The 6 steps of a successful fundraising campaign

It is fall and for a lot of sports organizations this is the time to start fundraising campaigns. During all my volunteer years, I did a lot, and I mean a lot of fundraising campaigns. I got to develop a method that I would like to share with you. There is no magic formula for a successful campaign but you will put all the chances on your side if you are well prepared. Here are 6 steps for proper preparation.

Step 1
Build a committee with experienced people that have good contacts in the public and the private sectors. Look for good sellers, people that have knowledge in marketing or promotion
.
Step 2
Hired someone if you can. A part time employee will give you a more constant support than a volunteer... because he is paid to do so ;-)

Step 3
Prepare a financial plan. It can be a short document of 2 or 3 pages or a more complex one depending on the size and goals of your campaign. Your document should include the objective of your campaign, a time frame, an evaluation of the expenses vs the revenues and the effort needed to run the campaign. This may look obvious but sometimes we put a lot of effort into a big campaign like a golf tournament or a wine and cheese tasting to end up with $1000 while we could of made 3 times this amount by simply selling chocolate bars.

Step 4
Note the tendencies, consult networks and share ideas regularly. This information will help you build a good fundraising campaign. A place like Ryze Business Network is very useful if you want to share ideas with fellow fundraisers and build a great network.

Step 5
Be imaginative! Try to create joint ventures. A small percentage of multiple projects is often more interesting than a big percentage of one big project. And it is less risky.

Step 6
Take the time to produce a post-mortem of your campaigns. It is very important that you can remember the success and the failures and be able to reproduce what caused the success and let down what caused the failure.

Hope this will help you in your next fundraising campaign!

 

Athens 2004 Summer Olympics

So, did you watch the Olympics? Yeah, ok, Canadians didn't do very well but what can I say; there is no money invested in sports here. So we got what we deserved. But eh, we beat Michael Phelps by 4 medals ;-)))) But he won 3 gold more than us ;-(

It was great games with memorable moments... and not so memorable others ;-)

What about Paul Hamm's incredible comeback in the all-around final in gymnastic after falling at vault. Right, the judges miscalculated the points but anyway it was still a great comeback that deserves to be noted. By the way, gymnastic judges performance were among those less memorable moments. What a disgrace. Made me remember figure skating in Salt Lake City. It cost a bronze medal to Canadian Kyle Schewfelt at vault. But still he won gold on floor which was the first medal ever won by a Canadian in gymnastic. Not bad eh? ;-)

What about the basketball's dream team? The dream turned quickly into a nightmare and they were everything but a team. They acted like superstars while in Greece (sleeping on the Queen Mary instead of being with the other athletes) and really got what they deserved. I don't know what my American neighbors think about it but personally I think it is a shame that the NBA superstars refused to represent their country. Even tough the best players were not there, this team was still supposed to win gold. Congratulations to Argentina and Italia. Most of all, congratulations to the Puerto Ricans ;-))
Talking about a dream team, what about this Iraqi soccer team. Wow! 4th place! I didn't even know they had a soccer team ;-)
And there was also Hicham El Guerrouj, the 24 athletes including 7 medallists that were caught cheating (remember my article in Issue 3?), the emergence of Asians mainly China, Greek Fani Halkia who, for a moment, help the Greeks forget about their disgraced heroes Kenteris and Thanou, the wako (same that crossed the F1 racing track in Silverstone) that attacked the leader of the marathon, and much others.

Congratulations to the Greek people for making a success out of these historical games. Who would of thought of that 2 years ago? And now, it will be Italians turn for the 2006 Winter Games!