FastTrack Fundraising Tips and Articles

Like all public affairs, fundraising events require careful and thorough planning. From deciding on specific fundraisers to finding volunteers, from collecting and distributing the products to managing excessive stock, a wide range of issues should be considered. Each and every one of them needs to be discussed and approved by the majority, if not all, of committee members, before relevant actions can be successfully taken.

Simply put, planning ahead enables us to complete our tasks quickly and effectively. Here are some suggestions on how to conduct good planning:

• Start early. Plan ahead by gathering resources and categorizing them according to your needs, identifying channels through which you can find volunteers, and helping your team members know each other.
• No idea is bad idea. It is always useful for everyone to sit down and brainstorm. Because each of your team members has his or her unique views, experiences and contacts, together you can do great wonders.
• Always have the end in mind. Establish achievable goals and concrete plans to achieve them. Keep everyone informed of all steps completed and yet to be taken. The more specific you are about your goals, the more focused you tend to be.
• Know your limits. Stay calm and positive even when problems occur. Understand that no matter how capable each of your team members is, he or she is not Superman or Wonder Woman. People do and often make mistakes.
• Put fun back into fundraising. Include a kick-off gathering at the beginning of your plan and a celebration party in the end. Make sure that everybody is invited and all efforts are rewarded.

Remember, planning ahead does not mean that you should have everything done beforehand. It simply means that you need to prepare your team for whatever is coming.

In the previous article are some tips on how to be a good leader for your fundraising committee. Indeed, the ultimate reason for any leader to exist is to encourage teamwork and mutual respect among his or her team members, so that the whole team can function as one. A leader should inspire and unite, not to do all the work.

For each and every member of your fundraising committee, here are some suggestions on how to enhance teamwork:

• Know your staff and stuff. Set an achievable goal for your upcoming fundraising event and explain to everybody the steps required to achieve it. Specify the tasks involved and allocate responsibilities to those who can handle them. Compensate one’s weakness with another’s strength.
• Set and make known your priorities. Thoroughly discuss with your team members the resources your organization already possesses and what extras need to be gained through the fundraising event. The majority, if not all, of your team members should agree on how to manage the event.
• Uphold honesty and transparency. Establish the consensus that no information should be withheld from any and all of your team members, and that all procedures and results need to be assessed by the whole fundraising committee. Any conflict is to be handled quickly and without favoritism.
• Share duties and credits. Within a team, no one should clearly stand out to take all the glory or be the scapegoat. While the leader has, and should have, a representative voice in public, he or she needs to always recognize and support the collective efforts of all fundraising committee members.

Remember, for any fundraising committee to succeed, teamwork is as important as, if not more critical than, leadership. Only a united, balanced and hardworking team is capable of achieving its goal.

This is the first of a series of six articles that explore the significance of fundraising committee management. In any organization, setting up a fundraising committee is the key to raising funds effectively. There is nothing more inspiring and rewarding than working with a group of like-minded people to achieve your goal.

For your committee to succeed in organizing a wide range of fundraising activities, leadership is of ultimate importance. Here are some tips on how to be an excellent committee leader:

• Be communicative. Print out the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of your committee members, and distribute a copy to everybody. Keep your team informed with all progress. Ensure that you are always available for people’s inquiries and requests for help.
• Be open-minded. Avoid favoring some people over the others. Know the capacities of your committee members and strive to put their strengths and talents to good use. When conflicts arise, listen carefully to all sides before making a decision. Solve any problem as soon as possible.
• Be transparent. Make available all fundraising plans, results and previously learned lessons and encourage brainstorming among your committee members. Discuss with your team before setting priorities. Review your planning documents often and ensure that all inputs are well considered.
• Be part of your team. Put first the interests of your team. Work as hard as – if not harder than – your committee members. Be a role model by maintaining a good balance between work and life. Share with your team all successful and not-so-successful fundraising outcomes.

The secret of being a good leader is to listen and share, and to give the others what you would like them to give you. By operating your fundraising committee well, you are already halfway there to achieving successful fundraising results.

