Fundraising as a modern form of endeavor could be considered as an “undertaking in progress”. The basics of the definition are still there: it is a process of soliciting and gathering money from individuals, businesses, foundations and agencies.

What qualifies it as a “work in progress” is the fact that there are new ways discovered regularly on how to improve the art and science of raising funds. Another is that articles on fundraising tips and guidelines are written up just as regularly.

The following is another set of useful tips for people and groups engaged in fundraising. Some of these tips are the old reliable ones mixed with some new ones worth trying.

Goals
Set your fundraising goal – how much is the total amount you need? It does not matter if you are raising funds for sports, charity, or for some other worthy causes. It is important to know exactly how much you need.

If you are not sure, estimate some higher figure. You cannot do another fundraising for an additional amount if you estimated lower.

Programs and products
Decide on the products you want to anchor your fundraising, if it is selling that you choose to be your event.

Next, check on your members. What do they like to do, what are they interested in? Will they be comfortable in selling? Are they motivated?  It is said that people are excited to do business with things they are interested in.

Deadlines
Deadlines are important in whatever undertaking, and fundraising is one fairly serious endeavor that needs some professional touch. The deadline provides the parameter for the fundraising’s beginning and finish. Schedules and other activities are settled once deadlines are set.

People and staff
Fundraising needs people to fill in the many slots that need to be manned. Yours comprise the participants, parents probably, volunteers, and anyone else who will help. The participants need to know in advance the actual fundraising, and other nitty-gritty details.

Volunteers are the support staff that can handle some responsibilities as you see fit. Dividing roles and delegating the duties to them can ease up much of your own responsibilities, or at least lessen the scope.

Budget
Budget not only includes purchase of necessary materials (products to be sold, other paraphernalia, etc.) but also comprise those incremental expenses before, during, and after the fundraising event. These should be kept as low as possible for obvious reasons.

Advertising
People have to be aware about your fundraising campaign. Advertising it has to be done well beforehand. If there are tickets to be bought, a longer lead time is needed. For easy calculation, it should be twice as long as that of simple fundraising sales.

Advertisements are more effective if supported by posters and flyers. You can ask for help from local business to have your posters in their windows and on community bulletin boards.

Don’t be shy in sending emails to all your contacts, and tell everyone everything you know about the coming fundraiser. Your local TV, radio stations, and your local newspaper can include your fundraising in their community news. Ask them.

Motivate the people
Incentives like prizes, fun activities and other rewards are great motivators for your people. They will be more excited on participating, and they will work harder. One way is to create competition among them with rewards for the highest or fastest sellers.

These are some of the tips as of the moment. As had been noted, tips and guidelines are trickling in everyday. And that’s what makes fundraising exciting. You never know what new thing is coming up next.

All over the world, fundraising activities are conducted almost on a daily basis. The big ones are in the news and they are the ones we remember most.

In other parts, fundraising takes on several sizes. In rural areas, a school may have raised some funds needed to buy more school materials. Some parish church somewhere may have sponsored some cookie sales.

All in all, there are so many kinds of fundraising activities anyone can organize. Here are some of them for you to choose from.

Raffle
This is one of the more popular ones. You can give your version some twists to jazz up things and make it interesting. Instead of standard raffle tickets with raffle numbers on them, you could distribute lollipops with the raffle numbers written on a label wrapped on the sticks.

A good idea would be to gather many volunteers and participants to make these tags on the lollipop sticks.

One fine idea, too, is to have some local businessman donate an item or gift certificates to be raffled off. You’ll be surprised how generous people can be regarding fund raisers.

If you have businesses helping out in the fundraising, make sure you acknowledge them by mentioning them right at the event. If you have the budget, thank them in advertisements you placed on the papers and on radio and TV.

More tips:
- For businessmen-donors, be clear to them how the money will be spent, plus giving them information about your organization.

- Try to think of a fundraising idea that hasn’t been done yet.

- Some large businesses plan their donation budgets early in the year, so contact them as early as possible. Remember to budget for incidental costs that may arise, such as fees, shipping costs or prizes.

