I’m lucky enough to work in an organisation (and a management team) where fundraising is seen as an essential aspect of our daily work and our shared responsibility as leaders – to serve more children Read more…
Over the years, and the appeals, I’ve learned much about the factors that determine success in fundraising – and even more about what to avoid doing – and I’ll always be learning, because that’s one of the privileges of working with so many different charities, across such a wide variety of campaigns and media.
These points and tips are mainly written in the context of individual giving, although many are also just as relevant to events, community and legacy fundraising, membership marketing, volunteer recruitment or anywhere direct marketing techniques are used. They represent the most common issues in fundraising appeals that I have come across and include suggestions to help you avoid the same pitfalls. (more…)
Menigeen zal zich afvragen, fondsenwerven een hype? Dat kan toch helemaal niet? Nee natuurlijk niet. Maar toch gedragen veel fondsenwervers zich wel zo en niet alleen de juniors.
Fondsenwerving is een vak, laat ik daar geen misverstand over laten bestaan. Een vak waarbij je veel technieken moet kunnen toepassen. Zonder goede samenhang tussen die technieken en zonder aandacht voor de mens achter de donateur gaan we het echter niet redden.
Haaks hierop staat een fenomeen dat ik spreadsheet marketing zou willen noemen. Een spreadsheet met daarop alle kengetallen van de actie, als rechtsonder geen positief bedrag verschijnt dan werkt het dus niet. Dat past misschien wel bij marketing, maar daarmee doen we onze doelen en onszelf tekort.
NO
I could end there and thereby enter some list of shortest blogs ever. But since it’s my goal to inform you on the AFP, I’d better expand on that “No”.
For those of you who don’t know what the AFP is, here’s a short explanation. AFP stands for Association of Fundraising Professionals, which is a group of people active in fundraising mostly in Northern America. Each year there is a big AFP convention (like the IFC in The Netherlands), which normally is where you pick up all the new ideas.
Now let’s get back to my initial question; was it worth the visit?
As 30-year veteran of fundraising, I get asked a LOT of, well, silly questions about fundraising. But the most obvious one that shows someone is just learning the field is: “So how DO you do fundraising?”
The (obvious) answer is: well, that depends on what kind of funds you want to raise. So the first thing you need to do if you’re starting in this field is to learn the nomenclature, the language. That way, you can tell the difference between a TYPE of fundraising, and a TECHNIQUE of fundraising. For example, a charity run is a technique. So is a $500-a-plate dinner. But each of these goes after a different TYPE of donor. (more…)