In the previous article are some tips on how to organize a successful trivia night. In this article, some basic issues are explained in order to help you get everything under control:

• Venue: The venue chosen for your trivia night as a special fundraising event should be easily accessible for most people, with sufficient parking and located near public transport. The venue should have music facilities, microphones, and plenty of tables, chairs and stationary. A tally board is a great idea for everyone to see how the participating teams are doing.
• Food and drink: Finger foods such as wedges, sandwiches and spring rolls are ideal for a trivia night. Light alcohol and soft drink can be supplied by the venue, while participants can bring their own wine.
• Prizes: Try to have these donated by local businesses, both to establish good relationships with members of your local community and to maximize the profits gathered from the trivia night. The prizes do not have to be extravagant.
• Mastermind and Quiz Master: The Mastermind is the person who prepares the questions, while the Quiz Master as the host or hostess of the night is responsible for reading the questions, adding up the scores and keeping the crowds entertained. Previous experience is not required for either position. However, the Mastermind should be able to present both general and novelty questions, while the Quiz Master needs to have plenty of energy, quick wit and friendly banter.
• Judge: To ease the burden of the Quiz Master, there can be a Judge who is responsible for determining the best answers, keeping the scores and displaying them on the tally board.

In short, getting the basics right helps you organize a successful trivia night. Why not put some serious fun back into fundraising?

A trivia night is great as a special fundraising event. As people are inquisitive and competitive by nature, the winner of the night is awarded the title “Master of the Trivia”. Meanwhile, all the participants get to have hours of fun in a relaxing yet exciting environment.

Here are some tips on how to organize a successful trivia night:

• Invite people to participate. You will need between five and ten groups, each with four to ten people. Publicize the location, time frame and entry fees of the trivia night, as well as the kinds of food and drink that either will be provided or need to be brought along by the participants. As individuals generally work better with people they know, it is recommended that participants register as a group.
• For a trivia night that lasts up to four hours, you need six to seven rounds of ten questions. Each round can have a well-liked theme such as popular music, famous movies, general history, superheros or sports stars. Within each round, try to mix up general and novelty questions. Alternatively, you can have six rounds of general questions and a final round of novelty ones.
• Between rounds, arrange some games or physical activities for teams to win extra points. For example, each team can send a representative to compete in Karaoke, Twister or Music Chair. Games are fun and can produce a lot of laughter, and a bottle of champagne can be given to the winner.

Whether you are raising funds for your school, church, charity or community group, a trivia night is a great opportunity for individuals from all backgrounds to join each other in a friendly test of general knowledge. More tips on how to organize a trivia night are provided in the next article.

The foundation of successful fundraising events is frequent and direct communications among all members of your organization’s fundraising team. The better connected and informed you are, the better it is for your fundraising initiatives in the long term.

Traditionally we have used meetings in person and telephone calls to communicate with each other. While these remain effective ways to exchange news, launch discussions and debates and provide feedback, people in their busy lives now prefer receiving and digesting information in their own time. This is why certain networking technologies have become extremely popular.

SMS text messaging via mobile phones is perhaps the most popular and convenient way of staying in touch with your fundraising team members. Questions and comments are quickly typed out and sent, and replies are instantly given. As most people carry their mobile phones but only answer incoming calls at their earliest convenient time, it is a non-intrusive way to keep constant contact with your team members.

Email is another handy way in which not only messages but also relevant documents may be sent to your fundraising team members. All you need to do is to set up an email list so that one message can be instantly dispatched to many accounts via a click of the mouse.

Finally, many social networking websites are free for all to use. They allow you to create individual groups and invite other members to join. Within each group, participants can upload photos and post messages to share ideas and opinions.

In short, the key to operating a happy and motivated fundraising team is to keep all team members well informed. By utilizing networking technologies such as mobile phone, email and social networking website, everyone can remain updated with relevant fundraising information on their own terms and at their own paces.

It is essential to have volunteers working with you in fundraising events. Furthermore, it is absolutely critical that you acknowledge their efforts in public both during and after these events. Celebrating the collective success as a result of weeks, if not months, of teamwork makes your volunteers feel valued and appreciated. It is also a great incentive for them to come back again.

Throwing a big party, or simply a BBQ or morning tea, is a good way to start the celebration. As you thank your volunteers who have made everything happen, here are some ideas on how to make them feel even more special:

• However you decide to have a good time, make your volunteers the focus of the occasion. Deliver a thank-you speech that creates a sense of community among the volunteers. Privately, give each of them a phone call, a handwritten note of thanks or a card to show your appreciation.
• Conduct a prize giving ceremony. Reward your volunteers for their hard work. Do not be afraid to single out individual achievements, extra efforts and personal milestones. However, be careful not to act like you favor some over the others, as it is selfless collaboration that you want to promote.
• Connect the outcome to the cause. Report results of your organization’s fundraising events and what you are going to do with the resources raised. Be specific and transparent, using a spreadsheet if necessary. Let your volunteers know that without them you could not have succeeded.

