Fundraising??

The last couple of weeks in class, we've been discussing fundraising. As in, how to do it.

If you've never attempted fundraising before, you may not understand how ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING it can be.

Luckily, we've got our awesome textbook (The Grant Writing Toolkit) that gives us the technical parts of each step and guides us through the different aspects of creating a budget and all that jazz. The book goes in to all of the stuff that anyone who has tried to do a fundraiser for a church youth room renovation would have given their left arm to know. The business theories, the marketing strategies, all of the basic rules of what works and why.

It can't convey, however, that extra bit of personability and spark that really make or break a fundraiser. That's the part the church fundraiser usually nails. Our instructor made up for that by bringing in two great guest speakers! One was a grant writer for Bethlehem House, a local homeless shelter, and the other is an experienced grant writer now on a committee that approves grants for the City of Little Rock.

Unfortunately, what they had to add was basically "this is just as hard as you think it is, probably even harder." Jill Imboden, the representative from Bethlehem House, stressed the need for good marketing materials and personal contact in fundraising. And connections. Connections were the worst because what undergrad has connections to millionaires? Basically none. One bit of advice she had to add (that wasn't wholly disheartening) was that we should be aware of our audience and match our marketing materials to our target audience. For example, young professionals like YouTube videos, but older supporters may still prefer receiving tri-fold pamphlets in the mail.

Marq Golden, the representative from the City of Little Rock, talked more about grants. He's not only written many grants, but also been on committees judging the grants. His advice was fantastic, but also daunting for an undergrad partnering with a small non-profit. He shared that government grants are really looking to fund cooperative efforts. For example, if someone is applying for a grant for a community center, they would want to see a local educational non-profit pairing with a local sports league to provide activities for at risk youth. Things like that.

That's all totally easy to pull out of a hat, right?

And that's not even getting to the budget. Sheesh. Well, hopefully this secret insider advice is as interesting to you as it was to me and my classmates!

...still daunted...