What is your fund raising vision?

Fund Raising for the Non-Profit

As the weather warms, most minds turn to new chores, vacation, new education plans, and for Masons, fund raisers.  Since most people don't have a long term plan, and the Masters term is only one year, usually these thoughts of fund raising are brought up with little forethought.  Hence, the results are modest as the work is at best feeble.  So, I ask, What is your fund raising vision?  Notice I did not say budget!  To get results, the following must be considered, and will be discussed individually.  They are advertising, marketing, location, and fund raising opportunities.

Today, you don't need a lot in the bank to get big advertising results.  Nor do you have to test the definitions of insanity by doing yesterdays same lame advertising methods.  One must first think about the results.  What results do you want?  We all know the age old question, "Which would you rather have a penny a day doubled every day for thirty days, or one million dollars?" If you do the math, you soon find out one million dollars would be obtained in day twenty seven, whereas the end result in just three more days, of what seems absurd to start with, is a mere $10,737,418.24.  Likewise the result of thinking in the box, traditional thinking, is limiting whereas thinking outside of the box can be quite rewarding.  If you think money is the answer here, you are still thinking in the box.  Not only should you be thinking about the financial outcome, but every fund raiser should be a recruiting opportunity!  Each lodge, at the minimum should have a display set up informing the purchaser of Masonic offerings, including in my opinion, O.E.S,, DEMOLAY, AND RAINBOWS.  Each lodge should have a MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE appointed for such purposes occuring throughout the year.  Being at a Masonic event, and having the materials available just opens the opportunity for the purchaser to ask the question!

Doing the same old thing is also not thinking outside of the box.  Free advertising is everywhere and can reach for more people than your whole lodge would have the opportunity to reach in thirty days.  Again, what results do you want to get?  Do you want to reach your immediate area or raise money over the internet.  One internet site for this purpose is http://www.indiegogo.com/ where you only pay 3% of the total funds collected if you reach your goal.  So if your goal is $100,000.00 you proportionately elevate your goal to cover the charges.  On the other hand, if you take my advise and want to also recruit during your fund raising you will want to use local advertising. On the internet you will find http://wral.com and http://news14.com both offer free classified advertising.  They both also have community calendar event listings at no charge.  Johnston County has http://4042.com in addition to the two above sites.  Social media such as http://facebook.com, http://twitter.com, Google Groups through http://google.com, http://foursquare.com also are free but limits the advertising to those who follow you. Your lodge website is a free source, of course, but unless you plan on using some kind of search engine optimization, it generally will not be the most effective source for reaching the local community. Most Starbucks, and many other coffee houses, laundromats, grocery stores, cleaners, Lowe's Home Improvement, Home Depots, and gas stations offer community billboards free.  Some newspapers still offer low cost advertising such as "the Thrifty Nickel", "the Southside Shopper".

Assuming still that your fund raiser is going to take place at a certain time and place and is intended to get funds from more than just your fellow lodge brothers, your next step is to draw people to the events location.  For this you will need some sizeable banners, usually 8' x 4', and not little posterboards.  THEY MUST BE READABLE!  You  will need at least two, one for either side of the road to be readable from the direction of the flow of the traffic approaching the location.  Putting one banner out lettered on both sides will not be as effective because the opposite side approaching traffic will have more difficulty reading it. If, however, the location is at a busy fourway intersection, you will want four.  These should be placed out on the side of the street approximately one week before the event.

Now that you have decided how you are going to get the word out, what do you say?  Are you going to market the product used to raise money, or the event, group, etc for which you are raising money?  You want to make this the most professional possible.  This will strongly show the level of seriousness you have for the event.  Hand written materials for an adult fund raiser shows little concern for or interest in the group for which the money is raised.  This little attention to detail can also be interpreted as a lack of concern for food preparation, health concerns, etc., and will result in drive by rather than drive in customers.  Think for a second about the last car wash put on by the local school.  Chances are the marketing was done on a posterboard, in hand, and was very difficult to read.  Being philanthropic, you decide to stop in, but in the back of your mind did you wonder how clean your car was going to be?  Now think back to the last church fund raiser you paid for.  What went through your mind? 

More than likely, your event will take place at the lodge.  For the above types of fundraising, this would be the best location.  This allows you to have the tools available for both the fund raiser and recruiting.  It will also be more relaxed than if you meet under a tent with limited staff allowing more time for a one on one.  Sometimes the fund raiser doesn't require a location.  In that case, not all advertising mentioned above will be necessary.

How many ways can you raise money.  Let me count the ways.  Pulling them out of the box, there are the chicken and fish dinners, turkey breasts, pancake breakfasts, spaghetti dinners, movie nights, fried candy bars, and so on.  Along the edge of the box are shopping cards, candle sales, dinner cards, reverse raffles, etc.  Totally out of the box are car shows, 5k, 10k or marathon runs, motorcycle rides, bike rides, dance-a-thons, turkey shoots, boat raffles, car raffles, gun raffles, golf tournaments, tennis tournaments, fishing tournaments, eating contests, talent shows, ipad raffles, tv raffles, etc.  Again, What results do you want?

Regardless of whether you want to raise money on the internet, or go door to door in your community, fund raising should not just be for money.  Doing so is not looking at the whole picture and leaves big opportunities on the table.  Can't think of any fund raisers after reading this?  They have this thing called the internet you access through the device from which you are reading this blog.  A search for fund raisers and a review of a couple of sites will give you more than enough to get started.  Next determine what you want to say and where you want it said.  Then, just do it!