Are Fundraising Events a Losing Proposition For Nonprofit Organizations?
By: kikaru kung
Submitted: 2010-05-27 02:52:56 | Word Count: 677
It happened several years ago. I was working with a small organization as their part-time development director after I came up with the idea to sell donated merchandise on eBay to raise money. Their board agreed to present it a attempt, we have a tendency to publicized it in the newsletter and I began hauling donated items home in my automotive every week to photograph and list.
Selling on eBay is a lot of additional time-consuming than you may imagine - from researching the items, writing up the listing, designing the HTML for our page, taking countless images of the goods and, lastly, packaging, addressing and shipping - particularly when you're doing it all yourself. At the top of 3 months we have a tendency to had raised slightly over $eight,000 for the organization - when PayPal fees - and therefore the organization was happy.
I, but, was not. When I factored in the amount of time that I had lost - time that may are better spent writing grant proposals, researching foundations or calling donors - I noticed that selling on eBay was a losing proposition.
Why am I telling you this?
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My story illustrates 2 points:
I was blessed with an exquisite board, a board that supported my plan wholeheartedly. Additional boards should give their development workers the liberty to do their jobs - even at the risk of generally failing.
My eBay selling expertise was very similar to several smaller nonprofit organizations' experiences with events. My friend, Jen, who works for a moderately massive nonprofit in New Jersey that shall stay nameless, refers to events as "crack." For several tiny organizations they're addictive, despite the customarily comparatively low come on investment.
Oh certain, events will and do raise money. Nonetheless it's rare that event ROI analysis strategies issue in the enormous - and I do mean monumental - quantity of time devoted by workers to the planning of events.
You know precisely what I am talking about.
As an example, I once worked as a grant author for a company where I was repeatedly referred to as off task to tie goodie baggage, pick up donated merchandise for events, hostess at golf outings - you name it. Do I want to inform you that my grant-writing efforts brought in seventy% additional money than the events?
You almost certainly have your own event horror stories. Unless your organization already encompasses a outstanding signature event, or a committed bunch of proficient volunteers willing to try and do the grunt work for you, events are generally a losing proposition.
Norm Olshansky, in his article "Fundraising Return on Investment" goes therefore so much as to mention: "This might seem like blasphemy to some, however events should primarily be used to draw in new donors, cultivate existing donors and volunteers, say thanks to your donors, volunteers and workers, or to provide community education."
I concur.
It's been my experience that the smaller nonprofit is a lot of higher off focusing on "Benevon" style events. Benevon is that the organization formerly referred to as Raising More Money. Their program focuses solely on growing a company's individual giving and a significant component of it is little, informal cocktail parties or gatherings at board members homes designed for the sole purpose of introducing friends and neighbors to your mission in an informal, participating manner. These events require minimal staff involvement and result in greater long-term gain.
You have got limited time, cash and resources. And I'm all regarding Easy Development Systems, that suggests that building your donor base - and, eventually major gifts - in an exceedingly systematized way. As Tony Robbins invariably says, "don't specialize in activity - specialise in results!"
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Barbara K Howard has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Fundraising, you can also check out his latest website about:
