by Ruth Georgia

Created on: June 13, 2008

FoundationsFoundationsFoundations When you know your market.

As part of the non profit I can tell you that there is always too much work to do and to little staff to do it. A lot of Non-profits have little if any fund development staff. Those staff members are often poorly trained and have to work other jobs. Why you ask? Okay I will spill the beans.

Part of how non profits are rated is determined by what percentage of their annual income foundations that give at least 80% of their income back in charitable programming. Okay then you look at the cost of having a Fund Development staff. All of this cost must be reflected as Fundraising expense. As well as the cost of their training. If you want a well trained staff, one that really knows how to fill out those grant forms then you need to send them for training. So in the beginning you will have a very high expense with very little to offset it. But that is for the first year only.

Just look at these results. In a bulk mailing campaign, addressing petitions to individuals in 14 counties surrounding a metropolitan area we spent $6000 on mailing materials and staff time and uncounted volunteer hours to raise about $30,000. Not the best of returns. Just think that most of the donations you receive in this economy are going to be about $20. Okay, you only get a response form one out of every ten that you send. The cost of the letter, bulk mail, return envelope, and return postage runs you about $1.00 a piece so for each item you mail, you are lucky to get $10.00 profit from it. If you are smart, you begin to weed out the ones that never respond and add new people who will hopefully donate to your list. There is also staff time required to obtain address, update list, look for new addresses, and remove the names of non responders. And let's not even go into the nightmares of accepting future pledges and the headaches of those.

In that same year we wrote one grant proposal alone that grossed us over $120,000 and had half cost to track the expenses as the annual mailing campaign. We have been doing the annual mailing campaign the same way for about 25 years. After the initial growth period, the results have stayed pretty much the same.

Why do you have to know your market? Because if you don't you will end up sending a lot of petitions to groups that either aren't truly looking to help your cause or are over burdened with request. You have to look for foundations that the same goal in mind that you do. Government grants are also a great way to go. You should also make sure that you are good following all of the rules and filling the forms out just the way they need to be done. Keep up with your tracking. There will be a learning curve but as time passes you will learn to go to the foundations that have been receptive to you in the past and how to network within those circles. Once you get your foot in the door with the people at these foundations and they know you the money will be easier and easier to obtain. In the end the long term goal is better met by using you time and resources wisely. It will eventually bring your percent charitable programming amount up. Therefore making you more attractive to those giving the grants and even the private donors.

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