case study fundraising success

Case study: Everything you need to know to fundraise successfully

An in-depth look at what two organisations did to build their fundraising muscle, and the multilevel impact it had in less than a year..

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This case study provides you a window into how two organisations— Adhyayan Foundation and Reap Benefit —were able to build this fundraising muscle in-house using a capacity-building grant, and the multilevel impact it had within 12 months.

Adhyayan Foundation is a capacity-building organisation that seeks to improve the quality of education in India. They do this by focusing on the leadership and governance of teaching and learning in schools. Reap Benefit uses a combination of grassroots mobilisation and technology to identify, nurture, and sustain grassroots leaders to combat civic and climate change.

Both organisations work with a range of stakeholders (including children and young people, citizens, and governments) doing high-impact work in their respective areas. Raising adequate amounts of money has been key in getting them to this stage, but it’s been a journey fraught with challenges and learnings. 

Starting small

Adhyayan’s initial years were rough.

Adhyayan officially began operations in 2017 with two small pools of funding—friends and family, and a loan from the board of directors. This money was used to run pilots that showcased their work to different stakeholders including governments, partner nonprofits, and funders. The goal was to demonstrate proof of concept.

In 2018, they got access to two important sources of funding—an institutional donor and a quasi-government body. The donor funded Adhyayan to take their programme to Goa, and the quasi-government body supported them to do work in Delhi. As with most start-ups, the process wasn’t organised, intentional, or focused. It happened because of the founders’ existing network.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020 , Adhyayan lost their major donor. For two years they had been completely dependent on this one donor, who, before the pandemic, was exploring possibilities of taking their work to a few states and supporting this expansion. However, one month before the grant expired, they called Adhyayan to tell them that they couldn’t fund them any more because they had to divert their funds towards COVID-19 relief.

This was a huge blow, because the organisation had 17 team members and no pipeline. They had some money from their retail fundraising efforts (approximately INR 7–10 lakh). But it wasn’t enough to pay salaries and so they had to let go of most of the team when the project ended in June. The bigger challenge was to deliver on the MOU and the commitments they had made to the state government of Goa, where they were already working. Fortunately, enough capacity had been built within the government over two years and so they were able to take forward the multiple aspects of driving school improvement independently.

2020 was a crucial year. It was the start of COVID-19 and companies and funders were all either giving money to PM CARES or COVID-19 relief. Given Adhyayan’s work and mission, it didn’t make sense for them to pivot to relief work—they wanted to continue focusing on strengthening school quality in a way that was systemic and strategic. After speaking to several donors, they found one that was willing to support them. Once they looked at Adhyayan’s documents and spoke to their past donors, this donor gave them a lifeline grant—a small amount of money that would focus on helping them continue their Goa programme while also building their fundraising muscle. Their mandate was simple: Use the money to hire a person who will raise the funds you require to grow your work.

Reap Benefit’s start was less turbulent

Reap Benefit (RB) was registered in 2013, and for the first few years most of their money came from disparate sources—they got their first big grant four years after they were established. Initially the organisation received funds from fees (either from the young people they worked with or the school management committees in the low-income schools), contracts from foundations, and income from fellowships (Ashoka) and competitions that they entered such as MIT GSW, Ashoka, and Stanford.

Reap Benefit found themselves in a love–hate relationship with funding—they knew they had to invest time and resources to raise money, but also found that doing so took them away from work on the ground.

In the second phase, in 2016, RB started receiving grants from HNIs and family foundations. These were people who had seen their work and impact, had built relationships with the team, and were interested in showing their support. At the same time, the organisation was trying to raise funds from larger domestic foundations but weren’t finding success. As someone who works at the intersection of several areas such as citizen engagement, youth, education, civic governance, and more, RB didn’t fit into the cookie-cutter model most foundations look for. And as such they found themselves in a love–hate relationship with funding—they knew they had to invest time and resources to raise money, but also found that doing so took them away from work on the ground.

Finding the fundraiser

In the development sector, funds raised and budget sizes are seen as a proxy for scale. And, with many funders, as a proxy for impact. Despite being a lazy, and in almost all cases an inaccurate method of measuring impact, this way of thinking compels many founders to focus disproportionately on fundraising—sometimes at the cost of the work being done at the grassroots.

At RB, Kuldeep Dantewadia (co-founder and CEO) says that he realised it was important for the founding team to be involved with the actual work on the ground. “Running a grassroots organisation is like running a restaurant. It is important for the best chef to spend time with the other chefs to teach them and enable the transfer of knowledge and, more importantly, the culture and integrity of the place. Ultimately, it is the early team members who must ensure that they have time to be on the field to transfer these aspects of the work.”

Kuldeep also felt that at a personal level he was unable to crack the corporate and global foundations when it came to sales. And that it might be valuable to have someone who could do that more effectively.

For Adhyayan, their donor mandate took them to ILSS’s fundraising programme . Like Kuldeep, Anushri Alva (CEO and founding team member) realised that she didn’t know how to raise money from established and traditional funders such as larger foundations and CSR. “We didn’t know how to raise money. And we didn’t have the luxury of time to learn slowly because we needed to execute immediately. One of our board members suggested the ILSS course to learn what others were doing and simultaneously learn to raise money for Adhyayan, and they funded us to attend the course.”

Getting it wrong

In 2019, RB was advised to hire a senior fundraiser with corporate experience and connections. They were a great fit—they truly believed in the mission, and Kuldeep didn’t have to spend time making a case for RB’s work. But it didn’t work out. Kuldeep says, “I realised people who come with a lot of experience are set in their ways and have large teams working for them. As nonprofits we don’t have that luxury. You have to think, do, reflect, all at the same time. We aren’t able to provide that separation of just thinking.”

When looking at fundraising hires, Adhyayan didn’t know where to start because the typical channels they would hire from tended to be other education nonprofits. “We thought that we needed somebody who had done fundraising for say eight to 10 years, was from the development sector, had raised money successfully for a larger portfolio, had the networks, knew how to make collateral, and knew how to set up systems and processes for fundraising,” says Anushri. 

Adhyayan sought the help of a recruitment firm, which gave them an extensive list of candidates. And from that they were able to find a person who checked off all their criteria. They brought that person on board.

Adhyayan realised that if you bring a senior person on board, they won’t make collateral or do the lead generation, and if they do, they won’t be happy about it.

She was with Adhyayan for three months, and set up the basic systems and processes—such as a system to build a fundraising pipeline, generate leads, do the background research, document the meetings, and write different kinds of proposals for different categories of donors. She also set up all the templates for collateral and generated a very long list of institutional donors.

According to Anushri, the fundraiser did her research, was good at writing, and was an extremely thorough person. The gap was that she was used to working in a large, established organisation with sizeable funders, where the founders could just pick up a phone and get an INR 10 crore donation. Given the fact that Adhyayan was a small organisation trying to stay afloat during a pandemic, they needed someone who was able to think unconventionally more than someone who understood traditional fundraising routes.

Alongside that, Anushri also realised what Kuldeep had—if you bring a senior person on board, they won’t make collateral or do the lead generation, and if they do, they won’t be happy about it. (While Anushri’s fundraiser did do all these tasks, she was honest about the fact that most people at her level would not do the same.) Both leaders realised they needed someone who was willing to do a lot of the preparatory work that goes into fundraising— background research, pipeline building, proposal writing, follow-ups, and the gradual cultivation of trust and authentic relationships with new donors.

At RB, they call it ‘the socks and shoes’. It is the equivalent of tilling the soil before you start farming. Without it, the land isn’t ready to produce the crops you want to grow. “I realised that if I could get someone to do the socks and shoes well, then that would unlock time for me to do both—donor pitching and focusing on the organisation’s mission and operations.”

Getting it right

When Adhyayan’s attempt at the senior fundraiser hiring failed, their advisory board member asked them to split the money and hire two early career professionals instead. They asked Anushri to find people who were not traditional fundraisers but were younger, had good research and writing skills, and weren’t predisposed to a certain way of working.

“We divided the channels into retail and communications, and HNIs and institutional. We also removed the fundraising targets from the person’s KRAs. We told them to just do the process and all the groundwork needed to get to a donor. The conversion and actual raising of money would be my responsibility,” said Anushri.

In 2021, Tiasha and Jayati came on board at Adhyayan and Sukriti joined RB. Their work experience ranged from one to six years across nonprofits and corporations. Importantly, they had the required core skills—research, writing, persistence, boldness—to build the base for fundraising at their respective organisations. Here’s how it worked out:

1. Sticking to process

When Tiasha came on board at Adhyayan, she started by working off the systems and processes that their earlier fundraiser had put in place because it provided them a disciplined and systematic approach to get going. They followed up with every single lead that was on their list, discussing them internally every day, and kept a check on what was moving and what wasn’t. In addition, they continued to speak with the funders who weren’t able to support them—they would seek feedback on their current strategy, and build forward accordingly. (In fact, many of the donors who initially turned them down eventually converted.)

Given this level of effort and focus on fundraising, they had almost no time to run the project, but they persisted, and after several months those conversations began converting. Adhyayan also started focusing on renewals—building relationships with existing donors and engaging more closely with them, all the while making sure that new lead generation and new conversations continued to happen.

2. Managing donor expectations

Most funders expect to see CEOs or founders pitch to them for grants. But as a nonprofit grows, it is important that donor relationships are decentralised. In the case of Adhyayan, Tiasha and Jayati built their capacity to talk to donors directly. They started out by attending donor meetings, creating presentations, and building narratives, and quickly moved to leading those conversations. It worked so well that today donors get in touch with Tiasha and Jayati directly.

With RB, too, Sukriti has moved from laying the fundraising groundwork to managing some donors herself. Working on the day-to-day of fundraising allows a person to understand the organisation better; being on calls and meetings with leaders helps them understand different donor personalities, their preferences, and constraints. All this helps them learn what to pitch, and over time they are able to do this independently. 

In anywhere between six and 12 months of joining their organisations, Tiasha, Jayati, and Sukriti were able to take a donor from start to close. 

3. Building a culture of fundraising

Both Kuldeep and Anushri quickly realised that fundraising had to go beyond the one or two people in their organisations and become part of the organisation’s DNA. Both took two different but innovative ways to make this happen.

At RB’s team meetings on Tuesdays, funding is now an important agenda item so that everyone across levels is aware of what’s going on. In addition, the programme team started getting involved in fundraising conversations. Kuldeep and Sukriti would take their feedback, incorporate it in the proposals, and involve them in donor engagements, thereby making the fundraising process integral to the programme side of things as well. RB has even started reassigning revenue responsibility to programme leads, with the eventual goal to have leaders fundraise for their own units.

Moving to this stage allows RB to become more creative, according to Kuldeep. “In the past we engaged with our funders only for money. But now we are getting creative with the support they can provide us. For instance, we have reached out to a donor to ask if they would be willing to fund courses for our middle management, or if a tech foundation can help us build the tools we need. But this can only happen when the basics are taken care of—when you know that the plane is not going to crash. And you have the mind space to think about it.”

Everyone fundraising needs to know about the bigger picture as this allows them to see how they are part of building an organisation and are contributing significantly to it.

Adhyayan decided to make fundraising fun. They conceptualised an annual campaign that the entire organisation devotes time to once a year in order to build a culture of fundraising. Everyone knows they have to raise money for Adhyayan during a period of time in the year, so every single person raises money. Adhyayan has done this over the last two years, and is now trying to formalise it.

Anushri says that this reduced the pressure on Kavita (the founder) and her. “We felt so much pressure in terms of having to raise money, keep everything going. And we felt that it can’t be like this. Everybody must feel ownership and responsibility, and we should all problem-solve for it together.” This annual team campaign which decentralised fundraising meant that the sense of ownership gets distributed and hence the pressure eases on the leadership. It also means that everyone fundraising needs to know about the organisation and the bigger picture, allowing them to see how they are part of building an organisation and contributing significantly to it.

Alongside this campaign, Tiasha was building the capacity of every team in Adhyayan to manage donor relationships. She would help them prepare monthly reports and presentations and teach them how to present compelling narratives to funders.

And, lastly, outside of raising money for themselves, Adhyayan began to expand the pool of stakeholders investing in school quality. They helped private schools directly fund schools in Arunachal Pradesh, thereby creating an ecosystem of care and support. 

4. Building a support group

RB also started building their own ecosystem of peer organisations with whom they could exchange notes on fundraising—different categories of donors, what works, what doesn’t. Bouncing ideas with peers who are grappling with similar issues and may have thought of creative solutions allows nonprofits to start thinking creatively as well.

Budgets for both organisations have grown exponentially. Adhyayan had a budget of INR 1.3 crore before they lost their major donor. They hobbled their way back to INR 55 lakh in 2021. Today they are at a budget of INR 3 crore and expecting to double it to INR 6 crore. RB has grown steadily and comfortably by 2.5 times to INR 7.6 crore in 2022–23.

Having enough money allowed Adhyayan to say no to funders. It also allowed them to be on more equal footing with their donors. They were able to negotiate with their funders, lay down norms, and set boundaries and expectations with them around deliverables, turnaround times, etc. “Once we had visibility of funding for the year, we were secure and could decide what we would and wouldn’t take on. Earlier we didn’t have the luxury of saying no since it was a matter of survival. Saying no has been very empowering. It has been a game changer,” says Anushri.

According to Kuldeep, adequate funding allowed RB to get off two treadmills—fundraising and talent. “It allowed us to think how we would operate with a budget of INR 8–12 crore, and grow our work through communities and technology. We don’t want to keep growing our budgets year on year and then keep fundraising endlessly. Because what is the statistical proof point that once you raise x amount of money, you will create impact? On the talent front, we don’t think we can or want to compete with other organisations for the same pool of talent. There is a different type of talent at RB and we want to invest in that. Having adequate money allows us to do so.”

Their advice to nonprofits

1. don’t get enamoured by people from companies and large nonprofits.

Do not get carried away by people with corporate experience and those who are well connected. Fundraising requires a mindset of thinking and doing. It cannot be an either–or situation. Hence, nonprofits should invest in someone who will do both the prep work required for the leadership to go and pitch as well as the pitching.

Kuldeep says, “Assume that fundraising is a sport in the world of nonprofits; you can’t say we’ll play this sport without a warm-up. A lot of fundraisers feel they can short-circuit this and just do strategy. However, I say that even if your fundraiser is not ‘charismatic’ as the world defines it but can do the socks and shoes very well, invest in them.”

2. Identify the complementary skills you need

In sales parlance, the CEO and founder is likely to be good at hunting, farming, or gardening, but never all three. Identify what you as a leader do well and naturally. And then go hire people with skills that complement yours. That division of labour also leads to a better working relationship and clarity of roles. If for instance the CEO is good at pitching to new funders, then they may need someone who can garden—manage and nurture those relationships and help them thrive. To do this, it’s important for a leader to understand their own blind spots and strengths.

3. Build ownership in the organisation

It’s important to stay really responsive to the environment (your changing situation, emerging funders, etc.). It’s also important to start embedding fundraising across the organisation and not just limit it to the fundraising team or the CEO. The more you decentralise your finances, the more ownership you can build in your team when it comes to money.

4. Be careful about the donors you pick

There is limited value in donors who say, “Give us a 30-second elevator pitch; talk to us for only two minutes and get us hooked.” It is important for donors to spend the time, ask questions, understand the work, and be willing to engage. For Anushri, this is becoming increasingly important. “We don’t want the super-impatient donors who want a big hook. There is little alignment with those kinds of funders and it’s hard for us to see the fit.” Investing in a fundraiser and building the culture of fundraising into an organisation’s DNA allows them to think deeply about how to get funded and what kind of opportunities they want to pursue.

5. Give your fundraising team a sense of the ground reality

Ensure that they have opportunities to regularly engage with field teams and work in the field themselves. This will help them better understand the organisation, align with the mission, and ultimately build a better narrative.

Their advice to funders

1. be flexible.

Kuldeep believes it’s important for funders to be flexible and give organisations breathing space when it comes to building fundraising capability. If funders would like to invest in a fundraising person for their grantee organisation, they should have a long view on it because there will be trial and error as that person learns.

