Developing A Fundraising Plan
The journey to a good fundraising starts with people
knowing about your work. As an organisation, you
will need to plan how you want the public to know
your work. In doing this, you will need to determine
how you want to reach your audience and what you
want them to know about you. To get supporters
and funders excited about your work, you need
compelling stories to tell them. Establishing an emotional connection with your funders means sharing
your vision and unique value with them.
Some practical ways to make the public know about
your work includes:
- Logos and branding: anything that carries
your organisations name and logo such as
calendars, t-shirts, folders, diaries, pins,
stickers etc.
- Open house events
- Project launch
- Radio and TV appearances
- Newsletter
- Newspaper
- Website
- Social media
To be seen as transparent and accountable, it is a
standard best practice to have the following documents publicly available on the organisations website
or social media page:
- Constitution
- Strategic plan
- Annual report detailing impact
- Audited financial report
- Organisational profile
- Programme areas and
- Funders list
To achieve your organisational objectives, you will
need to develop a fundraising plan. The plan is
helpful in showing how to diversify and increase your
sources of income, reduce donor dependency and
enhance long term organisational sustainability. To
develop this plan you will need to follow these steps:
- Determine what the organisation’s financial
gaps are by analysing the present amount of
money available, from what source, period of
time funding is for, budget lines the money is
to be used for. Once this is done, the gap in
funds can be easily identified and plans put in
place to meet them.
- Map potential funders’ asides the ones
already supporting your organisation. This
should be funders working in the sectors you
focus on.
- Send regular updates about your work to the
potential funders – you will need to develop
a calendar of messages and information
about the organisation to send to them on a
monthly basis.
- Look for opportunities to share your
knowledge and expertise with the potential
funders maybe through participation at
their events, responding to their surveys or
strategy consultations.
The following fundraising strategies can also be
included in your plan
- Grant/project funds
- Income generation activities such as conferences, workshops or fundraisingevents
- Private and individual donations
- Corporate giving
Remember fundraising is a journey, not just a single transaction hence it requires time, money and commitment.
This means you have to dedicate a certain amount of staff time to fundraising.
