If your organizations idea of integrated resource development is not similar to the diagram above, you may need to rethink your approach. You are likely missing some great opportunities.
The concept of effective resource development is fairly simple and straightforward. Implementation can sometimes be a challenge but the concept and approach itself is fairly simple. Organizations, marketers, consultants, businesses, etc…spend quite a bit of time and intellectual energy on creating super fancy and complicated theories, strategies, assumptions, conclusions, and solutions regarding the acquisition and development of resources. In other words, a great deal of time, effort, energy, and money is spent on figuring out the newest, greatest, and most successful way to raise revenue. At the end of the day, it all boils down to awareness and relationships, with the emphasis on relationships. More on that another time.
Today, I thought I’d share my rules regarding the concept of non-profit fundraising and resource development:
Rule #1. Funding follows awareness.
Rule #2. People don’t give to or support an organization unless they know what it does and can relate to it or its mission at a personal level.
Rule #3. Realize that it is that simple… If the concept is not clear, refer back to Rule #1 and follow the rule sequence until it sticks.
That’s it. Conceptually, it’s simple. To effectively and successfully implement, that’s another story.
Funding follows awareness and people give to organizations that they know about and can personally relate or have a personal connection to it, to its mission, or both. The impetus is on the organization to communicate its mission and message consistently and effectively to its constituents and target audiences using various and available vehicles and mediums. It is in the awareness and “getting the message out” where most organizations, and businesses for that matter, have the hardest time and thus seem to have significant activity but no productivity or success. I call the activity with no productivity, white noise. The key is establishing & creating effective methods and tactics for deploying the organization’s message. There is also an essential ingredient that without, the best and most creative tactics in world will be rendered wholly ineffective and failures. That ingredient is knowledge of the targeted audience…which is another subject for another time.
Raising revenue can be very difficult even with the best message, mission, or service. So many factors come into play that it is sometimes very hard to pinpoint one specific cause or another for the successes or failures of a particular program, promotion, or campaign. Usually it’s a combination of many. What I can tell you it that everything takes time, trial and effort, consistency, and a hefty amount of tenacity. You can’t harvest apples from a tree if you only planted the seed yesterday. Conceptually, it’s easy: dig a hole and plant a seed. However, keeping it alive and helping it grow is another story. It takes time for the tree to grow. But if you take care of it and do the things no one likes to do like watering, fertilizing, pulling weeds around it, pruning, spraying for bugs, you know, the non-flashy stuff, oh at the apples you’ll have…and the pies that go with it. Or…you won’t. The tree will die, despite all of the effort put into it, and no apples. Interesting how the same care can be given to two trees and one dies while the other flourishes. Makes you go, Hmmm. Either way, a great deal of knowledge has been acquired…and hopefully, considered the next time someone has a craving for an apple turnover. Until next time…Keep it real.
stories tall, 20 ft. wide, 140 ft. long, that takes a 500-man crew to fire two giant projectiles: a 10,584-pound high-explosive shell and a 16,540-pound concrete-piercing shell? Huh? Can you say really…really…cool? For you WWII buffs, yes, I’m talking about the German Gustav Gun…the biggest gun ever built…and one that left nothing but a 30 foot crater upon impact. This month, however, it’s about bringing out THE guns…BIG guns…I’m talking about a couple of MOAG’s, brother – Mother Of All Guns…guns way bigger than Gustav’s…and infinitely more powerful.
Jeff Searcy 