Non-profit fundraising - suggestions?

[conradd]

I'm putting this in Business Beat since it has to do with the business of running a non-profit. Two years ago, a friend and I formed a foundation to benefit our troops - primarily Marines - and their families. So far, our biggest annual effort has been Operation Santa and we've sent over 30,000 filled Christmas stockings so far to deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The foundation is a way for us to provide tax receipts for donations - all money donated goes directly to troop support. And most of the donations that we get are in the $25-50 range. So far, it's been very difficult to reach the places that can write substantial checks. For instance, Flags of our Fathers is a blockbuster movie that is making a profit from the lives of WWII Marines. I would love to get in touch with Warner Brothers or Dreamworks Pictures and ask them for a donation to support currently deployed Marines. If there's a foundation for either company, I haven't found it.

Do any of you have suggestions on how to approach corporate donors? When I read the guidelines for charitable giving for most retailers and large businesses, they focus on specific areas - education, health, or children - and I haven't been able to find anything that lists military as an area of interest. How can I tailor our message to attract more sizable donations? It's not that we don't appreciate any gift, no matter how small, but we're trying to get our message out to a different audience and if any of you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

oh crap, I wrote a whole big long response and the computer ate it. But basically:

1) Read grant offerings. Just because they don't say "military" doesn't mean they won't consider "military." Apply for a lot, even longshots. If you don't get anything, you've made a contact and maybe given them an idea.

2) Cold-call or write to companies. Take the stuff you learned from the education and children stuff and write up your nonprofit, what you do, what you need, what you're looking for. This includes the movie company Maybe they already give elsewhere, maybe they haven't thought of giving. If you don't get anything, you've made a contact and maybe given them an idea.

3) Approach those groups that fly under the radar, like fraternal groups (e.g. Freemasons), college groups (they've got parents, and the parents might have money or work for an organization that does), and religious bodies (from local churches to denominations). To use the Masons as an example, approach a local lodge and you might get a check for $100. If they talk it up in the district, the district might send a check for $1,000. If the district talks it up in the state, you might get a check for $10,000. And maybe the Worshipful Master of the lodge at the other end of the state works for IBM.

Basically blanket yourself and your message EVERYWHERE. Send out a LOT of stuff. Send press releases to the papers. Go nuts sending letters to everyone in the phone book. Response rates are woefully low... but once you have a response, you stay in touch with that contact and build a relationship, ask this person for more contacts, etc. That's how this stuff grows. It's hard, but that's how it works.

Places to check:
Guidestar.org - make sure your organization is listed there and everything's accurate.
GrantStation.com - grants grants grants and did I mention grants?
The Chronicle of Philanthropy - weekly newspaper, excellent for nonprofit managment

I've got books on grantwriting at home - will look 'em up when I get home. (If I forget, someone bump me!)

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

PS just because a corporation doesn't have a foundation listed anywhere doesn't mean that a) a foundation doesn't exist or b) they don't donate to charities anyway, just not through a foundation.

[hadassahchana[$]]

I've done this for fundraisers before, and I really raked in the dollars and donations of goods. First, offer free advertising- on your websites, on flyers, on anything you hand out.

Next, get them to give more than money. For example, we got a bookstore to donate about $1000 wholesale of children's books. They got the $3000 tax receipt and loads of advertising, and we made about $2500 in book sales by marking them up to just below retail. We advertised it as the School book sale sponsered by the *** company.

Design a logo, a really great-looking one. Then for every large donation, give the company the right to use the "Proud Supporter Of Giving Stuff To Deb's Foundation" along with your logo on their website and perhaps in their year-end prospectus.

Ask for goods and coupons as well as dollars. Ask about an employee matching-funds porogram to allow their employees to feel involved. Heck, ask at your own places of employment about doing a similar fundraiser- for every dollar you donate, ask them for a dollar. Get all of your supporters to do the same.

Look for grants from various foundations. You'd be surprised at the variety of grants out there, and if you can get the right angle when writing your proposal, you have an excellent chance of getting the money. I wrote a grant to get money to build a butterfly garden for a school (although they eventually decided not to plant it for fear of attracting bugs ) . By ppresenting it as both an environmental isue as well as a science project, I got two different grants from two different organizations and that would have been enough to pay for the entire project.

Get local performers to do a fundraiser. Concerts, plays are good draws, especially accompanied by auctions of cool loot donated by local businesses.

Get a group of nice restuarnats in your area to hold an evening of interesting food or wine-tasting or beer-tasting (OMG, Portland microbreweries!). Those are always huge draws, people laove going to stuff like that.

Never be afraid to just call up large corporations and ask for stuff and money. They budget for donations in their publicity/advertising dept. You want to ask for the person in charge of marketing, unless they have a dept. specifially for donations. Most don't.

Be creative in how you look for businesses. For our school fundraiser, I not only got donations of food (it was an event where we sold cute gifts and things to put in gift-baskets of food for a holiday) we also asked for paper products, decorting things to make the gym look cute, price labels from Office Depot, and even aprons for our volunteers so we'd all match. So, you could ask Hanes for socks. You might ask various food companies for either money or goodies to send to the Santa thingy.