If funders invest in a salesperson for a grassroots organisation, it frees up time and mind space for the founding team and lets them focus on delivery of their core services.

Both Anushri and Kuldeep say that the donor they worked with to build a successful fundraising engine was very flexible, which helped a lot. “They did have metrics. But soon we realised that the metrics were a way to hold us accountable to some extent. It did not prevent us from trying new things when initial ideas failed. And that was key to success,” says Kuldeep.

Moreover, it is doubly impactful if funders invest in a salesperson for a grassroots organisation, because it frees up time and mind space for the founding team. This allows them to focus on delivery of their core services, which is key as an organisation grows and strives to create impact. “Because I have had time to think after Sukriti has come on board, we have been able to develop a strong and diverse leadership team—around 50 percent of them are non-English speaking. It has allowed me to work with the team, which is one that can make things happen,” says Kuldeep.

2. Do not be prescriptive

Donors must realise that the work that nonprofits do have many moving pieces, and it’s hard to predict what will happen five years down the road. If your programme has to be sustainable, you have to build it with the communities. It can’t be a strategy and plan built in isolation, so donors must make room for that.

According to Anushri, there are donors who want things that are so specific that you have to be somebody who can predict the future. “Some of them have a linear way of looking at how outputs and outcomes emerge. This doesn’t give you the space to be responsive or follow the lead of the people you serve. Making a plan super-prescriptive takes away an organisation’s ability to explore things that are more creative and sustainable,” she says.

Despite its importance, not much attention is paid to building a fundraising muscle within nonprofits. Most donors are reluctant to pay for the non-programmatic costs of an organisation, which include fundraising, communications, impact measurement, and more. However, a relatively small investment in any of these functions has an outsized impact both on the nonprofit itself and on the communities they serve.

A capacity-building grant allowed Adhyayan and RB to invest in fundraising. And doing so not only increased the organisations’ budget, but also allowed them to build a stronger team, expand their work, and do right by the communities they serve. Through their journeys, both these organisations demonstrate the incredibly high returns that come from investing in a nonprofit’s core costs , not worrying about getting things wrong, and focusing on learning and trying again.

About Anushri and Kuldeep

Anushri Alva is the CEO and founding team member of Adhyayan. She has worked as a teacher and led educational programmes in India, East Asia , and the US over the last 10 years. Prior to Adhyayan, Anushri has worked with Teach for India, International Rescue Committee, Global Nomads Group, and Sanctuary for Families. She has a master’s degree in education from Teachers College, Columbia University; is an alum of Miller Center, a women-led cohort of the accelerator programme; and is on the organising committee for the India chapter of Teachers College.

Kuldeep Dantewadia is the co-founder and CEO of Reap Benefit. He has a bachelor’s degree in business management and has done short-term courses on environment impact assessment and strategic nonprofit management. Kuldeep is an Ashoka Fellow, Unreasonable Fellow, and Architect of the Future, and a recipient of the Unilever Young Entrepreneur Award.

Fundraising, as everyone in the social sector will tell you, is key to an organisation’s growth. A nonprofit can only create long-term change if it has the funds to carry […]

Devanshi is co-founder and director at IDR, where she oversees audience growth, dissemination, global partnerships, and talent.In six years since IDR's launch, she grew the organisation's digital audience 82X times to 10 million people monthly, making it the largest independent media platform in Asia.

Smarinita Shetty is co-founder and CEO at IDR. Prior to IDR, Smarinita worked at Dasra, Monitor Inclusive Markets (now FSG), JP Morgan and The Economic Times. She also co-founded Netscribes–India’s first knowledge process outsourcing firm. Smarinita has a BE in Computer Engineering and an MBA in Finance, both from Mumbai University.

If you like what you're reading and find value in our articles, please support IDR by making a donation.

Case Study:  A Think Tank's Journey to Major Donor Fundraising Success

All too frequently, nonprofit leadership transitions herald serious challenges that quickly lead to catastrophic consequences. Smooth changes in leadership require clear communication with staff members and an excellent strategic plan. Creating a practical strategic plan and constantly communicating helps ensure that important tasks remain intact. Failure to create such a plan may lead to catastrophic results, such as losing all your major donors.

This was almost the case for Public Policy Think Tank , a renowned public policy research institute. Despite its excellent reputation and admirable work, Public Policy Think Tank wrestled with a change in its leadership, resulting in a concerning decline in donor engagement. However, through strategic collaboration with AmPhil, Public Policy Think Tank gracefully navigated these challenges and emerged with fantastic success. This case study highlights the significance of proper donor engagement and excellent nonprofit strategic planning.

The Challenge

Public Policy Think Tank, long esteemed for its contributions to promoting free-market ideals and government accountability, faced a critical situation when new leadership was introduced. The change in leadership brought many uncertainties and struggles, including an alarming neglect of major donor relationships . Many major supporters had lapsed in their donations, and the channel for new grant funding was suffering. This decline in funding posed an immediate threat to the nonprofit's capacity to sustain its research initiatives.

To sum up the problematic situation:

New Leadership: A change in leadership created a lot of uncertainties and negligence of essential tasks. Lapsed major donor relationships: Public Policy Think Tank  had quit paying attention to major donors, so major donors had stopped giving.

The Solution

Recognizing the situation's urgency, Public Policy Think Tank partnered with AmPhil to strategize and execute a better fundraising plan. AmPhil’s consultants helped devise a multifaceted approach to address the think tank's specific challenges:

Renewing Lapsed Major Donors

AmPhil thoroughly examined lapsed donor records and crafted personalized outreach strategies. By highlighting past contributions and the impact of Public Policy Think Tank’s research, AmPhil consultants successfully re-engaged several major donors who had stopped giving during the leadership transition.

Grant Proposal Enhancement

AmPhil also worked closely with Public Policy Think Tank's development teams to refine their grant proposal processes. This included identifying new funding opportunities, aligning proposals with benefactor priorities, and crafting compelling narratives that showcased the think tank's impact.

Crafting Compelling Letters 

An essential component of these strategies worth noting was implementing personalized and engaging direct mail . These letters outlined the Public Policy Think Tank's innovative projects and effectively conveyed the potential impact of supporting critical policy areas. AmPhil’s expertise in crafting persuasive communication played an important role in capturing the attention and support of donors and grant-makers.

The outcomes of these noble and strategic efforts were nothing short of transformative for Public Policy Think Tank, inspiring hope and confidence in the face of adversity:

• Doubled Revenue : Public Policy Think Tank saw a significant increase in funding, effectively doubling their revenue compared to the previous year.
• Acquisition of $1.1 Million in New Grants : The updated grant proposal blueprint yielded incredible results, securing over $1.1 million in new grants from just one foundation.
• Multiple Five-Figure Gifts : Within the first six months of utilizing the AmPhil experts' strategy, Public Policy Think Tank saw several major donors renewing their support with substantial five-figure gifts.

The success of Public Policy Think Tank's revitalization effort proves several vital lessons for nonprofit organizations around the globe:

• Strategic Partnerships Are Key : Collaborating with specialized consultants will provide valuable insights and strategies that can be tailored to address specific organizational needs.
• Personalization and Impact Messaging : Effective donor engagement hinges on personalized communication that emphasizes the tangible impact of contributions on mission-critical initiatives.
• Continuous Adaptation and Innovation : Nonprofits must remain agile and adaptive in responding to external shifts, continually improving their fundraising and donor stewardship plans. This is not just a suggestion but a necessity for survival and growth in the ever-changing landscape of nonprofit work.

Public Policy Think Tank's journey is an excellent testimony to the transformative power of strategic planning, collaborative partnerships, and an unwavering commitment to mission-driven excellence. By overcoming challenges with resilience and foresight, the Think Tank has boosted its donor database and positioned itself for continual growth and influence in shaping public policy for years to come.

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Home / Blog / Web Content / How to Create a Nonprofit Case Study [Template & Examples]

How to Create a Nonprofit Case Study [Template & Examples]

Show your impact. Show supporters how you help. Let supporters know how their donations and volunteer hours are making a difference. I know you’ve heard all of this a million times. And a nonprofit case study is one way to actually do it.

What Is a Nonprofit Case Study?

Similarly to your run-of-the-mill business or research case study, a nonprofit case study digs into a challenge and offers insight (most often in the form of data and analysis of that data) on how and why it has since improved based on specific things that your organization has done.

For example, a leadership-building nonprofit might create a case study around a leadership summer camp they offer and how those young leaders went on to improve the community because of the knowledge and skills they learned at camp.

They might even focus on a specific student that went through that program. If you decide to zoom in on one individual’s story for your case study, check out our post on case stories to get advice geared toward that specific approach.

Creating a Case Study

To create a nonprofit case study, you’ll need access to data surrounding your chosen issue and subject. That could include both outside resources from your community, like research studies or reports from other organizations, as well as your internal program or survey data.

If you don’t have the necessary knowledge or experience of the topic you’ve chosen for the nonprofit case study, plan to chat with someone who does and pick their brain about the topic and potential areas or clients to explore. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Choose a Subject

The goal of most nonprofit case studies is to demonstrate your impact. Think of your mission and vision. 

• What progress have you made toward it?
• What program or service best demonstrates that progress?
• Is there a specific area or case that’s an exceptional example?
• Are there big picture statistics on your Impact page that you can dig into?

As you’re considering a topic, available data should play a role. Do you have the numbers to back your claims of an impact? Supporters will easily see through the holes in a case study that’s not backed by credible data. Case studies allow you to focus on the “show, don’t tell” approach and a lack of data will leave your argument and claims of an impact pretty flimsy.

Gather Data

Noting that you can access data is often easier than actually tracking down the numbers that you need. Circle up with team members involved in program and service logistics to find and understand the numbers for your case study topic.

This will likely also include some outside research on your part. Bring in data from reputable outside organizations to paint a background picture of the overall issue and challenge that your nonprofit faces. Going back to the leadership camp example, they might bring in statistics or studies about at-risk youth and the positive effects of mentoring.

Nonprofit Case Study Template

As you’re drafting your first nonprofit case study, a template can help you frame the study in an easy-to-digest way. While you might decide to make a few tweaks as you go, we’ve found this template to be a great foundation.

Provide Background Information

Paint a picture of your work and the community you work with.

• What are your organization’s mission and vision?
• Who do you serve? Why do they need help?
• What does the program or service in question do?
• Is there any other background information that would be helpful?

Detail the Challenge

Explain the issues that were faced from the outset of the project, program or service.

Explain Your Actions

• What specific actions did you take? Be sure to note why.
• How did you overcome the challenges you noted above?
• How do your actions work toward your mission and vision?

Note Positive Outcomes

Dive into the impact of your actions now that your readers and supporters have a solid understanding of the situation.

• How did the actions you took work to improve the previous state of your community?
• How has the future improved for your study subjects?
• Which elements of the program/service/project went well? How so?

Key Takeaways

• What did you learn?
• What surprised you about the results?
• What do your results say about the larger challenge/issue at hand?

Wrap up your nonprofit case study with a brief summary of the impact your organization achieved and any next steps for the program or service to work toward expanding that impact. This is also a great place to include a strong call to action to let readers know how they can help — whether that’s through donations, volunteering, spreading awareness or another action.

Examples of Nonprofit Case Studies

Before you jump into creating one of your own, check out a few other organizations who’ve done it well.

Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley, Social Impact Study

Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley created a social impact study to show the continual impact of a new home on their past clients’ lives. Using a survey conducted by a third party, they demonstrated health benefits, increased savings and higher graduation rates for kids.

Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, Why Y2Y

Not all case studies are necessarily labeled as such. Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative uses the grizzly bear population as an indication for the health of natural land. On their “Why Y2Y” page , they laid out their challenge and solution in a compelling call to action to support their cause. To keep the study succinct, they link other pages on their site for additional information.

Rainforest Alliance, Community Forestry Studies

Rainforest Alliance conducted ten case studies , each in a different community and location, to show how their community-central model of forestry conservation can benefit both the communities and the forests. They end the page with a strong call to donate to help protect forests.

Heartland Alliance, Housing Case Studies

Through their housing development projects, Heartland Alliance Housing claims a comprehensive approach through partnerships with residents and the community. And with their Housing Case Studies , they’re able to actually show how those partnerships and considerations of a sustainable future benefit everyone.

World Bicycle Relief, Key Findings

World Bicycle Relief dug into one of their programs to demonstrate their overall impact on improving access to education in developing countries. This case study on their Improving Girls’ Access through Transforming Education program clearly outlines the need, opportunity and impact, wrapping up with a push to support their overall organization.

Nonprofit case studies are a great tool for fundraising communications, annual reports, impact pages and awareness building. Once you put in the work to create one, you can use it in both online and print communications to encourage old and new supporters to become more involved with your organization. 

Case studies allow you to back up your ask with real impact that you’ve accomplished.

Does your nonprofit have a compelling case study you’d like to share? How do you use it to move your marketing forward? I’d love to hear more and swap case studies in the comments.

You might also be interested in

21 examples of nonprofit websites with amazing content, case stories: how to create and use them in nonprofit marketing, 8 inspiring examples of nonprofit impact pages.

Very useful and interesting. Thank you

You are very welcome, Carmen. I’m glad you found it useful!

This is very helpful, I wish I could have someone for one on one help with writing one with such a passion!!!!!!

I’m so happy to hear that you found the post helpful, Celen! Let me know what questions come up as you piece together your case study. It can be tough to get started and track down the data you need, but we’ve seen organizations get some incredible results from showing off their impact in this way.

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Strengthening Fundraising Capacity: How the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund is Supporting Innovation

Editor's Note: This case study is one of five in a suite of case studies focused on building grantee capacity using the support of consultants. Each case study has been developed in partnership Community Wealth Partners, drawing on their capacity-building work with various funders and grantees. The case studies showcase varied approaches taken to address the long-term capacity needs of grantees, giving insight to the philanthropy landscape and strategies for foundations, consultants, and practitioners. 

Ask a nonprofit executive director what keeps her up at night, and chances are, “fundraising for the organization,” will be near the top of the list.

“Fundraising wasn’t empowering work,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights-Los Angeles and a grantee of the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. “It felt like something you had to do, you didn’t really want to do, and yet your job and the organization’s health depended on it.”

Daring to Lead , a 2011 survey from CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, found fundraising to be the number one contributor to burnout among nonprofit executive directors and a reason many were considering leaving the sector altogether.

These findings are not new. Financial Sustainability has long been a challenge for many nonprofit leaders. For the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, supporting their grantees’ fundraising capacity and trying to help improve the support available to them has become a core feature of their investments in strengthening nonprofit leadership.

Gathering Data to Inform A Deeper Understanding of the Problem

For more than 15 years, the Haas, Jr. Fund has invested in leadership in the nonprofit sector. A key component of the Fund’s investment in nonprofit leadership is its  Flexible Leadership Awards (FLA), a program that consists  of three elements:

• Flexible, long-term funding so that nonprofit leaders can decide how they will use it to address leadership challenges over three to five years;
• Peer learning to share ideas and solutions with other leaders through a foundation-facilitated cohort of FLA grantees; and
• Strategic advice from a consultant the foundation matches with grantees to help them develop and implement a leadership development plan.

Through conversations with FLA grantees, the Haas, Jr.  Fund heard repeatedly that fundraising is a major challenge for nonprofit leaders, and that it stifles creativity and strains relationships both inside and outside the organization. In fact, support for fundraising was one of the most common ways FLA grantees opted to use the flexible funding they received.

“Fundraising was a chronic pain point for grantees, and we weren’t helping them solve that challenge as clearly as the other ways we were helping support leadership,” said  Rachel Baker, director of field building at the Haas Leadership Initiatives.

