Want to know the secret to raising more money?
I’ll tell you another secret: the answer almost certainly is not to do more of what you are now doing.
Think of fundraising as wanting to bake a really delicious, well-constructed chocolate cake. If you’ve been making thumb cookies, making more won’t produce that luscious chocolate cake.
The question isn’t how much fundraising you are doing. It’s how smart your fundraising efforts are.
What is ‘smart fundraising’?
Smart fundraising is like making that perfect chocolate cake: you need a good recipe and you need the right ingredients and you need to follow the directions.
For those who need to raise more money, fortunately there is a readily available recipe with needed ingredients and step-by- step instructions.
It’s called Informed Fundraising: An Introduction and Guide and is available from BoardSource, which describes the recipe this way:
”Are you missing the information you need to excel at fundraising? BoardSource can help.
“Informed Fundraising: An Introduction and Guide is a new e-book designed to equip board members and chief executives leading smaller and/or newer nonprofits with a solid understanding of what it takes to construct and execute an effective fundraising program.
“The book focuses on what the authors have identified as the three key components of fundraising:
- Understanding — board and board member roles in fundraising, types and fundamentals of fundraising
- Preparation — determining the amount of funds needed and their use, identifying where the money will come from, developing a fundraising plan, cultivating prospects
- Execution — soliciting prospects, infrastructure, evolving from a basic fundraising program to a mature program
“If your organization needs help to build the foundation for their fundraising program, this is the book you need.”
