door to door at no charge, ads are taken out in newspaper and radio, and appeals made outside stores. The group talks to many thousands of people over the course of several months and spends their entire budget on the process.
They raise plenty of awareness and plenty of money, but there are several drawbacks to this method:
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Lots of no responses. These are not essentially a problem except that each no response costs money or time (the time it took to appeal to the person and the expense taken to mail a letter or to contact someone). Plus, lots of no responses tend to reduce morale, as volunteers wonder whether their efforts are really doing any good. Every fundraising effort will bring in plenty of no efforts, but by casting the net wide, the first group has all but ensured that they will have many such replies.
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Lots of unseen appeals. Advertising is great, but general untargeted awareness raising and direct and indirect appeals tend to have a high miss rate. If door to door volunteers are used, then there may be many people who do not open their doors or who are not at home. If newspaper ads are used, there may be many newspaper readers who do not look at advertisements and so miss the well-worded appeal. If booths are set up at community events, there may be many who walk by without a glance.
Of course, with any fundraising strategy, there will be some people who do not see an appeal, but indirect and impersonalized approaches tend to increase the rates of this type of non-response.
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Fatigue syndrome. The volunteers of this first group are working very, very hard. While that may bring in plenty of good responses, it may also leave many volunteers too fatigued by the effort to keep making appeals. Remember: one of the secrets of fundraising is that it must be continual in order to ensure long-term success of the non-profit group. How many volunteers could keep up the dizzying pace that this group has set?
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Hit and miss, disorganized method. With no plan and no real idea of who this group is trying to appeal to, volunteers are relying on blind luck to find donors. Some people may be appealed to a few times by volunteers while others may not get the message about the group.
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Consumption of time. While these volunteers are certainly doing a commendable job getting the word out about the group, they have left little time and energy for the mandates of the group. Presumably, they are raising money in order to do some good, but have they the energy and volunteers left to actually implement the money in a positive way?
In contrast, lets think of the second group. They decided to appeal to a smaller amount of people - lets say 300, but they chose each person they decided to contact carefully. Where to start finding potential donors?
They contacted corporations they knew were supportive of women groups, contacted companies run by women, and campaigned aggressively at a local women's college. They also wrote for several government grants designed especially for groups that help women.
Certainly there are disadvantages to this method - they did not raise awareness about the group over such a wide segment of population as the first group, they still got plenty of no responses, and they had to spend lots of time before fundraising in order to determine who to appeal to. Advertising and letter writing felicitations for fundraising
Despite this, the second group is likely to have a higher ratio of yes answers in a much shorter period of time, because they are appealing to the very people - women - who are most likely to have the inclination and money to support a women's center. The advantages of this second strategy are:
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The people who were asked were more likely to say yes. The donors that were appealed to already had some built-in reason for saying yes to supporting the women's center.
Less convincing was needed and less of a chance of a no helps keep volunteer morale high. Plus, donors who have a built-in reason to support a women's centre are more likely to donate again (presumably, their reasons for donating will still be there) so this second group is already setting down the basis for on-going financial support.
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By using targeted appeals, the group was able to target people individually. Rather than having many people walk by a stand or pass over an ad, this group was able to meet face to face with the groups and people who were more likely to help them, reducing the chances of a no response.
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By targeting their donors, the second group already had a built in organizations structure. They knew who they had to contact and how to appeal to them. There is less risk of overlooking an important donor source or of asking the same people twice.
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Time and money were saved. Rather than spending lots of time and money on a huge campaign, the group was able to do some research for free at the library and then appeal directly to groups and people that were interested. Interviews with some groups could easily be set up for free, and government applications and a campus presence would also be inexpensive or free. Less time was wasted talking to those who have no interest in the project.
This is a fictitious example, but it sets out quite clearly why donor and market research is important before you start fundraising. Can you really fundraising from a computer?
In this example, the market information was clear - women are likely to support a womens center as they understand the issues and problems women face.
In some cases, though, the donor target may be less clear. Who in your community would support an animal shelter or a literacy project?
There are a few basic ways to do some research. The first step is to visit your local library and look up groups similar to yours in your area and in other areas. Who supports them? The same groups of people may support your group.