Approach Your Fundraiser Like A Business

How To Boost Your Fundraising Results

The best way to boost your fundraising results is to get your product offer, raffle, or event information in front of as many people as possible. It's all about approaching your fundraiser as a business and using proper sales strategies to meet or exceed your group's financial goals.

What strategies would a business use to increase sales?

1. Increase sales staff
2. Create attractive offers
3. Offer discounts
4. Do special promotions
5. Get favorable publicity
6. Seek out new customers

And how would you employ those strategies in fundraising?

Increase sales staff
To improve your fundraising results, get more volunteers for your organization. Ask each staff member and each current volunteer to refer two others. Ask those new volunteers to do the same.

Create attractive offers
An attractive fundraiser is one that has widespread appeal. Events should be fun and focused on specific audiences. Casino Nights and Mardi Gras parties aren't family events and shouldn't be marketed as such.

Make your evening's theme appeal to adults and cater to families with daytime events. Include fun activities that all attendees will enjoy and use volunteers to engage new arrivals and quickly get them into the swing of things.

Offer discounts
Bargains have universal appeal. You can jump start event ticket sales by offering an early bird discount. You can offer a discount on multiple raffle ticket purchases to boost sales. Have special deals at all your events for group members who pay annual membership dues or make large donations.

It could be something as simple as special seating, enhanced photo opportunities with guest speakers, or supplemental entries into door prize drawings. Think membership rewards club. After all, it's worked pretty well for American Express.

Do special promotions
Partner with other groups for combined fundraising events that will be bigger and better than your group could do on its own. Participate in other charity work such as Relay For Life events where you can make tons of contacts.

If you are selling a fundraising product, include a sales reward program to boost sales. Or, you can do a raffle that has promotional publicity built right into the event such as Cow Chip Bingo or Golf Balls From Heaven.

Get favorable publicity
Good word of mouth will do wonders for your organization. It will increase ticket sales, make it easier to get donations, and open doors. Regularly submit press releases featuring the kind of human interest angles that the media craves.

Build contacts that you can draw on for event publicity, emcee duties, or creating a favorable buzz about a new project.

Seek out new customers
To grow your fundraising, you have to continually be reaching new people. That's not to say that you ignore your current client base. Have a group that focuses exclusively on expanding your reach. After all, the more people you get in front of, the better you'll do.

Use your growth group to target new audiences. If you are selling raffle tickets, setup sales tables outside retail locations such as grocery stores and Wal-Marts. If you are promoting an event, contact other groups and see if they'll market event tickets to their list for a revenue share.

Summary
Run your fundraising activities like a business and you will increase your market share. More importantly, you'll increase your "mind share" in your market. That type of instant name recognition will work wonders for your next fundraiser.

Related Pages

Organizing Charity Events - Advice on how to organize a special charity event for your nonprofit - Organizational tips and planning suggestions.

Charity Events - Ideas for fundraising charity events - Tips on raising more money at your charity event by enhancing fund raising auctions and raffles.

Reward Programs - How to use sales rewards to increase your fundraising product sales - Examples of different reward programs to use.

Ideas For Fundraisers

Art Raffle
Auction
Bake Sale
Band
Baseball
Bingo
Bowling
Bracelets
Brick
Candle
Candy
Candy Bar
Capital Campaign
Car Donation
Car Raffle
Car Wash
Cash Calendar
Casino Night
Cell Phone
Chair-ity Event
Charity
Charity Poker
Cheerleading
Cheesecake Calendar
Chinese Auction
Christian
Christian Event Ideas
Christmas Carols
Christmas Trees
Church
Church Festival
Church Fund Raisers
College
Cookbook
Cookie Dough
Corporate Grants
Cow Chip
Credit Card
Dance
Dance Team
Discount Cards
Donation Request
Donor Recognition
Earth Friendly
Easy
eBay
Event Tips
Events
Events - Part 1
Events - Part 2
Events - Part 3
Flower Bulbs
Flowers
Food Sales
For The Cure
Free
Fruit
Fun
Fundraising Sample
Gift Wrap
Golf Ball Drop Raffle
Golf Fundraiser
Golf Tournament
Grant Requests
Halloween
Healthy
Hockey
Home & Garden
Holiday Carnival
Individual
Inkjet Recycling
Internet
Jamba Juice
Jingle Bell Run
Jingle Bell Walk
Karaoke
Kathryn Beich
Krispy Kreme
Lip Sync
Location
Lollipop
Magazine
Mardi Gras
Merchant Plan
Mini Golf Tournament
Non-Profit
Pancake Breakfast
Photography
Pink Flamingo
Pizza
Pizza Hut
Political
Popcorn
Product Ideas
Promo
Publicity
Raffle
Raffle Prizes
Raffle Tickets
Relay For Life
Relay For Life Events
Rubber Duck
Sales Tips
Sample Thank You
School
Scratch Card
Scrip
Silent Auction Tips
Soccer
Softball
Spaghetti Dinner
101 Tips
Top Five
Tried & True
Tupperware
Valentines Day
Whiskey Tasting
Wine Tasting
Worlds Finest
Youth Group
Youth Sports

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