New Ideas About Fundraising
Mood:  down

Nonprofit groups sometimes need to raise money, recruit volunteers, or get in-kind contributions. All three effrots really represent different ways of getting the resources the organization needs to achieve its goals. With that in mind, I offer a few thoughts on creative fundraising. The advice could apply to soliciting in-kind contributions or to recruiting volunteers. You'll have to decide for yourself if it is true.

Some of you will have thought about getting grants for projects. Don't get too creative here! There is a formal process to be followed, and no real alternatives exist. Making your grant application into a YouTube video may qualify as creative, but it makes more sense to figure out how to write a grant proposal. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that most grant-making organizations are very conservative. 

But, back to creative fundraising...

Take a few minutes to do nothing but think of as many techniques as possible for raising the money you need. This is brainstorming as practiced by most of us. Don't censor your ideas. Don't be afraid to get crazy. You might come up with somwthing that's both new and realistic. Expect the ideas to emerge in a raw form that calls for some refinement.

Use business tools and techniques as starting points for your brainstorming efforts. Use sidewalk sales, coupons, vending machines, white sales, and otehr marketing tools to inspire you. Start by picking the next marketing device that you see. What features and characteristics come to mind? Write them down? Look at each feature or characteristic and see if any new ideas appear.

Try to restate your challenge. The obvous challenge here is to raise X amount of money. You could think in terms of raising time, talent, or knowledge. You could go back to an old fundraising standby and solicit contributions that you can sell at a yard sale.

Try to modify or expand the usual fundraising techniques in osme way. What else could you do with a yard sale featuring donated goods? How else could you run a bake sale? Again, your initial ideas are likely to need some work before they are usable.