Thursday, December 17, 2009

2 Fundraising Techniques that Work

This email arrived today: "An anonymous donor has agreed to match your online donation dollar-for-dollar - as long as it is made before December 31. Inspired by the work of (organization), she has pledged up to $250,000 in additional funding!"

You can take this concept to a smaller scale too with even a $1,000 contributor.

Here are 2 fundraising techniques that can work ... geared towards the $100 to $1000 contributor but could be other amounts.

1. "An anonymous donor will match your contribution if you contribute by (date in near future)": Ask someone to donate $1000 as matching contribution, send a message to others saying that up to 10 contributions of $100 will be matched if contributed by a specific date. Or just say "up to $1000" and see if you get lots of little contributions or one big contribution. If you go over, it might be easy to find someone to match amounts that you received over the initial $1000.

2. "Make (fill in the blank) pay": If a staff person, the president of the association, or someone else who is well known is willing to donate $1000 .... Send a soliciation (maybe with a picture of them holding $1000) saying that individual will give $1000 if five other people also give $1000 by a specific date.

Why they work ...

1. Asking someone to provide the matching funds or to be the person to "make pay" gives you the potential for that $1000 up front.

2. People often pay extra attention to a request if their money can be matched or can result in a larger amount for the organization.

And of course, make it easy to give - like online payments.

2 comments:

David M. Patt, CAE said...

Is there really a matching donor? Does it matter?

Cindy Butts said...

It never occurred to me there might not be one. But there should be - that part of the income is really important. And it is possible to find donors who will do funds to be matched knowing it can encourage others.