Two blown fundraising opportunities
- Mon, June 15 2009
- Filed under: Fundraising essentials
I know I’ve been working too much when I can’t take off my nonprofit marketing and fundraising hats.
But I can’t, so I thought I’d reflect on two blown opportunities I recently noticed.
One was a long commentary on the need to support the homeless, which aired on my local NPR affiliate. It took a compelling topic and wrung out all the humanity. Not a single person or story made a cameo. Just mind-numbing stats and policy jargon. Tragic.
The second was my daughter’s school cafeteria. They sent home a memo asking how to refund unused money in her account. I wanted to donate it to kids who forget their lunch or to support the cafeteria, but that was not an option they gave.
Make it irresistable and easy to give. One amazing story on NPR or one checkbox on the school lunch form could have prompted an act of charity. Instead, they were lost opportunities.
I spend so much time saying things like this - common sense, plain and simple. But I’m afraid I’ll keep saying them, because somehow we forget the fundamentals all too often. Look at your existing marketing and materials, and make sure you aren’t missing the obvious. You don’t necessarily need something new and shiny. You may simply need something old and proven.
Comments
Our middle school SGA did do this! yay! They had a big ice cream social canceled (each kid prepaid $5)—they asked to check box for a refund or to put it towards next year’s SGA program… I thought that was pretty
smart!
Katya,
The only ubiquitous giving that happens in our community is people giving old clothes to Goodwill. That’s good.. how did they get there?
We’re officially launching ellohay! West Michigan, a soon-to-be 501(c)(3) organization who works to get kids free computers, education, tech support and hi-speed internet access.
In the future, every time we have an open house, a fundraiser, anything where people gather, we’re requiring people to bring in something small to contribute to the community, a piece of art, a can of corn, a $5 gift card to a grocery store, baby formula, diapers… anything.
Then we can distribute it to gleaners, shelters etc, that don’t get the same traffic in their doors that we do.
Now that’s good for everyone else, but what can we do to make tech-related giving ubiquitous?
Besides getting every other nonprofit to work for us, the way we’re working for them. 
We already know that one, and we’re working on it.