Training Manual - Fundraising for NGO's

The world's largest digital library

Try Scribd FREE for 30 days to access over 125 million titles without ads or interruptions! Start Free Trial Cancel Anytime.



What resources does your organization already have? __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ What do you still need? __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ What are the cost implications? (Get quotes, or estimate a cost for each need.) __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______ Describe the process of financial planning and budgeting i n your organization. Who is involved? How often does it take place? How often is it reviewed? __________________________ ______________________________________ _________________________ ________________________ _________________________ ____________________ ______













Getting where you want to go... Create an Action Plan Many NGO’s think only in terms of their overall mission when it comes to planning and fundraising. This can be very discouraging because the needs for the overall project seem too great and there is often no real sense of progress. It helps to break the bigger task your organization is trying to accomplish down into many smaller tasks. These can each be given a time frame and the t he financial and human resources needed for each can be assessed and allocated. A project management tool such as a Work Breakdown Structure can be a useful way to do this. A copy of a work breakdown structure is at the back of this manual.

This process is helpful in a number of ways: • • • •

Smaller tasks are easier to accomplish within a specific time-frame. By accomplishing these you experience the feeling of success as each milestone is achieved. There is a clear sense of progress. Staff members and volunteers learn skills and develop competency. competency.

Most importantly, from a fundraising perspective, it is often easier to get funding for smaller shortterm projects – especially when you are starting out. The added advantage is that funders see results and a return on their investment relatively quickly, and this usually leads to more funding.

Setting SMART objectives SMART is a convenient acronym for the set of criteria that an objective or goal must have in order for it to be achieved. •

SPECIFIC: Success coach Jack Canfield states in his book The

Success Principles that, “Vague goals produce vague results.” In order for you to achieve an objective, you must be very













•

ACHIEVABLE: Setting big goals is great, but setting unrealistic objectives will j ust de-motivate

you. A good objective is one that challenges, but is not so unrealistic that you have virtually no chance of accomplishing it. •

RELEVANT: Your objectives must be in line with your vision and mission, otherwise they are

not going to help you bring about the future your organization dreams of creating. Before you even set objectives, it’s also a good idea to sit down and define your core values. •

TIME-BOUND: If you don’t set deadlines for your objectives, you have no real compelling

reason or motivation to start working on them. There is a goals and objectives worksheet at the back of this manual that will help you to set SMART objectives when you do your planning. Planning for your organization involves answering the following questions: •

What needs to be done?

•

How do you intend to do it?

•

Who will do it?

•

When will it be done and how long will it take?

•

What resources will be required?

•

What results do you want to achieve? Try to quantify this: how many?

•

Why do you want to do this? (What are your underlying assumptions?)

•

Are there any other things you need to do before you can start? Remember, the more thorough thorough your planning is, the easier it is going to be to get the resources that you need to achieve your objectives. There is a saying that no one ever plans to fail – they j ust fail to plan. If your planning is done properly you will be able to manage the project properly. You will be able to see when you are going off track, and make the necessary adjustments that will enable













Implement the Action Plan Carrying out the action plan involves i nvolves things like the following:

•

Communication Communication (making sure everyone who needs to know about the plan is sufficiently informed: staff, volunteers, donors, the community). community). Note that different groups need different amounts of information.

•

Basic management duties like making appointments, appointments, delegating, having meetings, clarifying expectations etc.

•

Getting feedback. All of the above will generate a lot of information. This needs to be processed and then acted on. This information may come to you informally (e.g. in passing conversations) or formally (e.g. in meetings or consultations).

•

Evaluate the results. Are you on track with your plan? How far are you from your target? Do you need to make adjustments in terms of things like personnel, resources, time-frame time-frame etc?

Exercise Use the worksheet for setting SMART goals and objectives to set out the objectives of your organization over the next year. Break the bigger objectives down into smaller tasks. Sequence the tasks by giving them a time frame (a start date and an end date).















Donors don’t give to institutions, they invest in ideas and people in whom they believe.

Section 3: The Process of Fundraising Some things you should never do! The worst thing that NGO’s can do is to rush out and try to get money wherever they can. Often the financial situation in the organization is desperate and funds are needed for things like salaries. In situation like this it is easy to become desperate and sound desperate. This is counter-productive. In order to build a sustainable organization, organization, fundraising needs to be approached with a clear plan.