Unusual auctions
In Minneapolis, a church auctioned off three front pews for Christmas Eve service as part of their school fundraiser. The bids ran into thousands not because they were precious (they were free most times of the year!) but were probably carried away by the Christmas spirit.
Not a bad idea to serve as a model to your own.

Credit card
In donations, particularly for fundraising, credit cards are discovered to be better than cash. People are found to be more likely to honor a pledge (backed by a credit card) than an ordinary phone pledge. They are also more willing to give more if the amount is split into smaller monthly pledges ($100 one-time donation into $10 a month for ten months).

OTT (Over the top) display
Fundraising sometimes need blatant, up front, over-the-top, highly visible reminders.

A nonprofit organization in Illinois hosted a dinner for their supporters and raised $6,000. The best part was the extra $18,000 they raised. The secret? The organizers prominently placed a big donation jar at the registration table for everyone to see.

Online donation
The world’s largest market place is extending a helping hand to non-profit groups. Simply sign up to eBay Giving Works and have your group line up for online donations.

Anyone can sell items on eBay and donate part or the entire final sale price to your organization. Donations are collected and distributed, and tax receipts are issued to the seller on your behalf.

These ideas have worked so far and are in use by many groups today. They also serve as templates and triggers to your own ideas you thought of by yourself. These ideas are only limited by your own imagination.

Sometimes, one is not so sure if fundraising is easy or can be hard. The distinction cannot be figured out beforehand.

Big-time fundraising events can sometimes be a nightmare or can be smooth as silk. Small fundraising events look like they can be done with eyes closed, although they can be stressful at times.

Needless to say, everybody wants the easy way. How does one get the best results for an easy fundraiser?

For starters, the easy fundraiser is theoretically done with less effort. It is said that the level of effort is directly proportional to the size of the group’s monetary goal. Of course, experience tells us this is not set in stone.

Resources

The perennial problem in a small group is resources. You need so many volunteers and you end up with never enough number. An additional problem would be that, as common courtesy would have it, you cannot require too much time commitment from so many people.

Ideally, the commitment would only consume a volunteer’s single weekend or perhaps a small amount of time during the days of the week. Experience tells us that people are more enthusiastic in helping if it does not require more than two hours straight of their time.

Time period

Another important aspect of an easy fundraising is the overall length of time spent on the program. An easy fundraiser that lasts more than one weekend should not need much attention. Meantime, those that exist only for a single weekend should not need a huge amount of preparation time.

What, then, are the easy fundraisers that take a little effort, few resources and have the right time lengths?

Here’s a random list of some simple ones that anyone can set up:

Recycling programs

Used printer cartridges collection and recycling program virtually costs nothing. The boxes and shipping are covered by the suppliers. Many companies encourage recycling efforts. Good prospects are office buildings housing many offices.

Electronic and office supplies stores are also good places to collect them. Customers bring their old cartridges to the stores for replacement.

After a while, a considerable number of places shall have been covered in your recycling program. After the initial placements of these collectors, there would be less work after and yet they can produce the needed funds for your group.

Another easy enterprise is the famous yard sale. The time needed is short, probably just a Saturday sale (with some preparation time the previous night).

As to the resources needed, recruiting outgoing types can be productive. Balloons for children and doughnuts and coffee for adults certainly add fun to the event.

Putting items from different households together into groups can create bigger draws. It can attract enough shoppers with enough donations to give away.

Another type of easy fundraiser is the weekend specialty sale. The best items would be those seasonal ones – Christmas trees, pumpkin patch, spring flower bulbs, etc. This needs some advance publicity and a high-traffic location. The target is the general public as well as those from the group.

The trick is to make it quick and fun – setup on Friday, sell on Saturday, and close on a Sunday afternoon.

Of course, the prices should be competitive. And there should be some service to go with the sales. Have big boys around to tie down those Christmas trees on cars and place pumpkins in the trunks.

Fundraising is actually not that difficult for both small-time and big-time events. It is all in the right planning, using correct resources and managing the time.  You’ve seen how a small time event can be done in fun and easy way.

How a big-timer can be done just as easy will be in another article.