When you start to raise fund for your NGO you have to decide and identify about the purpose of fundraising. The only way you can get financial resources year after year is by developing a broad base of individual donors who donate with a feeling of reliability about your organization. The purpose of fundraising, then, is to build relationships or more simply put, instead of getting donation, the purpose of fundraising is to raise donors.
Focusing on building a donor base rather than on simply raising funds means that sometimes you can undertake and decide a fundraising strategy that may not raise money in the initial stage, such as direct mail or such as planned giving. It means that you will relate to your donors as individual human beings rather that you engage when you want financial help but ignore otherwise. It means you will plan for both the short term and the long term and look at the results of any fundraising strategy for both the next month and the next few years.
Diversified sources of funding
If you focus on raising donors means that your organization systematically diversifies its sources of funding, builds the number of people helping raise fund, and diversifies their skills. People with only one skill have a more difficult time to find earning than those with a variety of skills.
Many organizations seek for the ideal special event that will fund their entire budget, or they search for some specific person, donor agency or company to provide most of the money they need, or they try to hire the perfect fundraiser who will bring in all their income without anyone’s help. The reason is that if they could use one fundraising strategy that was absolutely certain and tried-and-true, their money worries would be over. No fundraising strategy or person fits that description. In fact, only if it maintains a diversity of sources will an organization survive for the long term.
It depends on the size of budget, location and work of your NGO. However, the more people who donate you and the more ways you have of raising fund, the better.
Why people donate fund
Many people regularly make donations to nonprofit organizations. Most support certain organizations from their personal income. People who donate are not denying themselves for their own required expenditure; these people are dedicated givers, and your NGO’s job is to become one of those they give to.
Appealing to self-interest with reliability
Donors give to nonprofit organizations with many reasons. The most common reasons vary from consumerism to tradition to deeply held beliefs. Some donate to NGO because everyone in their social circle gives to that NGO or because it is a family tradition.
At a more altruistic level, there are more reasons for giving. People give because they care about the issue, they believe in the NGO, and they think the NGO’s analysis of a problem and vision of a solution are correct. Often people give because they or someone they know was once in the position of the people the NGO serves.
Sometimes people give because they feel to contribute their earning and think about how much they have or what they have done in their own life, or to feel more assured of spiritual aspect of life.
People give because the NGO expresses their own ideals and enables them to reinforce their image of themselves as a principled person — like feminist, environmentalist, pacifist, equal rights advocate, good parents, concerned citizen, or whatever image is important to them. Donors can donate that they want to care others, they want to make a difference and they are helping others.
Most often people give because they are requested, and being asked reminds them what they are capable to care about. When they are asked personally by a friend or someone they admire, in addition to feeling good about giving to the organization, they get to show themselves as generous donors to someone whose opinion they value.
Although these motivations for giving are what impel most people to give, most nonprofit organizations appeal to two other motives that are not very persuasive. These are we need the donation and your donation is tax deductible. Neither of these reasons distinguishes your organization from all the others. NGOs need funds, and most of them get. The fact that the donation is tax deductible is a nice touch, but donations to several hundred thousand other nonprofits are tax deductible too. Neither need nor tax advantage makes your organization special.
Most donors who donate nonprofits to do work that can only be accomplished by NGO effort and social welfare work. Only as part of an organization can an individual make a difference in these or any other pressing social problems. Donors need the organization as much as the organization needs them and the donation is provied in exchange for social work performed.
Anyone can do fundraising with skills
For small organizations, it is critical to understand that fundraising is easy to learn. In the last years, there has been an increasing emphasis on fundraising as a discipline. All of these issues are important and contribute to the health and well-being of the nonprofit sector. Any course, any degree or certification is not required for a person to be good at fundraising. It will never take the place of the only three things you really need to be a fundraiser that are simple common sense, a commitment to a cause, and a basic affection for people.
A person is concerned to an idea or cause and formed or joined an organization working on that issue, so the fund is required to implement it. The organization needs funding in order to pursue the cause, so is is to decided to get help with fundraising even though it is not your first choice of how to be involved. With time and experience, many social activists find that fundraising is not as difficult as they had imagined and they may even begin to like it. Donors realize that people feel good about themselves when they donate for a cause.
Have to satisfy donors for fund utilization
People feel good about giving donation, but rarely do people feel good when they ask for finance until they get used to it. People asking for fund for their cause tend to project their own feelings of discomfort in asking onto the potential donor and then describe the donor in words how the fund will be utilized piratically. These descriptions of what supposedly happened to the donor like embarrassed, humiliated, upset are more likely to be descriptions of what was happening to the asker. The potential donors think about what amount they can donate
The feelings of discomfort in asking for fund are normal, personal solicitation, you have to know how to talk about and how to deal with them. Simply be clear that asking and giving are two very different experiences, even when they happen in the same conversation.
NGOs have their ways to fundraising. As volunteers and board members learn more about fundraising and experience success, they will be willing to learn new strategies and they will begin to like asking for fund. Social organization must have sufficient people to raising fund. Many small organizations have suffered more from having too few people doing the fundraising than from having too few sources of funds. So it is necessary to identify appropriate strategies and building a team of volunteer fundraisers.