You may be busy or totally exhausted after a fundraising event, but nothing is as important as rewarding your volunteers. When it is time to launch the next initiative, you will be surprised to know how many people are willing to support your organization again, simply because you have thanked them.

In the previous article, a suggestion is provided that your organization holds an induction briefing for local community members in order to encourage volunteers to participate in your fundraising events. This step is strategically important, as it not only attracts the attention of potential volunteers but also prepares them for the work after they have signed up.

To demonstrate that your organization supports its volunteers, you need to work together with them as a team, instead of simply telling them what to do. More importantly, you need to have patience and provide them with plenty of opportunities to ask questions.

Here are more helpful tips on working with your volunteers to achieve your organization’s fundraising goals:

• Match skills to tasks. Find out what hobbies, personal interests and professional and/or technical skills your volunteers possess. Assign each individual to a task that is suitable for his or her talent and/or expertise. The more passion people have for what they are doing, the more likely they will succeed.
• Review your progress. Revisit your organization’s fundraising targets and the specific tasks required to achieve these goals. If your targets have changed, then you may also need to modify the tasks involved. Remain responsive and allow your volunteers to be flexible as well.
• Solve your problems. As individuals from different walks of life and with different views and concerns work together, confrontations are unavoidable. Whenever there is a problem, be it technical or personal, deal with it as quickly as possible so that it does not become worse.

Remember, your volunteers are contributing valuable time and skills to help you achieve your goals, so it is important to always remain encouraging and supportive. Being diplomatic is the key, as these temporary colleagues are likely to become your long-term friends and allies.

Finding volunteers is arguably the most difficult task any fundraising committee must face. As our lives become increasingly stressful with work, relationships and mortgage (or rent) payments, it is rare that someone simply volunteers to do some good work and asking for no reward.

However, those good-hearted people are definitely out there. The question is just how to find them and get them onboard. Here are some useful tips:

• Clearly identify your needs. Make a list of jobs to be done and provide a brief description of the tasks involved. Other items on the list can include relevant responsibilities and obligations, useful qualifications and skills, and forthcoming benefits and rewards.
• Be active and informative. Promote your list of jobs through newsletters and word-of-mouth so that people can sign up. Contact people by email and telephone and ask for help. Answer in detail any question they may have about the kinds of skills and the amount of time needed.
• Provide an induction briefing for members of your community. Emphasize that the jobs to be done are short-term and easily achievable, and that any kind of assistance, manual or technical, can greatly benefit your organization and the community it serves.
• Show that you care. Demonstrate how your organization supports its volunteers. Explain the range of facilities and services you possess to help making their jobs easier. Offer examples of how your organization has been working with volunteers to achieve various fundraising goals.

In short, fundraising cannot be successful without the contribution of volunteers, and like a rare type of tree, you need to provide enough sunlight, water and nutrition to help it grow. Eventually the tree is going to be big enough and capable of shading you from wind and rain. Its abundant fruit will be amazingly tasty.

Keeping kids from sweets is a goal that is nearly impossible to achieve. We all know that sweets are one of the most successful products in fundraising events. However, we are also acutely aware that childhood obesity is a serous problem.

Exactly how can these two conflicting views be reconciled? As usual, balance is the key. Letting kids have free access to sweets will lead to disaster. However, we don’t need to be parents to realize that the more we try to keep kids from something, the more they will want to try it out.

For those fundraisers who need to use chocolates and other confectionaries in their initiatives, but who want to help teachers and parents protect children from health problems such as obesity and tooth decay, here are some useful tips:

• Emphasize the fact that your fundraising efforts, including through the sale of sweets, will benefit the whole community. Demonstrate that yours is a sensible and responsible organization working for the neighborhood.
• Respect the wishes of families to not participate in your organization’s fundraising event. Inform them that instead of purchasing sweets, they can show their support by donating a small amount of money.
• Work with teachers and parents to promote the values of nutritional education and lifestyle programs. Use your fundraising event as an opportunity to educate kids about “sometimes” foods and moderate consumption of sweets.
• Ensure that part of the money raised is used to support an activity-based initiative, such as a fun run or walkathon. Dynamically advocate for this activity in your community as you sell the sweets.

In short, there is nothing more important than our children’s well-being. While trying to raise funds, we should also endeavor to balance between consumption of sweets and pursuit of active and healthy lifestyles.