Fund Raising the Message
The branding and marketing of the message is critical to fund raising campaigns. There is a need to have the capital plan designed in a manner that strategically seeks funding from foundations, businesses and individuals in the fundraising campaign. Too often fund rasing campaigns are loosely organized and expectations not base on facts. The suggestion that we find useful is selecting individuals or companies that will offer strong advice to your organization. Our high success rate in submitting foundation, business and government proposals is base on the fact that our staff ask the hard questions and will state the weaknesses of the justification. The second part that we have advised our clients to do is have individual giving separated from proposal writing. We have found that the personality and skills of the individual are just too different. A key element of fund raising is that it does not just start and end in a short time period, it happens all year long. It is important to note that your organization needs to be in front of an individual several times before there may be a positive outcome. This goes to the fact that marketing your organization is about your organizations communication in an ongoing manner.
In closing I will add one more point and example. We are finding that to stand out there has to be something that provides an opportunity for the organization to be remembered. I would suggest that that be in the form of a visual message for the service being provided. If your organization understands the term social media, begin to use it in developing partnerships with local businesses. Check out the EMO and Chris cartoons to get a sense on how a visual effect can present a message.
