13 Essential Ingredients for Fundraising: A Checklist

Fundraising can seem complicated at times. Every time you look around, it feels like there is new information, best practices, new software, and other innovations. It’s important to stick to the fundamentals, not the fads. Practically speaking, fundraising is simple. But you do need a few things to get started and be successful.

Fundraising comes down to the 7 P’s: your Pitch, your choice of Platform, the People doing the fundraising and the giving, a written Plan, some key Policies, the right Perspective, and Practice.

The pitch is what you say to get someone to give. It involves your mission/goals, your case for support, and maybe some storytelling. The Platform is the means by which you deliver that Pitch. It can include a handwritten letter or peer-to-peer fundraising software. The People are the individuals doing the asking and getting asked. Plans help show who will do what by when, and policies guide your priorities (like policies on board fundraising or rainy day funds). Perspective is about attitude, and practice is about getting better by doing.

The Thirteen Essential Ingredients for Fundraising

If you have the basic 13 essential ingredients below, you will be on your way to fundraising like a pro.

1.    You’ll need a strong and well-defined mission statement. The mission should be broad enough to appeal to a wide array of funders but narrow enough to still be meaningful and strategic.

2.    Do you have tax-exempt status? Being approved by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization will help you with individuals, grants, and corporate giving. Without this designation, it may be hard to scale. Many causes and organizations have raised money without tax exemption, but I still believe it is essential in most situations. Here is how to create a nonprofit organization in the US.

3.    Identify your case for support. Be able to articulate it. Ideally, you should turn it into a written and attractive case statement designed to be attractive and concise.

4.    Be able to connect your mission, your vision statement, your case for support, and your annual goals together. The more practice you have speaking about these, the better you’ll be at raising money.

5.    You should conduct research to validate that there is interest in your mission and programs. Sometimes we think our organization solves a problem, but the community doesn’t agree. Without a need, you will find it hard to raise funds.

6.    It’s important to know what other companies, nonprofits, or government agencies are addressing the same problem you aim to solve. Be prepared to justify why your organization is still needed instead of joining forces with someone else. There is a lot of duplication in the nonprofit sector.

7.    You’ll need a bank account and some way of receiving money online. Most organizations raise money through fundraising software. This can be as simple as a Stripe or Paypal link or button, or actual fundraising software that does a lot of the work for you.

8. A list of people to solicit. If you don’t have a list, don’t fret. You can build a list. If you don’t want to build a list of individuals, you will still need a list of foundations, companies, or government offices that provide funding.

9. A system for tracking contributions (date, amount, method, name of donor, etc.). Essentially, you need two systems to have integrity: fundraising software that tracks all the money coming in, and bookkeeping software for compliance. I like Bloomerang and I am an affiliate for their software!

10. A way of acknowledging the gift. The IRS and some states may require that you offer receipts of donations over a certain size. Donors should be thanked with a letter or receipt.

11. It’s very important to have a development plan so that all your fundraising is planned out. A development plan is simply a list of who does what by when.

12. You should have a “give or get” policy that requires your board to fundraise. This should then be baked into a board agreement.

13. To help your board fundraise, consider using my board fundraising worksheet.

These are just bare-bones essential ingredients. Everything else is for convenience, scale, speed, efficiency, handling complexity, etc. But 90% of all organizations could get by on these basic elements.

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