To better understand the ways in which fundraising contributes to leadership challenges inside nonprofits, the Haas, Jr. Fund funded research led by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services in 2013. In a national survey of more than 2,700 nonprofit executive directors and development directors representing a range of organization types and sizes and 11 focus groups held across the country, the UnderDeveloped study lifted up some key challenges:

• Difficulty recruiting and retaining development directors. The study found that half of development directors expected to leave their job in two years or less, and 40 percent are not committed to careers in development. When there are vacancies in the development director position, it takes an average of six months for organizations to fill them.
• Dissatisfaction with the caliber of talent among candidates. More than half of executive directors said their most recent search for a development director produced an insufficient number of qualified candidates. A significant number of executive directors said their development directors are lacking in key fundraising skills. A significant number of development directors also said the same about their executive directors.
• Failure to recognize fundraising as a core leadership function. Almost one in four nonprofits has no development plan in place. Three out of four executive directors say their boards are not doing enough to support fundraising. A majority of development directors report only little to moderate influence on key activities such as getting other staff involved in fundraising and developing organizational budgets.

A key recommendation pulled from the report is for nonprofit and philanthropic leaders to work together to change the lack of recognition of fundraising as a core leadership function and help others see it as an integral part of the organization’s work. The report found that most organizations placed too much responsibility for the organization’s financial success solely on the shoulders of development directors. A better way forward, the report suggests, is to break down the silos that often happen between fundraising and programs and create more shared responsibility for tending to a ‘culture of philanthropy’  inside organizations.

Advocating for Broader Support for Fundraising Capacity 

In the years that followed, the Haas Jr. Fund and CompassPoint used the UnderDeveloped report to catalyze a national dialogue about fundraising challenges so many organizations face.

“We did not expect the report to go as viral as it did,” Baker said. “For years we’ve heard feedback from a range of organizations and networks that have used the report to support internal conversations, board development work, and strategic planning. It really hit a nerve in the sector.”

In 2016, the Fund commissioned two additional reports to dig deeper into two key questions. Beyond Fundraising explores the concept of a “culture of philanthropy” and how that might play out inside organizations.   Fundraising Bright Spots seeks to learn from the successful experiences of small- to mid-size organizations raising money from individuals.

In addition to the published reports, the Haas, Jr. Fund conducted a scan of training resources available for development directors for internal purposes. That research revealed that while there are plenty of offerings to cover fundraising fundamentals and technical training, higher- level professional development related to fundraising is harder to find.

The research confirmed what the Haas, Jr. Fund was learning from its grantees: the nonprofit sector does not invest in development directors as leaders because there is not broad recognition of fundraising as a core leadership capacity. As a result, development directors are not receiving professional development to help with the adaptive skills and leadership competencies the role requires.

“The data suggested this was a systemic problem,” said Julia Ritchie, director of strategy and special initiatives for the Haas Leadership Initiatives at the Haas, Jr. Fund. It pointed the Fund to support nonprofits in taking a more integrated, holistic approach to development—which they referred to as building a culture of philanthropy inside organizations—and to provide leadership development support to development directors that goes beyond basic technical skills.

A Milestone Moment for Mobilization

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 brought a seismic shift for many nonprofits across the nation—in particular for organizations working for causes that seemed to be in jeopardy under a new administration. Executive orders on immigration that affected some organizations’ constituencies, shifts in federal funding, and steep increases in demand for services in areas including reproductive, immigrant, LGBTQ, and environmental rights have left many nonprofits scrambling to respond. At the same time, many organizations have experienced a surge in volunteers and donors. For example, the ACLU received $24 million in donations —six times its yearly average—in just a single weekend after the White House announced its first executive order limiting entry and reentry among specific groups of immigrants and refugees. Greenpeace and Sierra Club reported a surge in volunteer sign-ups and donations  in the months following the election. When the Haas Jr. Fund reached out to its grantees—many of whom work in support of immigrant and LGBTQ rights—they heard of similar experiences.

While an increase in interest and support offers exciting opportunities for nonprofits, many of them lack the capacity and resources to respond nimbly to these opportunities and fully leverage them. For example, some nonprofits lack the technology tools and digital engagement strategies needed to most effectively respond to the surge in interest in donations. To leverage a surge in interest, nonprofits need to be able to do things like provide clear and easy ways to donate, capture new supporters’ contact information when they engage with the organization through social media, and build relationships by continuing to give them opportunities to engage meaningfully in the mission. Further, when fund development work is viewed as a technical function and siloed within the organization, nonprofits can miss an opportunity to turn what might be a momentary interest in the organization into a longer and deeper relationship. This approach integrates communications, fundraising, and advocacy in new ways.

With this knowledge and a heightened sense of urgency in the wake of the election, the Fund wanted to know how it best could help its grantees and their stakeholders. Consistent with the Haas, Jr. Fund’s usual practice, it began by engaging them in the conversation.

Co-Creating Solutions with Grantees

In early 2017, the Fund convened grantees to better understand how the post-election environment was affecting their fundraising needs and to explore possible solutions together. The Fund hired Community Wealth Partners, a social-sector consulting firm, to help with the design and facilitation of two half-day gatherings—called Design Labs—of about 50 grantees representing a cross-section of the Fund’s overall portfolio.

“Design thinking methodology is not easy. It’s not typically quick,” Ritchie said. “We did a little bit of adaptation in the methodology. Getting people to think creatively in times of stress is really hard. When you bring people into a design process, they don't always know what is possible."

To try to foster more creative thinking, the Haas, Jr. Fund and Community Wealth Partners integrated tactile features like working with art supplies and incorporating physical movement into the meeting design.

Another key consideration in planning the Design Lab was being sensitive to the demands on grantees the Fund was asking to participate. “We paid them to participate; we didn’t ask them to do this for free,” Ritchie said. “We also created a packet of fundraising resources as a token of appreciation for giving us their thoughts and time.”

A key theme that emerged from the Design Lab was challenges related to equity and diversity in fundraising. “We heard from several leaders of color about challenges with fundraising due to complex relationships with money and lack of access to high net worth networks,” said Isabelle Moses, director with Community Wealth Partners.

“There’s been a false dichotomy between social justice and money,” said Matt Berryman, executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, one of the grantee organizations at the Design Lab. “We all have adverse reactions to the way money and power are intertwined in some oppressive structures. But we have to acknowledge that we can’t do our work without money.”

Another theme that emerged, related to these psychological barriers and issues of equity, was the notion of a scarcity mindset. “There was a desire to shift the nonprofit sector from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset,” Moses said. “When this happens, we imagine a different dynamic between funders and nonprofits—one where funders and nonprofits bring a spirit of partnership to generating solutions and delivering financially sustainable programs. An abundance mindset would also enable nonprofit leaders across organizations to proactively work together to develop collective approaches to solving problems, and that foundation funding practices would inspire collaboration over competition.”

Data from Nonprofit Finance Fund’s 2018 State of the Sector survey helps show why nonprofits are in a scarcity mindset. The survey found that the top challenges nonprofit leaders face are achieving financial sustainability for the organization and offering competitive compensation for staff. In addition, 86 percent of survey respondents said they are experiencing an increased demand for services, and 57 percent said they can’t meet the increase in demand.

A third theme that emerged from the conversation was related to the quality and type of consulting support available for supporting fundraising capacity. Grantees’ experiences with fundraising capacity support were consistent with what the Haas, Jr. Fund found in its own landscape scan.

“The capacity building field is largely made up of subject experts,” Ritchie said. “Unintentionally, many capacity building practitioners reinforce the very silos that we are trying to break down in organizations. For instance, strategic planners who don’t include a revenue or business plan. Fundraisers who think only of the tactical solutions to fundraising, but don’t think about the leadership and  cultural practices that are needed to build and sustain  fund development.”

With this insight in mind, the Fund realized a key way it could help grantees with their fundraising challenges was by helping strengthen the systems of support available to them.

Collaboration with Capacity Builders to Improve Practice

In fall 2017, the Fund partnered with Community Wealth Partners again to design and facilitate a three-day Innovation Lab that included a range of fundraising, strategy, and financial management consultants, executive coaches, movement builders and nonprofit leaders. Their focus was to collectively explore how to help build a culture of philanthropy within the nonprofit sector. The lab again included human-centered design methodologies and graphic recording to spark creativity and collaboration.

Service providers walked away from the Innovation Lab with personal commitments about new approaches they can put into practice in their work.

For participant Jodie Tonita, co-founder and executive director of Social Transformation Project, the lab underscored for her the importance of ensuring the development directors she works with have the right environment in which to succeed. “It can’t be just about training one individual and then popping that person back in an organization,” Tonita said. “We need to make sure the organization is creating space for the development director to thrive.”

The Innovation Lab gave Mario Lugay, founder of Giving Side, a chance to test out emerging ideas for how to take more collaborative approaches in his fundraising consultancy to help ensure the collective sustainability of organizations working on common issues. “I am trying to work on a project to reimagine the thank you letter,” Lugay said. “Why not use it to say here are three other groups we need to succeed for us to succeed, and can you support them as well?”

The Innovation Lab gave the Haas, Jr. Fund new insights on how they can best support the field as well outside of offering peer learning spaces. Since the gathering, the Fund has invested in three strategies. The first is supporting in-depth leadership development for senior fundraising professionals by partnering with Rockwood Leadership Institute to create a new fellowship called Resource Leaders, which will start in 2019. The goals of the fellowship are to reposition development directors as senior organizational leaders and strategists, cultivate their leadership skills, provide tools and resources for embedding fund development inside organizations, and creating a learning community for fellows. The fellowship includes two week-long residential sessions, webinars, coaching,  and consultation.

“Development directors rarely have time to think deeply about their personal and professional path,” said Mary Nemerov, chief advancement officer at the Sierra Club and a Resource Leaders alum. “My Rockwood experience provided a better perspective on my work and my life and powerful new peer relationships.”

As a second strategy, the Fund is investing in building the capacity of grantees to engage new supporters and raise more money in the digital era. As the experiences of many nonprofits in the wake of the 2016 election showed, organizations need to master a range of approaches for raising money, recruiting supporters, and getting their message out. While the more traditional methods such as galas and year-end mailers are still important, the digital era has brought about new methods that are equally important.

To help nonprofits build these capacities, the Fund launched the M3 Initiative (Message, Mobilize, Money). Through the initiative, the Fund hired two consulting firms with specialized skills to provide capacity-building assistance to 16 organizations working on immigration rights and LGBTQ rights. M+R Consultants is working with eight immigrant rights organizations in California, led by the California Immigration Policy Center. PowerLabs and Network for Good are providing capacity-building support to eight organizations working on LGBTQ rights, led by the  Equality Federation.

These consulting firms have deep experience in digital engagement strategies that were honed in political campaigns. Through the cohorts, the firms have worked closely with teams of fundraising, communications, and program staff at each organization to help them develop integrated digital strategies that create a ladder of engagement for supporters.

“Firms with this type of expertise may have worked with national campaigns or very large nonprofits, but typically they haven’t been accessible to smaller organizations,” Baker said. “Having a funder pull a cohort together makes it possible for these firms to reach organizations that previously had been out of their purview. We hope to share what we’re learning from these cohorts so that it can benefit the field as well.”

“I see the integration of these things [money, mobilize, message], more clearly than I ever have in terms of our work,” said Chris Mueller, who supports PICO-CA’s communications efforts. “We are starting to get into a good rhythm of how we integrate fundraising with social media and messaging and how we connect online action to offline action and fundraising.”

In addition, the Fund has continued to play a modest role in supporting innovation, collaboration, and connection across the network of capacity builders who were part of the Innovation Lab. For example, connections have been fostered through group email communications and some spot funding opportunities for activities that promote collaboration among consultants on the theme of a culture of philanthropy, such as attending training on culture change together. From time to time, the Fund has shared interviews with one group member to help members get to know one another a bit better, announcements of upcoming events of interest, and announcements of funding opportunities for conference registrations or other professional development when available.

The investment is paying off. Members of the group have come together to organize workshops, speak together at conferences and pilot new programs, all aimed at helping foster a culture of abundance. “Practitioners rarely have time to be together in a collaborative, generative way,” Moses said. “There is little space for being in conversation with each other about how to shape practice, so opportunities like these are valuable for practitioners and can have a multiplier effect as they engage with and influence organizations across the sector.”

Other practitioners are also championing a culture of philanthropy and an abundance mindset. For example, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services has been facilitating learning communities based on their Bright Spots research that focus on changing cultures around fundraising.

“One headline we’re seeing is that groups are wrestling with how to create a mindset for all staff around fundraising being core to an organization’s identity,” said Steve Lew, project director at CompassPoint. “Beyond mindsets, it gets to the question of addressing structures and power dynamics so that non-development people can have the time and support—and the authority—to manage relationships with donors. We’re finding you can create more staff buy-in for this work when people have more control and understanding of their budgets. They know the true money needs of the organization, and they start to see fundraising as more critical to their work.”

When an organization embraces a culture of philanthropy, the work of the development director shifts from isolating to inspiring, and the potential impact expands. “Talk about fundraising as a shared work,” said Angelica Salas. “When we add all these incredible people inside our organization, the circle expands.” It is this mindset shift the Fund hopes to see take hold in the field.

“Lately we’ve been framing it more as a question of how do we resource social change?” said Rachel Baker. “That means shifting funders from giving a little grant to help an organization with fundraising to having everyone consider what is our role around how social change is resourced? We’d like to see everyone lift up from a technical lens on the challenge to what we see as a bigger issue.”

“In foundation funding, we know that very little goes to investing in the capacity building of grantees. Within that, even fewer support nonprofits to build their fund development capacity,” Ritchie said. “We are excited to  see the conversation start to take off among funders and hope to generate more investment in strengthening this  core competency.”

Discussion Questions: Use these questions to spark discussion within your own foundation to explore ways you might be able to help build a culture of philanthropy among your grantees.

• What from the Haas, Jr. Fund’s story resonates with what we have learned from our work with grantees? What about their approach is different from what we have done in the past? What is something we might consider trying based on this approach?
• What challenges do our grantees’ face related to financial sustainability? What types of support do they need to help overcome these challenges?
• What types of technical assistance is available to grantees to help them build their fundraising capacity? To what extent do offerings available help develop the leadership skills of senior fundraising professionals? How might funders help grantees adapt to rapid and dramatic changes in the funding environment, like the proliferation of online and digital communication strategies?
• How are we influencing the practice of capacity builders who regularly serve our grantees? What are ways we can support greater alignment and shared practices across the field of providers?
• What are the barriers to increasing investment to support grantees’ fundraising capacity within our foundation, and how might we address them? To whom do we need to make the case, and what arguments would they find most compelling?

Lori Bartczak serves as Community Wealth Partners’ senior director of knowledge and content, overseeing the firm’s content strategy, development and distribution. In this role, she identifies compelling topics and themes, designs original research and learning experiences to advance them, and creates and disseminates content that assists our clients and the sector more broadly in advancing their missions. Lori is passionate about strengthening the nonprofit sector and has nearly two decades of experience working with nonprofits and foundations nationally. Her skills include thought leadership and content development; program design, implementation and evaluation; management and talent development; strategy and communications; facilitation; and fundraising.

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Senior Director of Knowledge and Content Community Wealth Partners

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Case Study: How One Grassroots Nonprofit Achieved Success – and You Can, Too!

by: Joe Garecht

Although there are more than 1.57 million registered nonprofit organization in the United States, Urban Institute reports that in 2013, fewer than 2 in five (35%) filed at least a 990-EZ. This means that 65 percent of nonprofits raised less than $50,000.

The reality is that many nonprofits are small – and are not able to break away and grow significantly, both in terms of income and mission fulfillment. So when a nonprofit grows its income by 430 percent over eight years, it’s worth asking why.

I recently sat down with Mark Lillis, executive director of The Leaven, a California-based nonprofit organization that provides no-cost tutoring and mentoring to children living in low-income housing. Mark has lived through the growing pains of a small nonprofit and shared what worked – and what didn’t – on the path to expansion.

The Leaven was begun in 2005 by a committee of Parkway Community Church in Fairfield, CA, with support from the City of Fairfield and the school district. The children in the neighborhood surrounding the church were struggling in school and the city leaders knew they had to do more to help these children – many from immigrant families – get the kind of education that would allow them to achieve success in life.

Q: Mark, how did you get involved with The Leaven?

ML: Since I was a member of the church, a family friend came to me when he never received a receipt for a sizable donation to the after-school program. I talked to the church about it and they asked me to serve on the committee. They eventually hired me as their first employee.

