Carefully shifting staff, board time from grassroots fundraising yields greater results
// April 5th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blog, Fundraising, Non-Profits
Many non-profits use grassroots fundraising — small, low-dollar, community based strategies including sales, low-dollar fundraising events, and community fundraisers — as their main method of fundraising. And many folks think they’re wastes of time — that non-profits should completely ditch them for major gifts.
I fall in the middle; balancing grassroots and major gift fundraising is key to the success of an organization’s development program. Major gifts should be the top priority, but despite its very low return on investment, grassroots fundraising gives you community visibility and gets donors’ “feet in the door.”
Before 2007, the Ronald McDonald House of Durham, the organization I’m working with, made grassroots mechanisms its primary focus. They used a significant amount of staff, volunteer, and board time planning an executing these events, although they don’t bring in a lot of money. Factoring in paid staff time, I’m sure the organization, like most non-profits, lost money on these events.
We are currently undergoing a large transformation, particularly in development — part of which includes a large shift from grassroots fundraising to major gifts. Here are some specific strategies we’re trying:
Spend the bulk of staff time on major gifts. My boss and I have been spending most of our time on capacity building and launching our major gifts program.
Engage the board in major giving. Our board previously spent time on grassroots events, but we’ve started getting them involved in major gifts — connecting us to and talking about the organization with community leaders. The shift is going well. So far we’ve gotten three board members formally with our annual giving program, and five others are working on a lead gift ask for our capital campaign.
Spend time on corporate sponsorships for events. Each year, we host a large wine auction, and we increased gross revenue by $30,000 because of corporate sponsorships. We hope to bring it up by $75,000 more next year. Our community events directors primary role for this event is soliciting corporate sponsors.
Let volunteers lead low-dollar programs. We are letting committed volunteers take the lead on our large community events, and in 2009, we hope to get a handful of volunteers signed on to lead a comprehensive program for donors who give $999 or below annually.
Use the Internet for grassroots donors. Barack Obama’s fundraising juggernaut exemplifies the power of having many low-dollar donors. At work, we’re seeing more and more inquiries about donating online, especially setting up recurring donations.
We’re not only trying these techniques at work, but I’ve pitched a similar model to Traction, the 501c3 whose board I serve on. As a young organization with only one staffer (an ED), board members have to take on many roles usually reserved for a development staff.
I’m trying to lead the shift from grassroots to major gifts for Traction, and here’s a training PowerPoint I prepared to start that move. I welcome feedback on it or anything else in this post.
