How to refresh your fundraising model

Membership

Have you sent out invoices or renewals? What are you doing to encourage people to pay early? What benefits or discounts are you providing for members? What are you doing to expand membership? Are there any other potential members out there? Do you have or should you consider a tiered membership system? What was your target for memberships last year? Does it need to be revised this year? What is your retention rate? (Less than 90% should set off alarm bells.)

Grants

What did you apply for last year? What programs are coming up? Have you made a list of potential grants you could apply for? What are your alternatives? Do you have a reliable way of keeping track of new grants as they become available? (If not, consider signing up the Funding Centre, which has almost 3000 live grants and daily or weekly alerts).

Special events

How did your events go last year? What components were the most successful and unsuccessful? Did you make money? Did you make enough to justify the time and effort? If not, should the event be rejected or reworked? What secondary fundraisers can you add to increase value and spend at your events?

Donations

How much did you raise last year? What can you do to increase the average donation? Do you have an online donations facility and do your donors have the ability to give by direct debit each month? (If not, list your organisation for free at GiveNow.)

Bequests

Have you told your members and supporters that they can provide for your group in their will? Do you have the capacity to do so? Have you provided wording to those who are keen to do so? If someone has left a bequest have you publicised it and the difference it will make to the organisation in your newsletters, websites and donor thankyou emails or letters?

Merchandise sales

Is there something you can sell that people want to buy? How did sales go last year? Do you have the skills and resources to sell it? Are you selling it at a price that is acceptable to buyers? Do you have stock left over and do you have a plan to move it (discount/special membership package/raffle prizes)? What worked and what didn't?

Crowdfunding

Have you researched new fundraising methods such as crowdfunding? How much capital do you need to raise? Why? Is your project something people will be interested in and get excited about? Who is your target audience? Is your social network engaged enough to reach them? What rewards could you provide? What platform is best for you?

The board could now report back to the fundraising committee, with a brief progress report throwing in five ideas for consideration to get their minds working along the right lines and outlining the fundraising direction for the upcoming year. Remember, we recommend you have a mix of funding sources, drawing from all the areas above, if possible.

For more fundraising ideas, including free help sheets, tools and resources, log on to the Funding Centre, an Our Community enterprise.