Because the program model was proving to be successful and earning praise from the school district, we were asked to expand to a second community. Frankly, we were somewhat skeptical if that was a good plan. Where would the money come from? How would we recruit enough volunteers to serve as tutors?

It became clear that we couldn’t continue to operate as a committee of the church; we needed to be an independent nonprofit organization. The committee members were concerned that the mission would change, so the committee chair invested a great deal of effort into unifying the members. It was a daunting task to apply to be an independent organization, but we knew we had outgrown the committee structure.

[In 2009, The Leaven became an independent 501(c)(3) organization.]

Q: What were some of the challenges in being independent and starting to grow beyond your first two centers?

ML: Those first years were risky, and we were very cautious about growth. Our growth was a result of invitations to replicate the program, not because we set out to expand. In the city where the organization began, we had good name recognition and established marketing. When we looked to expand further out, we had none of that. To complicate things further, we were in the middle of the Great Recession. Most nonprofit organizations were pulling back, and they certainly weren’t starting new work!

We took a leap of faith and decided to pursue another after-school center only after wrestling with questions like, “How do you get your name out fast? How do you build a reputation? How do you show you have lasting value and your success wasn’t just a one-time thing?”

Q: So how did you overcome those obstacles?

ML: The most important factor to our success was that Fairfield Mayor Harry Price and City-Councilmember Chuck Timm (now Vice Mayor) put their name on it. They said, “We endorse this work. We stand behind The Leaven.”

That resulted in more people trusting us, and more donations – but also more pressure not to squander that trust. A major contributor told me straight out, “This thing better not embarrass me!” That became a challenge to us – to make all our donors proud to support The Leaven. Indirectly, a donor is putting his or her name on the organization, and we have a responsibility to honor that personal endorsement.

We immediately wrestled with the fine balance between being too flashy and reflecting the care that the organization deserves. We committed to be the best we could afford. My dad told me, “Mark, you have to run it like a business.” With that admonition, I sought advice from business people who gladly shared their wisdom. I realized immediately that we had to have good management tools. We obtained an inventory management system and hired a CPA to do an audit from the very beginning. These aren’t luxuries for a nonprofit organization; they are necessary tools to manage properly.

I keep asking questions of and listening to people who were operating successful nonprofits. For example, I asked a local organization how they grew their fundraising base. They recommended a marketing firm, and that firm recommended an independent fundraising consultant to me. I quickly learned the value of surrounding myself with people who have been down the road a lot further than I had.

Q: What was the role of your board over those early years as an independent organization?

ML: Of course, there were different opinions among board members, but our chair was firm about establishing a solid operational foundation. He made it clear that the board was going to set policy and provide oversight. In his words, the board needed to lead, not count pencils. He recruited wise people for the board and established term limits from the beginning.

Q: How did staffing change as you grew?

ML: I knew we had to have someone to run point on development. We have three events each year and despite having exceptional volunteer committees running them, I knew I couldn’t continue to manage the details and succeed as a leader. We also went from a salaried model to an hourly pay model (which aligned with the IRS guidelines), transitioning over several months, explaining the rationale to staff and making the hourly rate comparable. We implemented quarterly assessments and raises. Staff turnover is very expensive, and our board knew that we would retain staff if we provided a competitive wage. We also are committed to treating our staff well, making sure they understand the big picture behind change.

Q: What do you say to a donor who is concerned that The Leaven isn’t like is used to be?

ML: We get a lot of that! I assure them we are the same group we’ve always been. The mission is still the same. We’ve added locations and programs, but the basis of our purpose is unchanged.

We’ve made some mistakes, but we keep a pretty big rear-view mirror so we don’t repeat the mistakes. We make sure we are meeting our benchmarks, because we have made a promise to the community and to our donors,

Q: A few years ago, you replaced your major event with a gala. How did you keep that change from disenfranchising former participants and make it more successful than the prior event?

ML: It was a big change, but the volunteers on the committee were clear: if you don’t change this, it will die. One key volunteer had a vision and the rest of the committee members were ready for change. It turned out our donors were ready for change, too!

Q: The Leaven is very volunteer-dependent. How do you keep them excited and involved?

ML: Our volunteers are critical , or we have good programs to orient them and we hold two volunteer appreciation dinners a year. We make sure they are constantly seeing how they make our mission possible. We also don’t have strict requirements for hours and flexible schedules. Our goal is to make it easy to be a volunteer at The Leaven. [Volunteers are required to pass a background check.]

We probably retain about 90 percent of our volunteers, and I estimate our volunteer hours are worth $30-40,000 a month in in-kind services. Our program is underpinned by many great volunteers!

Q: How do you keep your fundraising growing?

ML: We’re very grassroots; we made a promise to the community and we are determined to keep that promise. We focus on the community, the people who volunteer and those who donate funds. When you’re successful and people know about it, they want to be part of it. We view fundraising as a very natural way to connect to the community.

We’ve become more sophisticated over the years, but we’re not afraid to realign when we need to. Frankly, we’ve gotten a bit ahead on occasion and had to reconstruct some messaging. We take comments from our supporters to heart because we know we need people who are going to be hard on us and tell us when we’re off the mark.

Q: What’s next for The Leaven?

A: We’ve added a new board member who is a Millennial, but also very connected to our mission. We’re excited because that will give us a new perspective on a market segment. We’re also working to be more strategic in the sense of getting the right information out to our donor base.

Q: So what’s the secret formula to succeeding as a nonprofit?

A: Good processes from the beginning, good people, wise counsel and a lot of hard work.

Want to get more great fundraising tips and strategies sent to you each week by e-mail?  Be sure to  sign-up for our free Weekly Fundraising Round-Up using the form below:

About the Author

Pamela Barden, DBA, CFRE, is a fundraising consultant and university professor; a member of the Advisory Panel for Rogare at Plymouth University’s Hartsook Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy; a columnist for NonprofitPRO and contributor to npEngage (Blackbaud); and co-author of the 4th edition of The Complete Guide to Fundraising Management.  You can find her online at  www.pjbardeninc.com  or on Twitter @pjbarden .

Photo Credit: Kate Ter Haar

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Best Successful Fundraising Campaign Examples for Nonprofits

Successful fundraising campaign examples: the 7 best nonprofit examples.

Successful Fundraising Campaign Examples: 7 Best Fundraising Campaigns for Nonprofits During COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, stress within the nonprofit sector increased and deepened. But as these examples of successful fundraising events showed, resolve and planning also crystallized, giving us some incredible successful fundraising campaign examples. But the struggle is no surprise—nonprofiteers have been facing enormous challenges forever.

During the COVID season of unprecedented separation, hoarding, and fear, nonprofits kept moving the progress of missions across the world. We've heard your calls that this wasn't easy, that pivoting so sharply gave you metaphorical whiplash, your worried voices saying that approaching donors with additional asks and taking traditional fundraising efforts online seemed impossible.

In the days following shut-ins and shut-downs, we also witnessed the nonprofitsphere fire up like it's never done before. Nonprofits planned their best nonprofit campaigns & fundraising ideas shone brightly, lighting the direction that giving is going.

7 best fundraising campaigns: Kick-ass nonprofit fundraising campaign examples during COVID-19

Check out these innovative, exciting & successful charity fundraising campaigns that stared down COVID-19 fundraising challenges—and won!

1. DigDeep's World Water Day fundraiser campaign (updated for 2021)

With their initial 2020 goal set at $90,000, DigDeep quickly blew past that by relating their water-focused fundraiser campaign on the need to have water for handwashing. This tactic allowed DigDeep to exceed even their second goal of $120,000, meaning they more than doubled their World Water Day contributions from 2019 to 2020.

In 2021, DIGDEEP took it even further and doubled their 2020 goal—and then smashed that by over $10k!

2. CFTK dance marathon online fundraising campaign (updated for 2021)

CFTK has been dancing for 21 years in support of UNC Children's Hospital. In 2020, not only were there worries of COVID-19 contamination, but campus was closed down and students were gone. By digging into virtual fundraising ideas and pivoting to a virtual dance marathon online fundraising campaign and expanding social media outreach, CFTK was able to brighten the lives of sick children considerably. Watch their reveal video to see how much CFTK was able to raise through their new virtual dance marathon format.

3. charity: water's COVID-19 crisis donation campaign—the pick of the best water donation campaign examples

charity: water connected a water crisis donation campaign to the spread of COVID-19 using a quiz that brought to life the urgency caused by a lack of water around the world. If you’re looking for donation campaign examples to do with water, charity: water is the gold standard.

4. Beyond Blindness' Destination Independence Virtual 5k Walk—one of the top virtual fundraising advertising examples

Beyond Blindness (previously Blind Children's Learning Center) took quick action to protect vulnerable members of their community by taking their 16th annual walk online. Weekly workouts on Facebook Live, as well as professional footage of students completing the walk kept donors engaged, making it an excellent example of the best fundraising advertising examples. There’s no doubt that walking is one of the best summer fundraising ideas , and Beyond Blindness has totally embodied that with its Destination Independence campaign.

5. Epilepsy Foundation Texas' #EFTX Virtual Walk to End Epilepsy—another example of successful donation campaigns around walking

This virtual peer-to-peer campaign is one of the most unusually engaging successful donation campaigns, with t-shirts to earn and discussion questions to answer live during the walk, which the nonprofit asked all donors to stream on the platform of their choice.

6. Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Extra Life campaign—our choice of the best gaming fundraising campaigns for nonprofits

This one is big. It's an outlier, meaning we're not going to tell you, "It's easy! You can do this in 20 minutes with your smartphone!" Backed by Twitch.tv, the annual Extra Life campaign is already partly and remains as one of the best fundraising campaigns for nonprofits around gaming. But COVID-19 led CMN to turn the 2020 campaign into a 100% virtual event, Extra Life United: Online Edition. Check it out if you want your mind to be boggled.

7. Basset Hound Rescue of Southern California's Virtual Spring Games—#1 most successful fundraising campaigns for hounds

Jumping right into the spirit of social distancing, BHRSC took their annual Spring Games virtual with video and photo challenges for donors, like a talent contest, costume contest, and even a social distancing photo challenge! Raising money for a dog rescue may sound unrelated to something as global as coronavirus, but BHRSC reminded supporters that pet rehoming and owner surrenders increase greatly in times of recession.

We have to wonder if these happy hounds are aware of their contribution to one of the most successful fundraising campaigns during the COVID-19 crisis!

Successful nonprofit fundraising campaigns: key takeaways

The secret to successful nonprofit fundraising campaigns is organization and patience. As with most aspects of the nonprofitsphere, there's no magic spell to make a fundraiser successful—it takes time, practice, and a willingness to identify what we can do better next time.

The examples listed above relied on teams and technology working together, creativity, and ab openness to the wild, weird, and wonderful.

These are nonprofit capital fundraising campaign examples that prove nonprofits can make their missions happen in the midst of mayhem. You can, too.

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7. Donor Cultivation

Fundraising fundamentals, part 2, section 7.

The backbone of any successful fundraising operation is an understanding of the cultivation process against which activities and goals can be mapped. This is often referred to as the development, fundraising or donor cultivation cycle. The process has four fundamental phases:

• Identification and research.  Who will you ask and what will you ask for?
• Cultivation.  Building relationships, engaging the prospect and preparing to make the ask.
• Solicitation.  Making the ask.
• Stewardship.  Recognition and continuing to engage donors.

The phases of the cultivation process are also commonly referred to as the '4Rs'. Development directors suggest that their time is divided among the phases in approximately this way:

• Research, about 25 percent of time,
• Romance, about 60 percent,
• Request, 5 percent, and
• Recognition, 10 percent.

Identification and research

This stage is all about gathering and analysing information. It is the underpinning of your fundraising activity. It can be viewed from two angles: projects and supporters.

You need to identify the projects for which you want to raise funds and to develop a thorough understanding of the importance of those projects both to your institution and to its stakeholders. You need to gather detailed information about the projects and assess how they might appeal to donors, as this will inform your cultivation, solicitation and stewardship phases.

You need to identify whom you want to ask for support. Look at the prospects you already know (database analysis, lists of previous donors, etc.) as well as the external donating landscape (e.g., are there any major trusts with interests that match your fundraising projects).

Prospect research and identification is an essential component of the cultivation cycle. It provides fundraisers with the information and tools they need to build relationships with donors. The more you know about a prospect, the easier it is to match the potential donor to the right project, ask her in the appropriate way, increase your chances of a donation and build a longstanding relationship.

Cultivation

Cultivation strategies are based on the information that is gathered in the identification phase. Cultivation refers to the methods you will use to build a relationship with a donor:

• How will you make contact?
• How will you inform prospects about your projects and build a propensity to give?
• Who will do the cultivating?
• How will it be achieved and sustained?

Cultivation covers a range of activities from direct mail, telephone and email contact through to events, personal visits and peer-to-peer networking.

Solicitation

In this phase you will make the ‘ask’. There are a number of ways to achieve this – direct mail, telephone fundraising, face-to-face solicitations, peer asking, as part of a legacies campaign or through online communication. This resource provides detailed information on methods of solicitation in the following sections (by type of donor).

As important as asking is your response when the donor says ‘yes’ or ‘no’. You must be prepared to act quickly to accept a gift and thank a donor.

For major gifts, this can be an involved process with a requirement for due diligence and gift agreements, so it is important to have the appropriate mechanisms already in place.

For smaller and regular gifts, it is important to have robust financial systems that can cope with peaks in giving and provide donors with reassurance that their donations are being handled in a professional manner.

If the response is ‘no’, you should a contingency plan where you might be able to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘maybe’ or ‘not now’. Maintaining a channel of communication with a prospect, for example, would allow you to approach him again in the future with other opportunities.

Stewardship

Stewardship is all about maintaining and evolving long-term relationships with donors. Effective stewardship will ensure that the donor knows his or her gift is being valued and put to good use, will appropriately recognize the gift and will ideally engage the donor so that he or she feels even more positive about the institution.

By investing wisely in stewardship activities (see section 7j), you can keep donors engaged in a donating cycle and encourage them toward regular repeat giving and giving in increasing amount, ultimately increasing your overall pool of donors and prospects and boosting your fundraising income.

The stewardship phase should feed back into cultivating the donor for a future ask, although fundraisers should be extremely cautious that stewardship and cultivation phases are not just about preparing to make the ask. These phases are about engaging the prospect/donor in the institution. Donors who only hear from the institution with financial requests disengage quickly.

You can find more on the individual features of the cultivation process and specific types of prospects throughout section 7.

Action Items

• Invest time and resources in research, cultivation and stewardship activities to have the best solicitation response rate.
• Remember to record information during every phase using contact reports, the database and prospect management tools.

You Might Also Want to Read :

The role of leaders and academics in the cultivation process Developing a fundraising strategy Stewardship activities The database Contact reports Prospect management

Prospect Research

Prospect research is indispensable for any development office. It identifies who to ask and informs cultivation and solicitation strategies, particularly in the area of major gifts.

Good prospect research:

• Identifies the most promising prospects and assesses their capacity and propensity to give to your cause,
• Covers both individuals and organisations (trusts, foundation and companies) and
• Increases the efficiency of the office and increases the chances of fundraising success.

Prospect research can either be subcontracted to a freelancer or conducted ‘in house’.

Where to Find Information

Prospect researchers are the detectives of the fundraising world, searching out clues about people’s wealth and spotting synergies between prospects and the institution.

You can use a variety of resources to obtain this information, including public records, business and financial publications, Internet databases, media, ‘word of mouth’ and extensive Internet searches.

You will spend a considerable amount of time interrogating the existing data ‘owned’ by the institution to look for prospects with indicators of wealth, such as senior jobs, addresses in expensive areas or a private education. You then use this information as the starting point for detailed research.

In fact, when you’re first starting out, internal sources of information should be good to get you started. You can ask academics, alumni, existing donors and other contacts for names of people they know who might be potential supporters. You can develop a simple form – a ‘who do you know’ template – asking for contact details, any biographical information known, what the person’s relationship is to the institution and why it is they should be considered a potential supporter. If you aim to leave every meeting with academics or notable alumni with three new names, you can very quickly build up a decent list of people to start visiting.