Avoid the following at all costs: •

Post to online discussion groups or send emails or letters via post with desperate pleas for money. You will not gain funds this way. You may even harm your credibility and create bad feelings about your organization among potential potential supporters.

•

Send out information riddled with spelling errors.

•

WRITE EVERYTHING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. This is the equivalent of shouting online or in print.

•

Give Up. If you are not successful with your first attempts, keep trying. Review the reasons a













The activity to start with for successful fund-raising is networking: establish relationships - formal or informal – with other local NGOs, local government offices, community community service organizations (Round Table, Rotary etc), and large employers in the area. To network, start with: •

local reporters or local media outlets (newspaper, radio, etc.)

•

large employers in your area

•

local and regional government offices (Social Development etc.)

•

other NGO’s in your area

•

local communities of faith

•

local universities and schools

•

any associations in your area (such as associations for small businesses, associations associations of women farmers -- such associations can be formally or informally-organized)

•

local embassies or consulates

•

Research other NGO’s that are doing similar work to you. Try to find out what the best practices are in your field and who is doing doing these. Approach Approach leading NGO’s and ask them if they can help you with training and/or resources, and if you can form some kind of informal relationship with them. Meet face-to-face with these people, whenever possible, to let them know what your NGO is doing - do not emphasize what your organization needs but, rather, the good work that it is doing, and why the organization believes its mission is important, even essential, to the area. Invite representatives r epresentatives of these organizations to visit your organization and see your work first hand invite them more than once! If you can, give them printed information about your organization. And people representing your NGO should attend their













Step 2: Understanding Donors Different Donor Markets1

The Internal Market













The External Market

This is the corporate donors, government agencies, agencies, charitable trusts and foreign donors. This is where you may be able to generate most of your funds, so i t is where your most skilled employee/s should focus their efforts. Ideally this should be your director or someone just under them. A consultant can be employed to do this kind of work, but this can create problems: •

The experience and learning from fundraising never filter down into the organization; with the result that internal capacity is never built.

•

A consultant is paid a commission, and some funders may see the percentage earned by the consultant as a negative factor when deciding whether to give you funding or not.

•

Funds raised by a consultant are not always well aligned with the needs of the organization, and the NGO can find itself being forced to change goals and programmes programmes to match the requirements of the donor.

The way you usually access donors in this market is through a funding proposal. While some organizations organizations have their own proposal forms that you need to complete, writing good proposals is a skill that is worth developing. Writing proposals requires an in depth understanding of how the organization works and what its needs are.

Step 3: Before you even start, have these things ready Some NGOs are so small, small, so grassroots and so limited that they have no paperwork, no official documentation, and no official recognition by the government. Therefore, they must rely solely













supported your organization in the past i n some way, all make good references. Ask these organizations if they would be willing to be references regarding your organization, and to be l isted in your funding proposals. Even if your NGO is so small and has such limited resources that it cannot undertake any of the other following activities in this category of suggestions, it should, absolutely, have references. Official documents

You need to have copies of your organization's registration papers as an Non-Profit Organization, Organization, and if possible as a PBO (Public Benefit Organization).If you are not registered yet, it is worth registering with the Department of Social Development before trying to raise funds. Other documents

It also helps if i f you have brochures, press releases, r eleases, a staff list, and budgets/financial budgets/financial statements. Potential funders will look at how quickly and completely you respond to their request for these documents, so get these in order and ready-to-share before you start meeting with such organizations.

Budget

Have at least a one-page budget that shows, for the budget vs actual i ncome and expenses for the previous year and your budget for the current financial year. If you have this budget on your web site, it will add even more credibility to your organization, as it will show that you are "transparent", a word very important to potential funders. Donors want to see accountability and transparency. They want to know how your organization's funds are spent, so















Step 4: Finding Donors Mapping the donors active in your area

A helpful way to start looking for potential donors is by undertaking "donor mapping". What organizations are funding NGO activities in your geographical area? What companies are funding for-profit activities (mining, farming, manufacturing, etc.)? And what activities in your local community are being funded by local, regional or national government funds? These are all potential funders for a NGO. And if you engaged in appropriate networking activities, they already know about your organization and its work. Contact embassies. They often have small grants programs, and favour organizations with whom they are already familiar (hence the importance of networking activities). But be aware that these













Donor Management 2

y our organization at the moment. They have funding contracts Current donors are the ones funding your













Some Ideas of How to Contact Donors3 The Medium

How and Why?

