Your Fundraising.com Fundraising Consultant will have lots of fundraising tips to help you out along the way, but to get you started on your fundraising journey, here are our top tips for successful pre-fundraising prep:

1. Organize your staff
Your fundraising staff consists of participants, parents, volunteers, and anyone else who will be helping with your campaign. Participants need to know well in advance that the fundraiser is coming, and when fundraising with children, parents will need to be kept in the loop as well, so be sure to send letters home with full details, and your contact information.

Volunteers are your support staff, so use them well! Divide up the responsibilities (responsibilities will depend on the type of campaign you’re running, so speak with your consultant for this step), and delegate to the people you feel are best suited to each role. If everyone knows his or her role beforehand, fundraising will go smoothly!

2. Plan your budget
Articles on fundraising tips often miss this one, yet it’s such an important step! Many programs require products to be purchased in advance, but not all of them. Before you call your Fundraising Consultant, sit down with your group or committee and decide on a budget. That way, your consultant knows to work for you within that budget.

When planning your budget, it’s also important to determine your fundraising goal, and to have as much information on hand as possible when you call your Consultant.

3. Advertise your campaign
People need to know about your fundraising campaign to support it, so be sure to start advertising well in advance. If you’re planning an event that people will have to buy tickets for, start advertising about a month in advance. For fundraising sales, 2 weeks in advance should be enough.

Advertise with posters and flyers. Ask local business if you can put up posters in their windows and post flyers on community bulletin boards. Send emails and mailings to all your contacts, and tell everyone you know about your fundraiser. A great fundraising tip is to contact your local TV and radio stations, and your local newspaper. They will often include your fundraising information in their community news.

4. Motivate your group
Be sure to keep you group motivated and excited with great incentives like prizes, fun activities and other rewards. When you set goals and rewards, your group members will be more excited about participating, and work harder to ensure the goals are met.

A great tip is to create competition among your group with rewards for the highest or fastest sellers!

5. Always say thank you
When it comes to fundraising, how you say “thank you” is as important as how you say “please.” Read our tips on writing an amazing thank you email.

School fundraising has never been so simple than with this five easy fundraisers that can easily be set up in your school hallways, cafeteria, playground or sporting events.

1. Scratchcard Extravaganza
Customize scratchcard booklets with a photo of your student body or your school mascot and get volunteer students and members of the faculty staked out in your hallways. Passers-by can scratch off one or more dots and donate the amounts uncovered. As thanks, they’ll get valuable coupons for popular national retailers.

2. Cookie Dough Sale
Simply put, people of all ages love cookies. Display full color brochures in the halls and have people sign up for their favorite gourmet flavors in convenient resealable tubs. Few will be able to rest!

3. T-Shirt Design Contest
Charge budding artists a nominal fee to enter a T-shirt design contest. Students and faculty can vote for their favorite design to appear on 100% cotton tees that you can sell in the halls, sporting events, etc. The creator of the winning design gets a free t-shirt – and bragging rights!

4. Lollipop Sale
Like taking candy from a baby, lollipop sales are so easy! Have students and faculty roam the halls, cafeteria and playground selling your pops and watch your profits soar!

5. Chocolate Sale
We don’t know many people who can say no to chocolate and like lollipops, they’re a surefire hit when offered up in the halls, cafeteria or playground. For extra novelty, have your school mascot carry a box or two through the bleachers at school sporting events. Chocolate cravings will definitely strike!

Research time and again indicates that personal stories are a very powerful way to communicate, engage and inspire. But while personal stories almost always effectively tug at heartstrings, supporters often need to be expressly told how they can impact your story’s ending before they’ll be motivated to take action.

Steve Daigneault of M + R Strategic Services tells us how to make the supporter ‘feel’ in order to ensure both their empathy and their active involvement in your fundraising efforts:

MAKE THEM FEEL HAPPY
ie. “You’ll not only help us reach our goal, you’ll change our situation.”

MAKE THEM FEEL IMPORTANT
ie. “Support us and we’ll keep you updates on our future activities and growth.”

MAKE THEM FEEL ESSENTIAL TO ACHIEVING SUCCESS
ie. “We saved 60 homeless animals who needed food and shelter. Together, we can save even more.”

MAKE THEM FEEL INCLUDED
ie. “Jennifer Smith, Ted Johnson and Janis Doe have already joined in our cause. You can too.”

For more on this topic, request M + R Strategic Services’ free e-book called, Storytelling and the Art of Email Writing.

Shiny, happy subject lines
Who doesn’t want good news? Make your email’s subject line conversational and personable and throw in some positive, feel-good words.
Example: “We couldn’t have helped the kids of Uyui without you!”

Lead with your fundraising success
Ensure your message is to the point and that you waste no time in getting to the good stuff.  Avoid preamble and immediately state the successes you’ve enjoyed as a result of your fundraising initiative:
Example: “We recently returned from the Uyui district,Tanzania, where we assembled a small but mighty computer lab at the local school.”

The next best thing to being there
Hearing about your successes is one thing, but seeing them is quite another! Share photos and video from you trip or event so that they can witness firsthand the good that they contributed to. This can be done by attaching photos to your email or including links to your Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or Vimeo accounts. Making your supporters feel like they were there may well inspire them to contribute to your next cause, too.

Give credit where credit is due
Particularly in the case of mass emails, be sure to name names when it comes to your contributors. Ensure that everyone is made to feel appreciated for their contribution and make special mention of your key supporters. Did someone donate $200 where the average donation was $20? Go ahead, name names. They’ll appreciate the special thanks and it will serve as inspiration to others.
Example: “Your generous donations allowed us to outfit the lab with a dozen new computers – and thanks to the generosity of Samual and Jane Stockwell, we were also able to provide two laserjet printers!”

Add a personal touch
Perhaps a group of 13 of you made the trip, so signing all of the names to the email may be a bit much. But instead of signing the famously generic “From all of us at…,” have a group leader or event organizer sign with their name and title. It just feels more personal. Don’t forget to add links to your website, personal Facebook and Twitter pages here, too.

P.S….Add a P.S.
After your signature, use this opportunity to promote upcoming causes, trips or fundraising events.  This will prepare your email’s recipients for your forthcoming support requests and will get them thinking about how (and how much) they may want to contribute the cause.

Being the season of new beginnings, there’s no better time than Spring to re-energize your fundraising efforts. Customizable, easy-to-implement Scratchcards are one of our recommended Spring fundraising items because they look great and give your campaign an air of fun. With no products or order forms to manage, you’ll cut to your 90% profits faster than you would with most traditional fundraisers!

OTHER GOOD-TO-KNOWS:

• they’re flexible: choose 30 or 60-dot cards to best fit your group’s need.
• they’re customizable: decorate them with your group’s photo or logo.
• they’re fun: supporters scratch one or more dots to uncover donation amount.
• they’re pocket-sized: perfect to take along with you wherever you go.
• they’re profitable: up to 90% of your donations go directly to your group.

Learn more about Scratchcards now >>