When you are ready for more detailed research, you can find many prospect research resources on prospect research websites, such as the one listed below, which are maintained by prospect researcher Finbar Cullen from Researchplus. Keep returning to these lists (primarily focused on the UK) as they are regularly updated, and use them as the basis for developing your own list of resources. Not all resources are free and your may need to set some budget aside for subscriptions, books and fees.

For information about companies, directors and shareholders

• Experian’s Corporate Researcher,  www.uk.experian.com
• Hemscott GURU,  www.hemscott.com
• Companies House,  www.companieshouse.gov.uk

For biographical sources

• Go to libraries for free access to KnowUK and Credo Reference (formerly xreferplus).
• Debrett’s People of Today ( www.debretts.com ) is a biographical guide to contemporary Britain. It is available as a book, CD and online, with more than 25,000 biographical entries.
• Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage ( www.debretts.com ) provides details of the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
• Who’s Who ( www.acblack.com ) has a book and online versions, with more than 32,000 short biographies. Visit libraries for free access.
• Who’s Who in the City is a book with details of more than 17,500 key decision makers.
• Who’s Who in European Mergers & Acquisitions  is a book and CD with more than 8,500 merger and acquisition executives and a comprehensive list of firms arranged alphabetically by country.
• Who’s Who in Charities is a book with more than 50,000 biographies of the people who have shaped today’s charity world.
• City of London Directory & Livery Company Guide (City Press Business Publishers/Seatrade Communications Ltd) has details of livery company membership and a small Who’s Who in the City section.
• Rich lists, such as the annual Sunday Times Rich List,  www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/richlist/ .

For information about charities, trusts and foundations

• The Directory of Grant Making Trusts ( www.dsc.org.uk ) covers more than 2,500 grant-making trusts.
• The Grant-making Trusts CD-ROM ( www.dsc.org.uk ) compiles the more than 4,000 trusts listed in The Directory of Grant Making Trusts, the three Guides to the Major Trusts, the four Guides to Local Trusts, A Guide to Scottish Trusts and the Welsh Funding Guide.
• www.trustfunding.org.uk  contains all the same data as the Grant-making Trusts CD-ROM, but it is updated throughout the year. Subscribers receive emails alerts when updates are made.
• A Guide to the Major Trusts, volumes 1 and 2 ( www.dsc.org.uk ), has more detailed entries on some of the trusts listed in The Directory of Grant Making Trusts and other publications mentioned above.
• The Welsh Funding Guide ( www.dsc.org.uk ) is about charitable giving in Wales.
• A Guide to Scottish Trusts ( www.dsc.org.uk ) is about trust giving in Scotland.
• A Guide to Local Trusts ( www.dsc.org.uk ) covers Greater London, South of England, North of England and the Midlands.
• Dresdner RCM Top 3000 Charities is a guide to the latest financial results of the top 3,000 charities, available in book and CD formats.
• Martin Currie Top 1000 Charities in Scotland 
is a guide to the top charities in Scotland, available in book and CD formats.
• UK Top 10,000 Charities CD-ROM  is a database of the UK’s top 10,000 charities with search capacity for analysis of the charity sector.
• DSC  www.dsc.org.uk .
• The Charity Commission,  www.charity-commission.gov.uk .

For information about companies

• Hollis Sponsorship & Donations Yearbook details ‘over 1,000 top UK companies which use sponsorship as part of their marketing strategies, or provide donations as part of their corporate citizen policies’.
• DSC Guide to UK Company Giving ( www.dsc.org.uk ) includes details of more than 500 companies in the UK.
• The CD-ROM Company Giving Guide ( www.dsc.org.uk ) includes details of more than 500 companies in the UK.
• Finding Company Sponsors ( www.dsc.org.uk )
• Welsh Funding Guide ( www.dsc.org.uk ) covers charitable giving in Wales.
• Business in the Community ( www.bitc.org.uk ) has 700 member companies, with a further 1,600 participating in programmes and campaigns.

Other Sources of Help and Advice

Prospect research is largely an Internet based activity, with there are many online sources of help and advice.

The Prospect Research Toolkit ( www.fundraisingresearch.info/ ) has great advice for people new to prospect research from experienced researcher Mathew Iredale.

RBA Information Services ( www.rba.co.uk  ) has information about using electronic resources effectively.

THINK Resource ( www.thinkresource.org )

Doing It Ethically

As the Data Protection Act relates to prospect research, you need to be familiar with its guidance. Remember that the act entitles any prospect to read what information you have stored about that person, so make sure that what you record is evidence based, justifiable and unlikely to offend.

Never rely on hearsay for information. Check that the information you have been given can be independently verified or assigned to a source. Do not misrepresent yourself or your institution in order to obtain information.

How to Record, Present and Use Your Research

You should record your research with as much detail as possible, stating the date it was obtained and the source(s) where it was found. Most prospect databases will have somewhere you can write your notes. If you are using a paper-based system, you might want to develop a template to help you to organise your findings.

Prospect research is only useful if it is presented in a meaningful way to fundraisers. Skilled prospect researchers will use the information they have gathered to develop educated assumptions about a prospect’s propensity and capacity to give. They need to share these assumptions, and the evidence to back them up, with fundraisers in the form of written reports or at prospect meetings on a regular basis.

Research will date quickly, so researchers need to work closely with fundraisers to decide when research should be updated.

 The level of detail a prospect researcher presents depends on how the information will be used. A fundraiser about to solicit a major gift will want as much information as possible about the prospect, but an event organiser might only want a few biographical sentences about each guest to share with ‘hosts’.

Presenting prospect research in template forms helps the recipients access the relevant pieces of information quickly.

• Determine who will be responsible for prospect research, which prospects will be the priority to research and how you can gather in-house information about prospects, and develop templates for what other detailed external information should be gathered (depending on the type of prospect).
• Make sure prospect research is saved in your database or files and updated as appropriate.

You might also want to look at:

Cultivation of major gifts Cultivation of trusts and foundations Cultivation of corporations Development operations The database Contact reports

Most fundraisers will have at some point come across the concept of the gift pyramid – a graphical representation of where fundraising income comes from.

The major gifts programme focuses on securing high-value gifts from a small number of prospects with the capacity to give at the highest level. Major gifts may be less frequent and require substantial investment in the cultivation and solicitation of the donor, but they are high value and can be transformational for an institution.

Defining  Major Gift  for Your Institution

The definition of a major gift varies between institutions and is dependent on a number of factors:

• Existing levels of philanthropic income,
• The current number of donors,
• The value of the fundraising targets,
• The perceived potential for major gifts after analysis of the prospect pool and
• The impact the gift will have on the institution. Major gifts tend to be transformational and directed at high-value projects.

A small organisation, with no history of fundraising and modest pool of prospects, may define £1,000 as a major gift, whereas an established institution with substantial philanthropic income and many high-value fundraising projects may raise the threshold to gifts over £100,000. Whatever level you choose, it should be periodically reviewed.

Who Is in the Programme?

The first task when planning a major gift programme is to examine your prospect pool to determine who can give a major gift. This can be tricky if your information resources are underdeveloped; but with the support of data analysis and prospect research, it should be possible to segment your prospect pool and identify the most promising prospects. Several factors can be assessed to determine which prospects should be included in a major gift programme:

• Financial capacity to give,
• Warmth of pre-existing relationship with the institution,
• Giving history with the institution and
• Interest in similar causes.

The number of major gift prospects that can be managed at any one time will be dependent on the capacity of your team. Your pool of major gift prospects should be subjected to scrutiny and further research to prioritise the best prospects and ensure that the major gift fundraising capacity is not overwhelmed.

When examining your prospect pool, keep in mind the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 Rule), which says that 80 percent of your gifts will come from  20 percent of your prospects or donors. Therefore, the majority of your time and resources should be focused on these major gift prospects or donors.

Getting Started: Prospect Identification and Research

Assign a fundraiser to each prospect. For top prospects, you may want to assign a primary and a secondary fundraiser - for example, the vice-chancellor and the director of development.

Then, find out all you can about your prospects and record this information. This is not just about collecting facts but includes researching and analysing these facts, and looking for synergies between the prospect and your institution and for opportunities to strengthen the relationship between the two and links between prospects (as one prospect may be a positive influence on the giving behaviour of another).

Planning Your Cultivation and Engagement Strategies

Each major gift prospect merits an individualised engagement strategy. This is a plan of how you might instigate an initial meeting and draw the prospect closer to the institution. It is likely to evolve as the dynamics of the relationship between the prospect and the institution change over time. The example (shown below) is of a simple engagement strategy, but to implement even this version would take many hours of diligent persistence as you carefully manage situations, entice prospects closer to the institution and tease out areas of mutual interest.

Example Engagement Strategy

Invite Mr and Mrs X to the chancellor’s dinner to see a presentation on the university’s five-year strategy. Ensure that the chancellor introduces Mr and Mrs X to the vice-chancellor who should be briefed to discuss the presentation with them and listen to what areas capture their interest.

Vice-chancellor to invite Mr and Mrs X to campus to see for themselves the implementation of the strategy plan in progress. Design a programme that focuses on their interests such as a tour of the new Engineering Building, lunch with the Dean and the opportunity to meet undergraduates.

Review next steps with Vice-Chancellor and agree follow up action.

Major gift prospects tend to be very busy people, and it can take months to even fix a date for a campus visit. The cultivation of prospects to the point of solicitation can be a long process and may not come to fruition until 18 months to three years after the process begins.

Making ‘the Ask’

If you have done your prospect cultivation properly, your prospect should not be surprised to be asked to donate. It is important that ‘the ask’ is a positive experience for both the ‘asker’ and the prospect and that it is made in-person when you are cultivating a major gift.

Decide who should make ‘the ask’ – the director of development, the institution’s leader, one of the prospect’s peer group, a senior volunteer or perhaps a representative of the project that stands to benefit. It may be appropriate for more than one person to be there, but be careful not to overwhelm the prospect. It should be someone with whom he or she has a positive peer-to-peer relationship. It helps if the ‘asker’ is also a donor.

Be sincere, direct and specific. Name a gift level that you think might be appropriate and say exactly how the gift will be used to support your institution. Touch upon how the gift will be recognised, if you feel it is appropriate.

Make sure you have thought about these scenarios before you enter the meeting and how you deal with them. If you do hear a ‘no’, you might, with further discussion, turn this into a ‘maybe’ or a ‘yes’ to a gift at a lower level. Perhaps you at least will be able to keep the option open to speak to the prospect again in the future about other giving opportunities.

You need to be able to read the situation, think on your feet and respond appropriately. You cannot prepare for every response, but good preparation, discussion around possible scenarios and support from colleagues in advance of ‘the ask’ will all help.

Follow Through

Whatever happens at ‘the ask’, it is important that you continue the relationship with the prospect on a positive footing. If a gift pledge has been made, you should ensure that the pledge is fulfilled.

• Continue the dialogue with the donor.
• Introduce a gift agreement if necessary to agree how the gift will be made, in what time scale, for what purpose and with what recognition.
• Do not forget to say thank you in a way that matches the importance of the gift and meets the expectations of the donor.
• If you have come away with a ‘maybe’ or a ‘no’, it would be timely to review the relationship with the prospect and discuss how these might be converted into a ‘yes’ – perhaps by changing the project you are putting forward for support, the gift amount or the timing of ‘the ask’.

Back to the Beginning

There is a risk that you will let this relationship slide now that the fundraising cycle has been completed. The temptation is to turn to fresh prospects at the beginning of the cycle, but this would be a mistake.

Major gift prospects have (we hope) become major gift donors; and with further cultivation, they can be drawn even closer to your organisation and become repeat donors. Their existing gifts need to be carefully stewarded, and donors need to be return to the beginning of the fundraising cycle and introduced to new opportunities to offer their support.

Establishing a Pipeline

Major gift fundraisers need a steady supply of new prospects. These can be found through diligent research and regular examination of prospects who are donating at a lower level or who are not yet donating.

A successful development office will have the infrastructure and skills to move prospects up through the levels of the fundraising pyramid until they fulfill their full potential as donors by reaching the limits of their capacity to give.

Fundraising is a team effort, and fundraisers dealing with lower-level donors need to be moving those donors up the pyramid to the attention of the major gift fundraisers who can increase their levels of engagement and encourage larger and more frequent donations.

• Define what a ‘major gift’ is for your institution.
• Determine and prioritize your prospect pool, keeping the 80/20 rule in mind.
• Individualize the donor cultivation process for each major gift prospect.
• Keep major gift donors engaged, and a healthy prospect pool constantly in development.

You Might Also Want to Read:

The role of leaders and academics in the cultivation process The cultivation process Prospect research Events Stewardship activities Prospect management Gift agreements Gift acceptance policies Gift recognition policies

Silence Is Golden!

Once you have made the ask, wait until the prospective donor responds before you speak again.

According to research by the Charity Commission, there are around 8,800 trusts and foundations in the UK and considerably more across the world. They are established either by individuals or by organisations to act as the vehicles for their charitable giving. Many are small and targeted at very specific causes or areas. However, some have huge giving capacity and are able to make transformational, multimillion-pound gifts to an institution.

Raising funds from trusts and foundations is a significant element of any fundraising programme, but it is very competitive and should be approached in a systematic and professional manner. As when raising funds from individuals, this type of fundraising follows the classic cycle of identification, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship.

Identification and Making a Plan

There are many ways to identify trusts and foundations. However, as there are so many, you should have a clear idea of what you are fundraising for so that you can pinpoint those trusts and foundations most likely to support you.

You can subscribe to several commercial online databases of trust and foundation information and buy publications that list their areas of interest, or use free online resources such as the Charity Commission for England and Wales, Guidestar and other sites. Searching the Internet and other media is a useful way to find trusts and foundations that have funded causes similar to your own.

If you are already working with a company (especially a large corporation), it may also have a charitable foundation you can approach. Most larger trusts and foundations will have their own websites detailing their areas of interest and how to apply.

Once you have identified a list of likely trust and foundation funders, you need to plot how these prospects map onto your fundraising projects. Read their application guidelines carefully and match up the characteristics of your fundraising projects with the right trusts and foundations. You might also need to consider your time scales, as some trusts have a long lead-time up to making a funding decision, as the trustees meet infrequently.

Once you have identified your prospective trusts and matched them to suitable projects, you need to find a way to build a relationship with them. Some trusts and foundations have guidelines about how to achieve this. Do some further research about the decision makers within a trust or foundation. Do your senior staff know any of them? Do you know anyone who can broker an introduction?

Whilst it is not always necessary to cultivate a direct relationship with a trust or foundation in this way, it can be helpful if done carefully, and is essential if the trust claims to take a ‘proactive approach’ to grant making. Some foundations may even state that they do not accept unsolicited applications. If the guidelines permit it, you might do something as simple as place a phone call to the trust administrator to discuss a possible application. An early consultation will help you craft the best possible application and introduce your organisation to the trust or foundation as a prospective beneficiary.

Most bigger trusts and foundations will have guidelines for your application. Make sure you read, understand and follow these guidelines.

Bear in mind that most trusts and foundations will have very little administrative support yet hundreds of applications to deal with every year. They have introduced guidelines to assist them in their selection process. If you ignore the guidelines, your application is likely to be rejected.

The solicitation process can take many months, especially if the grant maker has a multi-stage application process and the trustees/decision makers meet only a few times a year.

The more detail, evidence of need and reassurance of your ability to deliver on a project that you can communicate to a trust or foundation, the more likely it will be to fund your project.

Trusts and foundations look for innovation and evidence that a project is fulfilling an identified need, that it is sustainable and that the project leaders are capable of delivering the project goals in a timely fashion. Some trusts and foundations may wish to visit you before they make a decision. This visit is your chance to shine and really convince them that your project is worthwhile.

Many trusts and foundations develop long-term relationships with their beneficiaries and become repeat and escalating donors. To support this relationship, good stewardship is vital.

