FUNDING- Sustainable Fundraising - the realisation of goodwill
Mark Jefferies - Managing Director of Craigmyle and Company – thinks you need to dedicate much more time and effort to the process of fundraising.
The good news is that it is possible to raise significant funds for heritage and conservation projects. You just have to have a proper understanding of what fundraising is and what essential criteria need to be met.
Learn more about the Heritage Funding Conference at the National Portrait Gallery
Fundraising is no more (and no less) than the realisation of goodwill, manifested in financial terms. If people and organisations like what you are doing and how you are doing it, then there will at least be a general inclination to support you. If they do not, then any number of reasons can be found to say no, and this applies to statutory sources of funding as well as non-statutory.
For fundraising to succeed you need to start with a stock of goodwill. This can be achieved by a programme of cultivation, best defined as building a relationship with or transferring ownership of your project to someone, without at any time during the process asking for anything in return.
Whilst every organisation needs a vision, all the evidence in fundraising is that whilst people may cherish and support a vision in principle, they are far more likely to part with their money for a specific particular need; a project which without their help is unlikely to happen. Since the progress towards a vision is best measured by achievement of identifiable stepping-stones - generally highly practical ones, these can often provide an attractive shopping list of items for which funding is required.
But no matter how worthwhile a cause or a need, without the individuals, companies, charitable trusts and other organisations, including statutory bodies to back you, you will achieve little. Ironically the best time to make friends is when you do not require anything of them, or when you are able to offer them something they desire in return.
It is a much overlooked fact that those who give to an organisation are more likely to give again (and at a higher level), than ‘new’ donors, provided only that the ‘stewardship’ of their gift has been handled effectively and sensitively. Once a person or organisation has given support, invest time and effort in thanking them – not just once - and involving them in your organisation without asking for further support.
Invite them to see what you do at first hand, and if possible, what their support has enabled. Once they see, and approve the tangible result of their generosity you are likely to have a donor for life, as long as you look after them.