Be sure to honour our fallen heroes this Remembrance Day by wearing a poppy and thanking the Veterans in our lives.
Encouraging board members to play a fundraising role is an uphill battle for charities of all types and sizes. The good news is that Giving Tuesday offers us a unique opportunity to increase our boards’ enthusiasm on all matters related to fundraising.
Since our goal with Funder Profiles is to keep you informed of Canada’s greatest change-making funding bodies, it’s prudent that we feature one of Canada’s largest, oldest and most progressive private foundations.
Sometimes when an Executive Director is no longer taken seriously by her or his board, and complacency is the predominant emotion, a change in leadership might be the silver bullet for all parties.
New and burgeoning charities often are continually in search of funding sources that cover core operating expenses. However, what many organizations fail to consider is how the strict rules and parameters imposed by core funders might limit the impact of their programs and threaten their future viability.
Wow! What a time to be launching the inaugural post of Sustainable Solutions – the official blog of People First Fundraising Solutions. Nearly every country on Earth is embracing social distancing and encouraging their citizens to hunker down in their homes in solidarity to combat the novel coronavirus and ‘flatten the curve’. At the time of this post, the virus has infected more than 1.3 million people with close to 75,000 deaths worldwide.
Although some progress in containing the spread of the illness has been achieved in places like China, South Korea and Italy, the exponential growth of new cases continues for most nations. Populations are scared, schools and businesses are closed, economies are in peril and regular life has screeched to a grinding halt. People are scared for their futures and are desperately turning to their leaders for answers.
We have not confronted a crisis of the magnitude since 9/11 and many of us recall how the fear of that horrific chapter in our world’s history gripped us so tightly, executing simple daily activities became a challenge. As they are doing now, people turned to their leaders for solutions and thankfully many responded to unify their populace and commence the war on terrorism.
However, not all leaders have been as responsive or dependable during this pandemic as evidenced by the inexcusable shortages of testing kits for suspected cases, ventilators for severely infected patients and Personal Protective Equipment for the courageous doctors and health care workers battling to contain the disease. In spite of a lack of support, many communities have taken ownership and are finding ways themselves of acquiring the resources they need to save the lives of their citizens. Rather than wait and hope for government assistance that is likely not forthcoming, many key people of influence have stepped up, galvanized their communities and discovered ways of getting what they need to ‘flatten the curve’.
True leaders do not wait or place their hopes on exogenous forces to obtain the resources they need to help the people they pledged to serve. They do not defer responsibility or allow petty disagreements with others interfere with their duties. Listening to their people and fully understanding their needs before formulating plans is a step that true leaders never fail to take. Real leaders foster collaboration and team chemistry. In short, real leaders find a way to solve problems optimizing every asset at their disposal to get the job done.
We in the fund development profession must espouse these tenets when helping organizations establish sustainable bases of support so they may achieve their missions. It is our duty to ensure that the change that the organizations with whom we work are striving to create not rest upon factors outside of their control like government grants. We must step up as leaders to do all we can to help organizations devise sustainable fundraising strategies so they can take ownership of their quests to fulfill their missions.
Chief among our obligations is introducing organizations to new sources of ongoing revenue such as third-party fundraising, peer-to-peer appeals, special events and major gifts so they may diversify their bases of support. Equally crucial is ensuring that organizations safeguard the functionality of their fund development infrastructure items including their fundraising volunteer teams, donor database software, gift processing systems and effective stewardship practices. Ultimately, fundraising leaders must ensure that their organizations focus on nurturing a solid and loyal donor base that positions them to respond proactively to the evolving needs of their communities.
In the entries ahead our aim is that you will discover new insights, perspectives and strategies to enhance your organization’s, community’s or enterprise’s ability to acquire the resources to create positive change. We urge you to bookmark and visit our Upcoming Workshops page regularly to hear about our scheduled Online and In-Person Grant Writing and Fundraising Workshops that we have planned. Whether you are a fund development professional, volunteer, staff or board member, your fundraising knowledge will be enriched through these reading experiences. We are grateful to have you and we look forward to sharing them with you.
Times are scary, so please continue to embrace social distancing and stay well.
All the best,
Mike
Proven Fundraising Strategies for Community and Grassroots Organizations