• Keep your donor informed about the project as it develops.
• Give regular reports and take every opportunity to speak to the funders in person about the project.
• If your project ultimately benefits others, such as students or patients, then gather feedback from these beneficiaries or take opportunities to introduce them directly to the funders so they can understand the difference their funding is making.
• Make sure that you manage your funding in a professional manner, maintaining the highest standards in recording and accounting for its expenditure.

Keeping the Momentum Going

New trusts and foundations are formed all the time, and good prospect research will help you to keep track of new funders. Many trusts and foundations deliberately maintain a low public profile as a way of managing the number of applications they receive, so investing time and effort in prospect research will widen your prospect pool.

To maintain momentum, use your database to log information about trusts and foundations, your applications to them and when your windows of opportunity to reapply arise.

You should develop a yearly calendar of activity that, if successful, will help you develop a steady income stream from this kind of funding.

• Determine and prioritise the trusts and foundations best aligned with your institution’s priorities and projects. Again, the 80/20 rule can be helpful: Spend the majority of time on the top prospects.
• Plan ahead, as most trusts and foundations have long grant cycles – i.e., the majority of your trust and foundation proposals should be submitted during the first half of your fundraising year.
• Thoroughly research priorities and guidelines outlined by the trust or foundation.
• Find a contact at the trust or foundation, even if you are cold calling to introduce your institution.
• Keep donors engaged and be aware of their future cycles/grant opportunities.

The cultivation process Prospect research Stewardship activities The case for support Proposal writing What to measure and what to report

Timing Can Be Everything

Watch out for trusts and foundations that reject repeat applications within a certain timeframe. You do not want to ask a funder for £1,000 now and throw away the opportunity to ask for £100,000 for a different project in a few months' time.

Most institutions have longstanding relationships with the business community through channels such as research sponsorship, graduate recruitment, supply chains, conferencing and consultancy.

It is important to understand the breadth and depth of these relationships so that you can nurture and expand them and use them as the model to form new relationships. Most larger companies support charities, and corporate gifts can be an important source of income for education institutions.

To devise a corporate fundraising strategy, you first need to look internally and understand how your institution already works with businesses.

You might find it useful to talk to your careers office, purchasing/finance office, commercialisation/enterprise office and service providers, such as conferencing or training providers. Find out with whom they work and how those relationships work and explore synergy and opportunities for cross marketing between your own fundraising activities and these other industry focused activities.

Examine your alumni database. For which businesses or organisations do your alumni work and how senior (influential) are they?

You should also understand the particular strengths of your institution from an industry perspective:

• Do you offer a business course that a certain industry sector appears to favour?
• Do you have expertise in a specialist area that companies will value?
• Do you have a track record of providing high-quality students for company placement schemes?
• Are you able to offer the best conferencing facilities in your region?

You need to understand the areas of your institution that might appeal to businesses and be able to communicate this in a clear, concise, businesslike manner.

Finally, research the businesses – those within your immediate vicinity, those with have a track record of supporting institutions like your own and those with activities and values that align with your institution.

There is a huge amount of information in the public domain, such as company annual reports and online listing of companies that support charities. You may find you have a large blue chip company on your doorstep that you are not currently working with. Why not? Alternatively, a high percentage of start-up companies might be in your area. Can you tailor a strategy to appeal to this specific sector?

When you are researching and prioritising companies, remember to check your gift acceptance policies. If you are raising funds for a new medical center, for example, you may not be able to accept tobacco company funds.

It’s Not Just About Philanthropic Fundraising

A company will look at your institution and see a single entity. The officers of that company will expect to be approached in a coordinated way and to hear about all the opportunities to work with your institution – not just philanthropic ones. Your cooperation with colleagues working in other areas will be important to your success.

Often a company will begin a relationship with an institution on a business-to-business basis – using the conference facilities or supplying computer equipment. It is the job of the institution to broaden this relationship into other areas, such as encouraging the business to sponsor students and recruit graduates.

Be aware that corporations have a variety of departments that may be able to support you. For example:

• Corporate foundations are typically similar to trusts or philanthropic foundations, providing a grant application and process.
• The marketing and PR department may lead sponsorship donations.
• Community and government relations may sponsor other activities.
• Individual business leaders often have their own discretionary budgets.

Navigating these various channels can be challenging, as each corporation is organized differently, and you must be sensitive when enquiring about additional funding sources. Cultivating and stewarding a close relationship with a senior member of the company (especially if he or she is an alum) can be beneficial in mapping out these channels, in understanding how they work together and in having a champion who can broker relationships that best align with your institution’s opportunities – and potentially be a candidate for an advisory board position.

It is also important to make a distinction between sponsorships and philanthropic donations, as they are governed by different financial and legal regulations.

Philanthropic donations  are altruistic, and the donor can expect no benefits in return. They are often made by a company foundation that has been created for this purpose.

A company  sponsoring  something, on the other hand, will expect something in return – such as publicity, event tickets and preferential treatment of some kind.

To understand the differences between the two and their associated implications in the UK, look at the Inland Revenue’s website,  www.hmrc.gov.uk/businesses/giving/sponsorship.htm .

Forms of Corporate Engagement

Here are some examples of how a company might support you. Not all the examples listed fall directly under the heading of fundraising, but they show the potential breadth of the relationship that you can develop.

• Sponsorship of students, events, sports teams, staff posts, buildings, labs, teaching rooms, student facilities, equipment, etc.
• Donations of equipment, expertise, prizes and services
• Ticket purchases for events, such as on-campus concerts and sports matches
• As lead donors in a campaign
• Access to their own specialist research facilities
• Graduate recruitment
• Students mentoring, placement and employment
• Providing teaching materials, such as case studies
• Research collaboration
• Investment in intellectual property commercialisation
• Guest lecturers
• Consultancy
• Conferencing
• Employee giving schemes
• Adopting your ‘cause’ as their charity of the year
• Survey the corporate relationships already established with your institution, the business leaders (i.e., potential champions) that are a part of your network and other companies that are located nearby or are known for supporting institutions with priorities and strengths similar to those of your institution.
• Prioritise the companies best aligned with your institution’s priorities and projects (again, the 80/20 Rule can be helpful – spending the majority of time on the top prospects). Be cautious of gift acceptance policies with corporations.
• Work with other appropriate departments at your institution to create a coordinated approach and cultivation strategy for these top prospects.
• Have a clear, succinct (i.e., business language) document that outlines the particular strengths of your institution from an industry perspective and the opportunities for a company to support.
• After identifying, cultivating and securing a gift, don’t underestimate the stewardship phase, as corporations respond well to recognition and generally have other avenues of funding that can be explored.
• Don’t forget to ask if a company matches employee gifts or charity income raised.

Role and importance of alumni relations The cultivation process Prospect research Events Partnering with other advancement-related departments Gift acceptance policies

Match That Gift!

Some larger employers will match charity income raised or donated by their staff, so if you have an alumnus as a donor or raising money for you, ask that person if his or her employer runs such a scheme.

In the UK and many countries around the world, universities have traditionally received a significant amount of their funding from government. Development directors should have an understanding of how government (also called statutory) funding works, how their institutions access it and any future forecasts for this funding (which may also affect philanthropic fundraising goals).

From time to time, governments may ring fence additional funds for special initiatives, which universities can bid for. It may be that much of this type of funding is already monitored and bid for by other areas of your institution, such as the research office. However, the development director is in a great position to identify and broker opportunities to work across departmental boundaries and with external contacts, such as philanthropic supporters, to develop or strengthen bids for government funding.

National lottery funding is also a well-established source of income for many charities and some universities in the UK. Many lottery funds welcome applications from education institutions but can place restrictions around eligibility, depending on the status of the institution. For example, the institution may have to be recognised as having ‘exempt charitable status’.

The guidelines for applying for lottery funding are detailed and freely available. Guidelines may vary between different funds and can depend on who is administering the funding. Development directors should be diligent in researching the potential of lottery funding as an income stream and should keep abreast of information regarding new funds that may offer new opportunities.

It is also worth considering partnership approaches to these types of funding. A university or educational institution may be precluded from being a main applicant in a submission for funding, but it could benefit as a partner in a larger application.

• Make sure you have an understanding of how government funding works, how your institutions access it, any future forecasts for this funding and how you can assist with special initiative funding if/when it becomes available.
• If lottery funding is available in your country, research the guidelines and determine if this funding stream is an appropriate match for your institution.

Partnering with other advancement-related departments Gift acceptance policies

Annual fund  is a catch-all term for fundraising activities that are designed to stimulate regular giving. It encompasses activities such as telephone campaigns, direct mail, e-appeals, inserts in alumni magazines, adverts and web-based appeals. These activities are important for many reasons, including that they:

• Provide income both for specific projects and unrestricted funds,
• Establish giving habits and enable patterns of giving to be tracked,
• Establish a donor pipeline, enabling the identification of donors with the potential capacity and propensity to give bigger gifts in the future,
• Increase donor participation rates,
• Help improve and keep data about prospects up to date,
• Are a great stewardship tool,
• Help reinforce core messages about an institution,
• Help identify the enthusiasts who might be leaders or significant volunteers and
• Strengthen the bonds between an institution and its prospects.

According to the 2010–2011 Ross-CASE Survey, the 143 institutions that participated in the survey (excluding Oxford and Cambridge, so as not to skew the data because of their large annual fund contributions) raised £21 million from annual fund cash income (up from £17 million in 2009–10). There was a very wide distribution across the higher education sector: 36 universities (25 percent) reported receiving no annual fund cash income; 49 (34 percent) received less than £50,000 in annual fund income; and 15 had annual funds that received £500,000 or more in cash income.

Planning an Annual Fund Strategy

When putting together your annual fund strategy you need to consider two main factors: (1) the volume and quality of your data, and (2) your investment budget. Annual funds are not cheap to run and require substantial investment before returns are seen.

You can obtain benchmarking data on annual funds at comparable institutions from the  Ross-CASE Survey,  which will provide you with indicative return on investment figures to assist your planning. Most annual funds comprise a combination of activities with a strong emphasis on telephone fundraising, as it tends to offer the best return on investment.

Telephone Fundraising

Telephone fundraising gives you a direct link with a prospect, offering a higher chance of success and the flexibility to be able to offer prospects multiple giving options (e.g., someone may dislike the idea of committing to a regular gift but may be interested in leaving a legacy instead). Telephone fundraising is also an opportunity to gather qualitative data on prospects that can be invaluable when identifying major gift prospects.

Telephone fundraising is a tightly managed process. Callers are rigorously trained and given scripts as the basis for their conversation with prospects. Commonly, prospects are alerted in advance, by letter or email, that they will be called.

Callers encourage donors to commit to regular gifts by direct debit or to increase their current giving levels of frequency of giving. During the call they will update the data held on prospects and listen out for indicators that prospects might have the potential to become major gift donors.

Direct Mail, Adverts, Inserts and Web-based Appeals

These methods of fundraising tend to be less effective than telephone fundraising, as they require more effort on the part of the prospect. Typically, fewer than 5 percent of recipients will respond.

However, these methods do help to reinforce the messages of the institution and encourage the momentum of shifting to a culture that is more accepting of fundraising to support higher education.

It costs very little to always carry an appeal on your website, and nothing at all to use your email footers, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and other e-media to promote appeals. It all helps to reinforce your fundraising messages.

Most important, you should make it easy for people to give. Donors won’t want to fill in long forms that then have to be put in an envelope and posted. Make things easy by introducing ‘text’ mobile phone giving, web-based giving and other shortcuts. Always stress the benefits of any tax or government incentives (e.g., gift aid in the UK) or corporate matching – to maximize the donor’s gift. Always suggest set amounts to guide the donor’s choice.

The Who, When and What of Asking

Many institutions aim to ‘ask’ all their donors at least once a year by whatever the most effective method they have at their disposal.

Whilst some institutions differentiate between major donors and annual fund donors, others do not. The risk in separating out major gift prospects is that they will go ‘unasked’ for long periods of time and lose interest in your institution. Receiving an annual appeal after having made a major gift would offend most major donors, however.

An important success factor in annual funds is the skilled segmentation of your database so people are asked at the right time and asked appropriately and the chances of success are maximised.

The most successful ‘asks’ are those that go to existing donors. They already know and like your institution and will be more like to renew or increase their gift (especially if they have been well-stewarded).

You also need to ask lapsed, occasional and nondonors so you can increase your donor pool and remain sustainable. You might segment your data in a number of ways: age, subject of study, gender, nationality, ‘warmth to institution’ and known capacity to give.

Your decision about when to make your asks should be based on several factors:

• Your accounting year. You might want to ask at the beginning of the accounting year so the gifts come in during that year.
• Your capacity to deal with the response. You need to ensure that you have sufficient staff and resources in place to cope with a peak in activity.
• The time of year. Avoid summer holidays, when people might be away, and months like January, when people have just suffered the expense of the holidays. Many institutions like to call during the autumn term, as it is the start of the academic year, people are returning to school and work after a summer break and are perhaps feeling more positive and energised than at other times of the year.
• The availability of suitable fundraising projects.

When considering what to ask people to support, you need to minimise the options available and tailor them to the segment you are approaching. For example, when contacting engineering graduates you might offer them two options - an unrestricted fund to support projects in the engineering faculty or the chance to sponsor engineering scholarships for students from deprived backgrounds – and propose one giving method on the donation form (e.g., direct debit).

The ask should be simple and easy to communicate to prospects: they need to be able to ‘get it’ within a very short space of time. Experience has shown that donors are more likely to give if they have fewer options.

Offering clear giving options is also helpful, especially if they can be related to the project. For example, the successful SendaCow.org charity equates donations to specific items: £10 buys a bag garden, £20 buys four chickens.

How to Know If It Is Working

Successful annual fund managers love numbers. They are great at looking at a multitude of numerical indicators to decide whether a campaign is working and at using these figures to inform future campaigns.

Return on investment weighed against the income generated per alum is an important factor. It might cost £20 to telephone an alumnus, but the return rate per 1,000 calls might be £20,000. Other measurements of success might include:

• Number of renewing donors,
• Number of lapsed donors renewing,
• Number of new donors,
• Numbers of legacy pledges or requests for legacy information,
• Number of major gift prospects identified,
• Number of gift level upgrades,
• Number of offers of nonfinancial support (volunteers),
• New data obtained (updated addresses, email addresses, mobile phone numbers, etc.) and
• Length of phone calls (indicative of interest in and warmth toward the institution).
• Carefully consider the budget, strategy, data, target audience, timing, staff capacity to implement and follow-up and expected ROI before launching an annual fund campaign.
• Every annual fund is different and needs to be tweaked to reflect the idiosyncrasies of each institution’s prospect pool. The key to success is to know your data and to tailor your campaigns and asking methods.

Role and importance of alumni relations Partnering with other advancement-related departments The database Prospect management Selecting the right communication channels

Most development offices rapidly devise a programme of events to support their work. These can range from exclusive lunches with the vice-chancellor and a small group of high-ranking supporters to events with several hundred guests.

Whichever events you choose to host, there are some important points to consider:

Why I am holding this event?

What aspects of the fundraising cycle will this target – to allow prospects to self select by their attendance (identification), to raise awareness or strengthen a relationship (cultivate), to raise funds (solicitation) or to say thank you (stewardship)? You should never begin to organise an event unless you have a clear idea of what you want it to achieve.

What are the results of a cost-benefit analysis?

Events can be costly. Sometimes costs can be defrayed by charging people to attend (although this can have a negative effect on attendance) or finding event sponsors. Be sure that investing in an event will boost your fundraising and will justify the cost.

Who is the target audience for this event?

With all events, it is useful to have a target audience in mind so that you can tailor the event to the audience’s expectations and needs to ensure its success – and to ensure that you have enough contacts and leads to get this target audience to attend your event. Remember, it may not always be the audience you expect, which is when your database, contact reports, prospect management system and savvy hosts are especially important.