Newspaper Articles

Your media strategy should involve regularly writing to newspapers about issues on which your organisation focuses. This is also called advocacy. Build relations with journalists. Invite them to your graduations or other special events. Write a press r elease. Community newspapers are always looking for interesting stories. Feed them! Articles in a newspaper are like sowing seeds. You never know where it w ill germinate.

Brochures

Update your brochures regularly and send them to targeted donors, both current and potential donors. Do this at least 2 or 3 times a year. For donors to consider funding your organisation they must know what you do.

Newsletters

If you do not have a newsletter then you are not serious about your work. You must have an organ to communicate to the outside world. The need you are addressing is in the outside world not behind four walls. Tell potential donors what you are doing and how you are doing it. Share your success stories and your challenges. Be open and honest.

E-Mail

Keep this short and sweet. Funding enquiries and proposals are normally transmitted in this way. Try to get permission from your potential donor that this method o f transmission is













Finding New Potential Potential Donors Donors There are different types of donors: •

Government (local, provincial, national)

•

Corporate

•

Trusts and Foundations (local and international)

•

NGO Networks

•

Foreign governments (through embassies)

•

Faith based organizations

•

Individuals (through fundraising activities, bequests, donations)

In groups of four, try to brainstorm ways of identifying and contacting donors in each of the above groups. Write these down on the large sheet of paper provided. You can also make notes in your workbook.













The Funding Enquiry

This is a short document (maximum 2 page) that you will send to a donor to find out what type of projects they are funding (their focus areas) and the format that funding proposals should take.

It should contain the following: • • • • • •

A brief description of your organization, its vision and mission. Describe the project or programme programme for which you are making the enquiry. Highlight past successes/impact you have had. Indicate your organization’s ability to deliver results. Give an idea i dea of accountability structures: governance (e.g. Board) and financial controls. Ask the donor whether they would consider a proposal from your organization.















Let’s look at the typical responses provided by funders. Their response:

Your response to this:

You submitted too late and missed the deadline.

Make sure you submit way in advance next time.

Their funding budget is already allocated or exceeded.

Same as above – get your proposal in early.

You are not in their focus area e.g. women, youth,

Send the information to an organization in your community

unemployment.

that addresses these issues so that they can access the funding. It’s a “yes” to development in your community!













something like this to keep track of everything. Failure to submit proposals on time, or the failure to submit a report on time WILL cost you money.

Reporting to donors This is one of the most important – and most neglected – aspects of fundraising. Many NGO’s raise funds from a donor, and then just disappear! The donor doesn’t hear from you again until the next financial crisis hits and you need more funds. Make sure you keep you donor up to date with t he latest information about your project. Send them newsletters, newspaper clippings, photographs etc. Invite them to opening ceremonies, launches, graduations graduations etc. Send them your annual report at













Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seed you plant.

Section 4: Writing a Good Funding Proposal A good funding proposal has a number of elements: •

The cover letter













Introduction This describes the general aims and objectives of the organization and the date it was established. It describes the organization’s target group and can provide some statistics that support or motivate your proposal.

The Problem Statement Identify the target group and then identify the needs that your organization wishes to address. Explain the scope of the problem or need that you wish to address, and its impact on the













When you solicit funds, stress how the funding will be used, NOT how desperate you are for funds. Examples of a well written explanation: Donations will be used to pay the transportation costs of five computers and networking equipment being donated to our organization by ABC Computer company, company, as well as to pay a local person to connect the computers to the Internet; all of this will allow us to provide Internet access to local women and children as part of our various community education activities. Funds will be used to provide a breakfast of oatmeal oatmeal porridge and a lunch of sandwiches, five days a















going to measure the progress you are making towards each objective? If you find it difficult to do













I am a great believe in luck, and I find

Training Manual - Fundraising for NGO's

Recommend Documents