by Deirdre Gould

Created on: July 07, 2009   Last Updated: July 18, 2009

So many organisations recycle the tired old walk-a-thon or fund raising dinner to drive donations. This leads to donor burnout, causing fewer and fewer sponsorships over time. New and innovative fund raising techniques make people more interested in giving not only because of their sheer novelty, but more importantly, because it sends the message that your organisation is taking a fresh approach to old issues, both monetary and in your organisation's primary mission.

The first issue to address is your organisation's ultimate goal in fund raising. This is a twofold process. First, the organiser of the fund raising drive need to take a step back and remember that they are not pursuing one time only donations. While these are nice, the real goal should be winning both perpetual financial and community support. Whether it is a monetary donation, free ad space or man hours in terms of new and continuing volunteers, they all have a significant financial impact on the organisation. Any event run by a nonprofit should have this understanding and long term goal.

The second part of clarifying a fund raising goal should be looking at the actual need of the organisation. Sometimes what the organisation truly needs is cash to pay salaries, rent or utilities. But often, non-profits are throwing fund raising events to raise cash to purchase goods and services of another sort. In these cases, soliciting the actual products needed by the organisation may yield better results than asking for cash donations. This is especially true during an economic downturn or when asking businesses for donations. For individuals, contributing labor, special skills or goods they are capable of creating themselves (i.e. garden products, homemade blankets or clothing or even handmade furniture) is much easier in tough times than producing extra cash to donate. For businesses, it is much easier to donate something which the business produces (and can recoup through tax write offs and free positive publicity your organisation brings them) than budgeting for a cash donation.

This being clear, there are many new and exciting ways to obtain donations of either kind.

For Monetary Goals:

Too many donation drives are far removed from their organisation's real purpose. People like to see some result from their donations, so keep your drives as close to your mission as possible. For example, as volunteer experts to speak every month or so. Ask for donations at the door or run a concession

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