Cutting the Cost

Events can be one of the biggest drains on the development office’s budget, but there are a number of ways to cut the costs:

• ‘Adopt’ existing events.  Most universities already have an events programme of sorts with special lectures, choir performances, sports matches, open days, etc. A clever development office can ‘adopt’ these events and invite prospects and donors along, boosting audience numbers while avoiding the burden of organisation.
• Charge an entrance fee.  If you are going to charge an entrance fee, the cost should be affordable and reflect the value of the event you are offering. Do not forget to take into account the extra time and administrative costs of processing ticket sales.
• Negotiate with your suppliers.  If you are regularly holding events on campus, you might be able to negotiate with caterers and other vendors for a discounted rate. Local hotels might be able to offer overnight guests special package details that tie in with your events. University suppliers might be prepared to donate items such as wine or food to support an event.
• Find a sponsor.  It might be possible to find a sponsor for all or some aspects of your event. You might also find that some high-level supporters (individuals or corporations) are willing to host events on your behalf at their homes, clubs or businesses.
• Use your volunteers.  Volunteers can be a great source of help when organising an event, especially large-scale events. Make sure you brief them properly and thank them. You might want to consider developing an ‘event information pack’ to assist people who want to organise their own events for peers (e.g., alumni reunions).

Some Tips for a Successful Event

You can find many resources online that will help you organise a professionally run event. These resources include information on events details such as the etiquette of name badges, the importance of parking and other practical issues. Here are some broader tips on how to make your event successful:

• Identify your hosts and make sure you have a good ratio of hosts to guests. Brief hosts well on the purpose of the event, their guests and their responsibilities. Make sure you debrief (and thank!) them afterward.
• Build strong relationships with the people who will make sure the event is a success – caterers, venue managers, security, parking attendants, etc. Make sure you thank everyone involved after an event so they will continue to do their best to make your future events a success.
• Avoid the generic and make an event memorable. Adapt menus, décor and promotional materials to reflect the nature and purpose of your event. For example, a university’s centenary dinner recreated the menu that was first served to celebrate the award of its original charter.
• Anticipate problems and have contingency plans in place. What will you do if it rains, someone falls ill or the venue is unavailable at the last minute? Every event should have a risk analysis and mitigation strategy.
• Identify significant guests and those who might require extra attention and ensure they are well cared for.
• Have an event timetable and make sure everyone sticks to it (but do not be overly rigid) – food should be served on time, speeches should not run over too much, etc.
• Have at least one readily available emergency point of contact for guests and organisers alike.
• Follow up. Thank your guests for coming, upload souvenir photos to the website, put a report of the event in your newsletter. If the event has generated cultivation leads, then follow them up promptly (e.g., a phone call to get feedback on the event, scheduling an in-person meeting, inviting them to a campus visit, etc.). Debrief with staff and use the experience you gained from one event to make the next one even more successful. Bear in mind that staff members are often so relieved that the event is finished that they underestimate the follow-up activity, where the real success can be generated.
• Above all, be endlessly polite, smile and never look like you are panicking!
• When developing your calendar of events, ensure that you prioritize events that support your cultivation efforts and help you best reach your development office goals (i.e., events typically focused on your top prospects and donors as the target audience), that there is a clear purpose, plan and follow-up strategy; and that you are leveraging cost-effective measures.
• Remember that sometimes less is more. Having a few quality events can often achieve your annual goals more effectively than many unfocused events.

Developing a fundraising strategy The cultivation process Cultivation of major gifts Cultivation of corporations Partnering with other advancement-related departments Leave behinds and printed materials

Team Work Pays Off

Attendance at a university's annual carol concert organised by the chaplaincy and student volunteers was low, as the event was under-promoted. The university's development office teamed with the chaplaincy, promoting the concert to local donors and alumni and offering an additional drinks reception. The chaplaincy was delighted with the bigger audience and the development office was able to cultivate and steward supporters and alumni by highlighting the cultural opportunities provided by the university.

Legacy fundraising is increasing in many countries around the world. In the UK it has been estimated that income to the charity sector from legacies will be £5.3 billion by 2050.

Many institutions adopt a reactive approach to legacies and passively wait for bequests to be notified before they take any action. However, increasingly institutions are developing proactive legacy programmes to encourage prospects not only to include the institution in their wills but also to inform the institution of that decision through making a ‘pledge’.

Knowing about the value of pledges helps institutions forecast the level of legacy income they might expect in the future.

Legacy fundraising is a medium- to long-term activity, but it requires only modest investment and can reap large dividends. There are several types of legacy gifts, including:

• Pecuniary legacies.  The deceased leaves a specific amount to the institution.
• Residuary legacies.  The deceased leaves the residual of his estate to the institution once all the pecuniary legacies have been fulfilled.
• Proportional legacies.  The deceased leaves a set percentage of her estate to the institution.
• Bequests of specific items.  The deceased leaves an item, such as a piece of art or a collection of books, to the institution.

Pecuniary legacies and bequests of specific items tend to be easier to obtain, but residuary and proportional legacies tend to be of higher value. Bequests of specific items can also be problematic (e.g., it is great if someone bequests a Van Gogh painting, but you are also left with the responsibility of storing, insuring and transporting it; if you are left a house, there may be a sitting tenant). Having a gift acceptance policy can help with these challenges.

Getting Past the Taboos

Leaving a legacy should be viewed, not as a depressing activity, but rather as a positive opportunity to make a positive impact, both financially and socially.

When discussing legacies with a prospect it is important to be professional and knowledgeable but also empathic and reassuring. You should not approach legacy discussions dressed in black and wearing a sombre expression. What you are asking someone to do is life-affirming and not wholly focused on the difficult topic of his or her demise.

Legacy fundraising is a very people-focused activity. To be successful, legacy fundraisers must develop strong trust-based relationships with their prospects.

Telling People About Legacy Opportunities

There are several ways to inform people about the opportunity to leave a legacy. For example:

• Through your website. Have a clear guide to leaving a legacy available as a download or to read online. Make sure the link is from your homepage.
• Through articles in your alumni magazine and other publications about how legacies have made a difference and interviews with legacy pledgers about their motivations to leave a legacy.
• Through online podcasts and video interviews with legacy pledgers.
• Through inserts in mailshots.
• Through telephone campaigns (to provide information, not make a request).
• During visits and in-person meetings with prospects.
• At events, with leaflets and posters.
• Through free ‘will clinics’ with legal professionals.
• By a promotion during Will Aid’s ‘make a will’ month ( www.willaid.org.uk/ ).

Send out consistent, regular and upfront message about legacies, and use as many communication channels as possible to keep the idea of leaving a legacy at the forefront of every prospect’s mind. The topic of legacies should be communicated in a manner that actively promotes and celebrates legacies as a way of helping people.

Making It Easy

For many prospects, making a will is a daunting prospect. They worry it will be a complicated and expensive process and they do not know where to start.

By developing a legacy information pack, you can guide prospects through this process. You need to make sure that you are up-to-date with any relevant legislation and best practice guidelines and to ensure that your pack reflects this knowledge. Your pack should be written in accessible language and have a systematic guide to leaving a legacy. It should ‘sign post’ prospects to sources of further information and provide them with examples of well-written bequests.

Having expertise within the team is important, as prospects benefit from talking to a well-informed fundraiser. You might also want to develop links with legal professionals who can offer impartial advice to your prospects.

It may be several years before you realise the cash benefit of a legacy. During this time, you have the opportunity to deepen the relationship between your institution and the legator.

With appropriate stewarding, you can ensure that the legator feels good about his or her pledge and encourages others to make pledges. If you keep a legator informed about your institution’s projects, he might even be moved to increase his bequest or make a more immediate financial contribution.

Stewarding should involve regular communications about projects that a legacy might support, paying regular courtesy calls and visits to the legator and informing the legator about changes in the law and financial regulations that might affect her. Some institutions run ‘legacy clubs’ and hold regular events for legacy pledgers.

Have Systems in Place

Ideally, you want your legators to tell you about the legacies they have planned, as it will help you to plan. However, not everyone will choose to do so, and it is difficult to predict when those legacies you do know about will be realised. You need to have systems in place to deal with legacies as they are realised.

It is likely that you will have to deal with bereaved relatives or their representatives who simply want the estate to be settled as soon as possible. It is in everyone’s interests that you can respond quickly when accepting a legacy and complying with the legator’s requests.

In Memoriam

Related to legacies are ‘in memoriam’ gifts, which are given in memory of someone – perhaps a colleague, former tutor or alumni peer.

These are very personal appeals and often draw first-time donors to the institution. They require careful management of donor expectations and an open dialogue between the institution and the donor as to how the donation should be spent. If these gifts are poorly managed, the institution can run the risk of holding funds for a statue they did not want or having insufficient funds to meet the ambitious expectations of donors.

It is sensible to channel ‘in memoriam’ gifts into suitable appeal projects (e.g., scholarship programmes) and to have gift recognition policies to define the ways in which the subject of the ‘in memoriam’ gift can be recognised (e.g., a tree planted in a memorial wood, a plaque on a memorial wall or book plates in library books).

Action Item

• Legacy programmes can be extremely beneficial for the institution’s mid- and long-term sustainability, but you need to be thoughtful in how you set them up. Consult with a legal professional and other institutions with successful programmes; partner with your finance and marketing departments; ensure materials are appropriate, policies in place, the appropriate fundraiser is leading the effort and a stewardship plan is in place.

Stewardship activities Characteristics of a successful fundraiser Partnering with other advancement-related departments Gift accounting and reporting Gift acceptance policies Gift recognition policies

The term  stewardship  covers the administration of gifts and the overseeing, protection and care of your relationship with a donor to strengthen and preserve that relationship over time.

Stewardship is important, as it ensures that the donor has a positive giving experience that will influence both future giving behaviour and what the donor will say about your institution to other prospective donors.

It is far more likely that an existing donor will give again than that a non-donor will begin giving. Every donation, regardless of its value, should be well stewarded.

Who Is Responsible for Stewardship?

Everyone involved in the fundraising process and in the implementation of projects that have benefited from funds raised and who has benefited directly from funding shares responsibility for stewardship. All must be prepared to participate in stewardship activities.

It is particularly important that senior staff are prepared to spend time with major gift donors, who normally prefer to develop long-term relationships on a peer-to-peer basis rather than simply receive written updates about projects. If an institution has 1,000 donors, it is impossible for a single fundraiser to properly steward everyone and still recruit new donors, so stewardship must be a shared activity.

The Stewardship Process

Stewardship begins during the cultivation phase of fundraising.

During this phase, fundraisers develop an understanding of a prospect’s giving motivations and expectations around stewardship. A good fundraiser will gently manage the expectations of a prospect during the cultivation and solicitation process, both to ensure that they are compatible with the institution’s capacity to deliver and are proportionate to the size of gift.

For example, a modest donor giving £1,000 to support scholarships cannot expect a personal dinner with the vice-chancellor and monthly meetings with the scholarship programme director. However, the donor might expect an invitation to an annual scholarship prize giving, a written note of thanks from one of the scholars and a yearly report on the progress of the funded scholars.

It is important that, at the point of solicitation, both the fundraiser and the prospect have the same understanding of the level of stewardship that is appropriate. For larger gifts, gift acceptance and recognition agreements may be appropriate. For annual fund appeals, the appeal material should state up front the level of stewardship a donor might expect.

You might find it useful to set some internal stewardship guidelines. Start with the basic level of stewardship that donors at the entry level should expect (e.g., gift processed and receipted within five workings days, written thank you within seven working days, annual report via email, etc.). Develop bands of stewardship relating to different levels of giving. Naturally, these guidelines will be flexible, and many major donors will have their own ideas of how they want their relationship with your institution to develop. Having a set of guidelines will help you design appropriate stewardship strategies that you can fulfill with your limited resources.

Things You Can Do to Make a Donor Feel Valued

There are many things you can do to make donors feel valued. With a little imagination these can be adapted to different campaigns and institutions. Here are a few suggestions:

• Process gifts efficiently and promptly.  It reassures donors about your professional competence and helps donors manage their own personal finances efficiently.
• Write thank you letters.  These letters should be, not just automatically generated receipt letters, but handwritten letters from the beneficiaries of a project or letters that have been personally signed by a senior member of the institution.
• Publicly acknowledge them as donors.  Print their names in the alumni magazine, sports and arts programmes. Have their names running along the bottom of the scoreboards at sports matches. Put donor plaques on seat backs and book plates in new library books.
• Name things after major donors.  Naming opportunities include buildings, events, courses, research programme, staff posts and roads/pathways.
• Invite them to events  to hear more about your work, meet other donors and the beneficiaries of their generosity.
• Take people to see them  and update them on the good their donation is doing.
• Send reports, updates, photographs and other items  about the projects they are supporting. Don’t inundate them, but keep the information relevant and personal.
• With your donor’s permission,  publicise their generosity  in the press or write to their employer to say how grateful you are for your donor’s support and advice.
• Develop a special area of your website with project updates  that can only be accessed by certain donors.
• Remember and  recognise events that are special to them,  such as birthdays, promotions, weddings, religious/cultural celebrations, etc.
• Ask them not just for their money  but their expertise, advice and time.
• Personalise communications as much as you can,  even if it is as simple as attaching a handwritten note to a project report.
• Let your donors hear directly from people they have helped,  so give them opportunities to interact with students, academic staff and other beneficiaries.

Let Technology Help You

Your communications with donors should be frequent enough to maintain momentum in the relationships. Technology can help you.

For example, you can:

• Schedule regular reports to donors that are populated with statistics gathered automatically from projects,
• Include regular touch points in your annual calendar,
• Set up reminders to contact donors at regular intervals or when special anniversaries are coming up and
• Segment your database to generate guest lists for stewardship events.

The more you can automate stewarding tasks, the easier it will be to handle a large volume of donors.

A well-stewarded donor will retain a high level of warmth toward an institution and is more likely to give larger or more frequent gifts and to maintain a relationship with an institution for a long time. Investment in stewardship is an important component of a sustainable fundraising activity.

• Determine stewardship guidelines for each giving level, use technology to ensure stewardship is a regular part of fundraising activities and engage others in the stewardship process.
• Always remember that stewardship feeds back into the cultivation phase of the fundraising cycle. It is easier to obtain a gift from a current donor than secure a new donor gift. Donors who only hear from the institution with financial solicitations disengage quickly.

Developing a fundraising strategy The cultivation process Cultivation of major gifts Events Gift accounting and reporting Gift recognition policies Selecting the right communication channels

Development operations are the activities that hold everything together – data management, gift processing, office procedures and event management. Without strong operations, your development activities will flounder. Achieving strong development operations requires good planning, time management and HR skills.

Plan Your Year

You need to include development operations in your strategic planning so that you can anticipate periods of intense activity and ensure that you have the capacity and resources in place to deal with it.

For example, in the month following a major appeal you may be inundated with gifts (hopefully), queries, changes of address and other contacts, so you need have sufficient capacity to deal with these tasks properly and promptly. When planning your year, take into account the calendar of your institution. There may be pre-existing events that you can leverage, budgeting deadlines, board meetings, and times you will need to avoid making significant requests of leadership and academics, such as examination periods.

Encourage Communication

If you are just establishing your office, you probably have a relatively small team. It is important that the team members understand one another’s roles and can support one another as required. An alumnus with a simple enquiry about his standing order start date won’t want to hear that the gift processer is on holiday for two weeks and no one can help him. He will expect an answer from whoever picks up the telephone. Cross training is helpful, and regular briefing meetings to share information can be useful.

Establish office systems as soon as possible and encourage staff to comply with them. You will probably need to develop some templates to support these systems, such as contact report forms, event checklists and briefing templates. It is also advisable to establish some basic procedures and expectations – e.g., that the telephone is answered within four rings, emails are responded to within two working days, etc.

You also need to make sure that you are presenting a consistent and strong face to the world. Make sure that email footers are consistent, that the telephone is always answered the same way and that you comply with the institution’s brand guidelines.

Work Efficiently

Use your database and other technical tools to help you automate your activities as much as possible. Set task reminders, share calendars and discover how to personalise and print mailings directly from your database. Set time aside for regular essential tasks such as weekly financial tasks, monthly bank reconciliations, prospect reviews and updating contact records.

• In addition to your fundraising strategy, ensure that you have a thorough calendar of activities, well-defined staff roles, regular communication methods and clear office procedures and systems in place – and that staff members understand and are bought in to these operations.