Ask private citizens. When I fundraised for the teen prgnancy centre I ran, I always asked doctors. I always got my money by carefully thinking out my fundraising letters. There were quite a few who would send me $1000 at a time. Probably not much for them, a huge chunk of my operating budget and a cause fror me to celebrate.

That's a start, I'll try and come up with more.

[conradd]

Great stuff! I'll be working on this over the weekend! I've already gotten a semi-positive response from a casino near Shane's base. God knows, the Marines leave enough of their money there. The least they can do is throw some back at those who are deployed.

[theworm[$]]

That's great, Deb!
I didn't post because I know squat about fundraising, but I hope you get some big donors involved!

[magenta321]

I don't know as much about it as Cindy or MJ, but, I can tell you, from when I did the Walks, the best thing you can do is ask. And if you ask once and you don't get a donation, it doesn't necessarily mean they will not donate. It could mean they've forgotten, are putting it off til a later date, etc. Sometimes asking again helps too.

I was surprised at how easy it was to get goods donated. Mine were on the small scale, but made for nice raffle gifts.

From my time in Sorority, I know that grocery stores will donate a sizeable gift certificate. Like $100 - $250. For us, that was first prize type of money. If you decide to do a raffle, that might be 3rd prize or so.

My mom won a trip from her church. A local travel agency donated a $2500 travel certificate. Tickets for that raffle were pricy, but, mom bought some just to give the money to the church -- not planning to win the darn thing

People manage to get cars donated... So... I know it's possible. Just remember to ask everyone. And don't be afraid of rejection -- if you decide someone "can't" or "won't" donate to you -- you've made up their mind for them. That's a terrible thing to do.

Good luck!

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

The Books:

Grants, Etc. by Armand Lauffer, ISBN 0-8039-5469-7 (paperback); it used to be Grantsmanship and Fund Raising, if you stumble across an older version. It covers where to get grants, how to apply for grants, how to market your organization for grants and donations, writing a budget, building partnerships, and amassing cash and in-kind donations.


The Foundation Center's Guide to Proposal Writing, ISBN 0-87954-958-0; very detailed information on putting together a proposal packet to set funding priorities, develop a master proposal, format the proposal, tailor the proposal for different entities, and cultivating funding relationships. The Foundation Center, btw, is a national nonprofit whose mission is to organize and disseminate information on foundation and corporate philanthropy. They've got CD ROMs, searchable databases, and offer classes nationally. They've got a branch here in NYC where all us Admin MSW grad students were told to go and they offer a bunch of classes year-round. They partner with some organizations in Oregon to offer their classes and resources too. (shoot. Here I was hoping you'd have a reason to come to NYC )

[conradd]

Okay, first grant submitted. I asked the casino for up to $10,000. Dreaming big here. I've got the Foundation Center book ordered (thanks, MJ) and am going through the web site. There are some wonderful resources.

I got the grant application in e-mail yesterday morning and noticed that the deadline was today. They don't take faxes, and postmark date was not enough - all materials have to be down there. I got it done and to the airport post office in time yesterday, but they wouldn't guarantee overnight delivery although they said it was possible. I'm crossing my fingers.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Direct Mail offering seminar for fundraising for nonprofits

[jgibson2[$]]

Huge amount of work, but an organization I'm associated with puts on an annual designer show house. They kick it off with a gala and live auction. People pay to take tours, the designers contribute 15% of any sales that result. We bring in vendors who also kick in a percentage. My personal time in the project is probably well over 40 hours this year and I play a minor part. There are people who put in hundreds of hours.

I think I'd stick with writing grants unless you have a friend who thinks it would be fun. OTOH, if you want to see the pictures, my hubby took them.

[frazzledspice]

I have at times approached local businesses for donations (and that is different from major corporations, I know.) Sometimes I was told that they had already spent all the funding they had allocated for the year.

It's important, therefore, to find out when they set their budget for donations and put in your request at that time. Even if you are thinking "Christmas" they may have allocated all their funding in February.

Good luck.

[conradd]

Just wanted to update - during my visit to Palm Springs in November, Shane and I visited the Morongo Casino in Cabezon. The place was full of Marines from the 29 Palms base, so when I got home, I sent a grant application asking for $10,000 to support Operation Santa for the Marines from the local area. Never heard back, but there was a $10,000 check in today's mail. Very encouraging!

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

What a great start!

[conradd]

LOL, yes. I just called Shane to tell him, and his response was, "Well, at least someone wins at Morongo. I think Baker Company spent that much there on post-deployment leave."

[theworm[$]]

That's GREAT!!!

Got to respect someone that doesn't waste time!
I'm so glad!!

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

See how easy it is? Pretty soon you'll be like the guy from tv - "GET MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT TO PAY YOUR BILLS!"

[pippadaisy[$]]

WOW!

[emeleel]

Wow, how fabulous is THAT?!

[frazzledspice]

Congratulations!

If only it were all as easy as that

But I'm glad that you are well on your way to helping even more Marines in the future. You're performing a wonderful service.

I'll bet the Marines didn't know when Shane enlisted that they were getting a 2 for 1 deal--a great Marine and a super-supportive Mom.