Trials and Tribulations - Fundraising for Beginners techlearn.groupsite.com

 Dave Power, a partner at Charles River Ventures, a venture capital firm in Waltham, Massachusetts, says, "Start-ups have no business spending money on ads. If you can't measure it, don't do it."

Nancy, at your request I'm mentioning a couple of thoughts. I'm sure I'll think of others later. What I was mentioning was an appeal letter, generally referred to as a year end appeal since that is when most generally donate. . .around the holidays and before the end of tax season. In the past we purchased a mailing list (generally fairly reasonable) and mailed to friends and associates of our board. Your best responses will come from the latter, but since you are new and still getting the word ouit...it wouldn't hurt to do the other as well. Ask your board ..

Using the old-fashioned method of getting on the phone and actually talking to potential donors, freinds, and acquaintances seems to be the only successful marketing tool for fundraising. Unfortunately, I discovered this late in the game after devoting too much time to compiling lenghty email lists and designing elaborate email pages.

What did not work

In our first funraising campaign, online invitations (500), email distribution lists to associations (16,000), email reminders to chamber members (2,500), and an email marketing company (150) produced only 2 ticket sales to our first fundraiser. In addition, spending money on a full-color ad in the leading ..

This forum will help new non-profit organizations understand the importance of marketing and the requirements for a successful fundraising campaign. My hope is that terms like "social marketing," "viral marketing," or other alternative methods will be explored in addition to the more traditional methods. Hopefully, recommendations will be based on solid, quantifiable results that will truly benefit event organizers, donor recruitment, web site management, and fundraising efforts.

I would also like to candidly address marketing failures, pitfalls to avoid, and some definite "busts" when executing fundraising campaign. How do you recover from a failed campaign? What comes next? What were some ..