Reviewing the current situation Developing a fundraising strategy Office structures Working with the finance office Working with human resources The database Contacts reports Gift accounting and reporting

Please note that the term  advancement  is often used when talking about fundraising in an educational context. As defined by CASE, the term encompasses alumni relations, communications, fundraising, marketing and allied areas.

Whilst this resource touches on all areas of advancement, its primary focus is on fundraising, or development. The terms  development office  and  development director  have been adopted to reflect this approach.

Many institutions have broad-based advancement offices, and the CASE website provides in-depth guidance on the wider aspects of advancement, including alumni relations, communications and marketing.

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The Guide to Creating a Perfect Nonprofit Case Statement

A nonprofit case statement is a summary of your organization’s work. These case statements are helpful in several scenarios, but can be especially useful when connecting with potential sponsors or reaching out to major donors during a capital campaign. This article will explain what to include and how to make your case statement stand out in the crowd.

A nonprofit case statement is a summary of your organization’s work. Think of it as an elevator pitch . Salespeople can spend hours, even days, perfecting their elevator pitch before making a sale. As a nonprofit fundraiser, you should spend no less time on your case statement.

Case statements are helpful in several scenarios but can be especially helpful when connecting with potential sponsors or reaching out to major donors during a capital campaign. The article will explain what you need to include in your nonprofit case statement and how to make it stand out in the crowd.

What is a Nonprofit Case Statement?

A case statement is a valuable tool for nonprofits to explain their purpose and impact . The point of these pieces is to show how your nonprofit is different and how donor gifts help you make a difference. Case statements can be used for major donor appeals, corporate sponsorship proposals, and even added to the website to appeal to a larger audience. Nonprofits may assume sharing their mission is enough, but they can tell compelling stories and share images using brochures, website pages, and annual reports with a strong case statement.

Case statements can be any length. Organizations get the best results when these case statements are targeted toward specific campaigns and appeals.

We understand creating a great case statement (especially for the first time) can be a little tricky. Donorbox nonprofit coach Cara Augspurger talks all about the persuasive power of case statements to inspire nonprofits in the podcast episode below.

What are the Essential Components of a Great Nonprofit Case Statement?

Great case statements include more than just facts and figures. You may have educated millions of children without explaining why and how. The number feels unimportant to many donors, no matter how large. When creating a case statement, a few aspects must be included.

1. The problem

You’ve built a nonprofit to address a need. Here is where you must share the depth of the issue with your donors . If you’re addressing homelessness or poverty, there are statistics everywhere you can include in your case statement.

Other needs may be more difficult to highlight. In these cases, you can look at your mission and discuss the original purpose with board members to come up with a convincing reason for your existence.

2. Why you are different

There are probably hundreds of other nonprofits committed to addressing the same problem. How are you different? Have you been around for a longer time? Do you have specialized skills or a new way to address the problem? When developing your case statement, be sure to focus on this section to help your organization stand out to the donor.

3. Your beneficiaries and their stories

This section is probably the most important. Honestly, donors do not care about your nonprofit’s history. They care about the people you’re trying to help. Giving your supporters compelling stories that share the results of their gifts automatically catches their attention and connects them with your organization. Nonprofits can share these stories with letters to donors or even video interviews. Tales that reveal how an individual’s life improved thanks to the donors’ gifts will have the best results.

4. How donations are used

After sharing stories and images that catch the eye, it is time to explain exactly how donor funds are used. People and companies are not exactly jumping at opportunities to give their money away. Donors are more aware than ever before and want to know their donations are going where they’re most needed. Your nonprofit can give them peace of mind in your case statement by specifying how your organization uses its gifts.

For example, if your organization provides education , break it down.

• How many students have been benefited?
• Which are the age groups you’re helping?
• What are you teaching?
• What products are being provided students with for the best education?

These details are only part of the way to address donor concerns. Other information you can provide like how many students graduate each year and what their prospects are for the future, thanks to your organization. By addressing both the now and future for these students, you flesh out the need for your organization.

5. Why people should trust your organization

Trust is critical to donor giving. After giving your supporters an in-depth explanation of how their gifts help, your organization can address additional trust concerns in a few different ways.

5.1 Testimonials

Stories from beneficiaries are not the only ones your case statement should include. Find a few donors willing to share their experience with the organization. Ask them why they originally came to the organization, what responses they receive from the nonprofit after giving, and how communication is between them. Peer reviews give donors assurance that you will treat them well.

Also, by sharing ways your organization looks for donor opinions and advice to improve the organization, you can entice more involvement.

5.2 Transparency websites

Companies like Guidestar and Charity Navigator give donors financial and program information on nonprofits. These websites also rate nonprofits on financial health, accountability, and transparency. Adding this rating to your case statement will ensure that donors trust your nonprofit.

How to Best Structure a Nonprofit Case Statement

Case statements can be beautiful brochures or shared online. Adding images and infographics can make your piece more compelling and easier to understand. Remember to include other facts and stories to draw the attention of different donors .

Here’s how you should structure the perfect case statement for your nonprofit.

1. Start with your mission, imagery, and a tagline

Start with your mission and a suitable picture to grab attention right away. In the image below, the picture can melt one’s heart while the line underneath gives a powerful yet concise view of the mission. The below example has been taken from Outta the Cage ‘s case statement.

2. Letter from leadership

Letters from your organization’s Executive Director or Board Chairperson provide transparency and trust for your donors. This letter should acknowledge donors’ efforts to help the organization reach its mission and share the nonprofit’s vision for the future. Here’s what Lady Freethinker (LFT) has added to their case statement.

3. Tell your nonprofit’s history

Give a complete look at your nonprofit – your history, where you’re located, and how you intend to grow from this history. This will help your potential donors understand your organization and feel more comfortable supporting once they can see how much you’ve grown.

4. Say what you do

Here is where you want to explain exactly what your organization offers. But it is important not to make too lengthy or overly descriptive. Turn it into an infographic that keeps the amount of text to a minimum and concisely depicts all aspects of your work.

5. Show the impact

Share details on how your organization has already made a difference. This is the perfect place to add an infographic with facts, numbers, percentages, and more that matter to donors who make the impact possible. Check out how Code for America details their impact using eye-catching graphics. This makes the information easy to digest while still illustrating their impactful work!

6. Let people visualize your goals

Your vision is big and you’re relentlessly pursuing it. But sponsors and donors must believe in your vision, and for that, they must fully understand it.

Outlining your goals in your case statement is a great opportunity for donors to see a role for themselves in your mission. If they can visualize a specific way they can help, they’ll be more likely to support your cause.

7. Build transparency

Your case statement is an opportunity to paint a holistic picture of your organization – which includes your transparency.

Testimonials are a great thing to share to build up your organization’s reputation and transparency. Share any awards or reviews your nonprofit has received from reputable websites. You can also build transparency by including financial records and annual reports for further study about how your organization uses funds.

8. Mention ways to give

This is vital! After donors read through the case statement, they are primed and ready to give. Here is where you want to share exactly how you want them to support the organization. If your organization is in the middle of a capital campaign , you’ll want to give specific details on how to help your efforts.

Also, add ways to donate to your general giving campaign – the different methods, the events that are coming up, any crowdfunding or peer-to-peer campaigns, and other ways to get involved.

Final Thoughts

Case statements are one of the most powerful tools a nonprofit can use to raise funds. Whether you need it for a capital campaign or general donor communications, your case statement must explain the need your organization serves and how you do it. Throughout your case statement, find ways to address the donor’s or sponsor’s hesitancy with testimonials and assure them that you could not fix the problem without their support.

When you share ways to give, a great way to increase donations is to direct or link to an online donation page. Donorbox provides nonprofits with customizable online donation forms and other advanced features . To learn more about what we have to offer, visit our website .

Read weekly fundraising tips and resources on our Nonprofit Blog and subscribe to our newsletter.

Kristine Ensor

Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.

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Case Study: How One Non-Profit Turned Their Fundraising Around Through Better Planning

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a mid-sized non-profit that was struggling mightily to raise money. The organization had been around for several years, and like many non-profits in the post-startup phase, had gotten big enough to be adding staff and services for clients, but was still small enough that there was no full-time development director.

When I sat down with the Executive Director and Board Chairwoman, it was clear that this organization had big plans, but no clue how to raise the revenue to get there. This fact was clear from their answer to the first question I asked…

Me: “Can I see your fundraising plan?”

Them: “We need to raise $550,000 this year.”

Me: “Can I see the written plan for how you plan to do that?”

Them: “We don’t have one.”

Instead of a written (or even an “in our head only”) fundraising plan, this non-profit simply jumped at every fundraising opportunity that came across their desks.

Story in the paper about a similar organization getting a grant? Let’s drop everything and spend the rest of the week writing a grant proposal for that same foundation!

Board member has an idea for a new fundraising event? Great! Let’s hold it next month. I’ll get an invitation list together today.

Executive Director realizes the organization hasn’t sent out a fundraising letter yet this year? Let’s send one out on Friday!

The non-profit had spent two years operating this way… jumping from task to task, idea to idea, raising money in bits and pieces here and there. Thus far, they had managed to stay afloat, but had not been able to break away from living hand to mouth, fundraising receipt to fundraising receipt.

A Common Problem

This is no way to run a successful non-profit, yet it is a very common problem I see at small and mid-sized organizations. Far too many otherwise strong charities are running without a written fundraising plan. ( For more information on why you need a written fundraising plan, read How to Write a Successful Fundraising Plan ).

When I ask why, they generally tell me that it is because developing a fundraising plan would take too much time… or that they would need to spend a ton of money bringing in a consultant to write the plan for them.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Developing a written fundraising plan need not be onerous or costly. In fact, your non-profit can follow the same path I took with the organization mentioned above. Here’s how we went about developing a solid, written fundraising plan to guide their development efforts over the following year:

1. Gather the Stakeholders

First, we gathered all of the key stakeholders at the non-profit across several different meetings, including board members, key donors, staff, and other supporters. At these meetings, we discussed where the organization was headed, what types of fundraising these supporters would be willing to help us do, and where these folks saw opportunities for further growth in our efforts.

2. Develop a Budget

Second, I asked the organization to develop a budget for the coming year. Shockingly, this non-profit was operating without a budget – they had no financial plan together for how money was to be spent the coming year. I told them that it is impossible to develop a fundraising plan without knowing how much you need to raise, and it is impossible to know how much you need to raise without knowing how much you need to spend the coming year.

The organization developed a budget for what they wanted to spend on programs and overhead, and we used that as a guide for how much we needed to raise.

3. Review Past Fundraising Efforts

Third, the staff and I took a close look at the organization’s past fundraising efforts. They had some huge financial successes, and a couple of big blunders. What had worked in the past? What didn’t work? What could have worked if it had been done a little differently?

4. Develop a Fundraising Calendar

Next, we pulled all of the strategies and tactics we wanted to incorporate into the coming year’s fundraising efforts and developed a fundraising calendar that listed what we were going to do, when we were going to do it, and who was going to be responsible for making each task happen. We also listed revenue and expense goals for each fundraising tactic.

Due to the limited resources at this organization, we decided to use this fundraising calendar as the “meat” of our fundraising plan, rather than writing out a 45 page narrative.

5. Get Buy-In

Once the plan was completed, the final step was to get buy-in from everyone who had a stake in its success.

First, we held a meeting with the staff (including the program staff) to explain the plan and what we needed from each staff member. Then, we met presented the plan at a board meeting and had the board vote to officially approve the plan. Finally, we took the plan back to the donors we consulted in step 1 and showed them the finished product and asked them to get on board and help us expand our fundraising network.

Ultimately, the plan was a huge success . The organization, which had been shifting aimlessly from tactic to tactic in years past instead followed the plan, and by year two had become so successful that they were able to hire a full time development director as well as attract several major multi-year gifts through the tactics laid out in the fundraising plan we developed.

Photo credit: StarGardener

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Case Studies of Successful Raffles and Their Impact

Understanding the Power of Raffles

Raffles have long been a popular way for organizations to raise funds for charitable causes. They offer participants the chance to win exciting prizes while supporting a good cause at the same time. But what makes a raffle successful, and how can organizations ensure that their raffle has a positive impact ?

The Impact of Successful Raffles

When done right, successful raffles can have a significant impact on the organizations they support. Not only do they raise funds, but they also engage the community and raise awareness for the cause. Additionally, they provide an opportunity for businesses to get involved by donating prizes, which can lead to valuable partnerships and increased exposure.

Case Study: The Annual Community Center Raffle

One example of a successful raffle is the annual community center raffle held by a local nonprofit organization. Each year, the organization sells raffle tickets to community members, with the proceeds going towards funding after-school programs and recreational activities for local youth.

By engaging local businesses to donate prizes, such as gift certificates, event tickets, and electronics, the organization is able to generate excitement around the raffle and increase ticket sales. The raffle drawing is held at a community event, further engaging the community and bringing attention to the organization’s mission.

Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Through the success of the annual community center raffle, certain best practices have emerged. One key lesson learned is the importance of strong partnerships with local businesses. By leveraging these partnerships, the organization is able to secure high-value prizes and increase awareness for the raffle.

Additionally, the organization has found that promoting the raffle in advance through social media and community outreach efforts can significantly boost ticket sales. Creating a sense of excitement and anticipation for the raffle drawing is crucial to its success.

Expanding Impact Beyond Fundraising

Successful raffles can also have an impact beyond fundraising. They provide an opportunity for organizations to connect with their community, foster a sense of unity, and showcase the important work they are doing. By highlighting the impact of the funds raised through the raffle, organizations can demonstrate their commitment to making a difference and encourage continued support.

Ultimately, case studies of successful raffles demonstrate the power of community engagement, strategic partnerships, and effective promotion. When executed thoughtfully, raffles can not only raise funds but also raise awareness, strengthen relationships, and create lasting impact for the organizations they support. To uncover additional and supplementary details on the topic covered, we dedicate ourselves to offering a rewarding learning journey . https://charitysafaris.com/8-companies-that-give-donations-for-raffles/ .

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MediaMarktSaturn Germany

From gaming PCs, coffee machines, washing machines, and beyond, people shop at mediamarkt.de for great products and deals. The goal was to activate a new incremental performance display channel to maintain high efficiency at scale and improve ROAS. That’s why the team decided to work with Microsoft Advertising.

The solution

Remarketing combined with Microsoft’s audience intelligence is driving high-quality traffic and user engagement delivering incremental revenue at scale.

• After successful test in Summer 2023 agency and the client decided to incorporate feed-based audience campaign as an evergreen approach for the holiday season. Because the feed-based campaign was performing well, client and the agency decided to expand in November and December.
• Audience ads were driving incremental revenue, delivered competitive media KPIs and outperforming other platforms in terms of ROAS.
• MediaMarktSaturn Brand resonated extremely well with Microsoft tech savvy audience and the workday consumer browsing and shopping on Microsoft properties like: Microsoft Start, Edge and Outlook.

To achieve high efficiency at scale and improve ROAS, the team created a remarketing campaign that leveraged Microsoft’s audience intelligence, and:

• Incorporated a feed-based audience campaign for the holiday season.
• Included Audience ads to drive incremental revenue, deliver competitive media KPIs and outperform ROAS compared to other platforms.

"With Microsoft, we were able to reach very engaged audiences."

— Elke Fuchs, Teamlead Digital Paid Media, MediaMarktSaturn

The results

The MediaMarkt Campaign resonated extremely well with tech savvy Microsoft audiences—in fact, the Microsoft Audience Campaign delivered a 23x higher ROAS compared to other campaigns. The precise targeting approach combined with the Microsoft audience intelligence consistently delivered high-quality traffic, which was well monetized. The conversion rate on the Microsoft feed-based campaign was 26x higher compared to other campaigns.

Competitive bids and easy to implement campaign setup empowered the MediaMarkt team to achieve more volume than anticipated. With the Microsoft feed-based audience campaign, MediaMarkt generated a 14x higher revenue within the October through December campaign timeframe.

With the incredible success of this initiative, MediaMarkt will continue optimizing their performance campaigns. In the near future, MediaMarkt also plans to take advantage of Microsoft’s omni-channel, multi format solutions across the entire customer journey.

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