Develop a Fundraising Strategy

Before organisations and groups get to the point of applying for grants it can be helpful to work out how you are going to raise the sums of money you need. This page gives some of the reasons for having a fundraising strategy and highlights a number of areas organisations might wish to consider when developing a strategy.

Why have a fundraising strategy?

A strategy allows an organisation to set a structure and goals for funding the organisation or project, through a strategy you are showing everyone you work with that you have:

Organisations tend to develop a fundraising strategy for a number of reasons. An organisation may worry that it is not able to bring in enough money or that there are too many priorities or that it’s existing funding base is too narrow. Essentially however a fundraising strategy should give your organisation from the board or trustees down a clear idea of how you are going to reach your funding goals.

What to consider?

One of the first things to consider when developing a fundraising strategy is whether fundraising will be carried out by an in-house team or will be bought in in the form of consultants or other expertise. Both options have pros and cons as keeping fundraising in your organisations enables organisations to forge long-term relationships with funding bodies and over time experience and confidence is gained. However not every organisation can dedicate a post or part of someone’s time to the work and while fundraising work which is outsourced is not able to develop deeper relationships with funders it does allow the organisation to concentrate on doing things.

How to develop a fundraising strategy?

A first stage in the development of a fundraising strategy is to put together a mission statement to what an organisation stands for or is about. This is normally a bold statement which states clearly what the organisation is about. The next steps are to work out how much is needed for a particular project and how much it is possible to raise.  Organisations should differentiate between capital, normally buildings and land and types of equipment and revenue, often salaries, requirements. Are these figures compatible? If not then, often difficult, choices need to be made such as

The main problem with most fundraising campaign targets is how to raise what is often a huge sum of money. The answer is simple - bit by bit. For example, a target of £60,000 can be broken down as follows:

Having broken the sum required down to small sums you might find it more straightforward to decide upon a particular strategy or method of raising these funds.

How to implement the strategy?

It is worth spending some time identifying potential sources of funding as early as possible as a project is developed. It’s also worthwhile looking at how you can reduce your reliance upon a particular fund or include other funding sources in your efforts. Grant giving sources include charitable trusts, European programs, local grants and central government grants. Sponsorships might also be available from local or national companies.

Why give to a particular project?

Knowing why funders give is essential to any fundraising strategy as it allows fundraisers to tailor their applications for funding in a way that improves their chances of success. A fundraising organisation may identify a potential source which has a connection or closeness with their cause, having done that the organisation must then convince the source to invest in their project.

All organisations applying for funds from any source should be aware that different funding sources apply different criteria to who and what they will fund, its essential to understand what these criteria are before any request is submitted.

Of course there’s always the possibility that the funding source you approach may say 'no' however this does not necessarily mean failure on the part of the fundraiser as 'no' can mean one of three things:

It’s important to remember however that even if they say no the organisation or the fundraiser will have gained experience which can be used to make the next application better.

Assessing the fundraising strategy?

It is advisable to monitor and review the progress of a fundraising campaign throughout, in order to determine how it measures up to the original targets. At any stage, if everything is not going as planned, ask why? Were the original targets too ambitious, not ambitious enough or is the fundraising strategy simply not working? Once the problem has been highlighted it can then be changed accordingly.

Is it worth it?

Putting together a strategy can be time-consuming and if it’s a first attempt it can prove difficult but it does offer rewards. Grants or sponsorship or donations are rarely handed over by chance, givers must be persuaded to support your project therefore the better organised the campaign and the more professional the approach, the more likelihood there is of success.

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