Respond to each peer initial post with a response about 3-4 sentences long.
Peer #1
Fundraising is not a task that should be taken lightly. This profession requires certain skill sets and qualities to reach your end goal. Linda Lysakowski (2014) states that the following are the 10 qualities of a successful fundraiser:
Impeccable integrity
Good listener
Ability to motivate
Hard worker
Concern for people
High expectations
Love the work
High energy
Perseverance
A fundraising manager should possess these qualities or learn them. Of the 10 a few of these qualities stand out. When trying to persuade others to give money to your cause you must have impeccable integrity.
In today's time professional integrity is on the decline. There are ways to develop your personal integrity by proving guidelines on what is ethical in this career field. Adherence to the Donor Bill of Rights is another way of ensuring the organization's hold the donor's interest above its own (Lysakowski, 2014). Beyond integrity, you must be a good listener. Communicating and listening to the interest of the donor is essential to the organization. This allows the manager to know exactly what they are looking for.
There are ways to becoming successful with fundraising. The following are a few examples (Lysakowski, 2014):
Make a conscious decision to work only for organizations whose mission you feel passionate about. Remember the adage- "do what you love, and the money will follow."
Strive to be a change agent within the organization for which you work. Develop a plan to educate the organization's leadership about philanthropy.
Remember that the donor's interest is always the foremost consideration in any decisions involving fundraising.
The demographics of your fundraisers will also determine its success. There are certain things to consider that will help boost the results. The first would be the net worth of individuals. You want to attract individuals with a high net worth and committed to philanthropy. The high rollers have a "giving" budget so approach them for the funds, do not request an inappropriate amount. By doing this your risk the chance of losing them all together.
Another demographic to keep in mind is the young people. Young people are volunteering more often now to help communities and themselves. This generation is the most tech savvy group so you have to strategize to get their attention. One effective way of attracting the young is by having the events in an unconventional setting or club (Desi Cabrera, 2012). Although young people may not have much money or disposable income, they are a perfect target audience as engaging them early on will help build on a long-lasting relationship that may produce giving in the future.
Women are another demographic that should not be ignored. Women - specifically those aged 48 (Baby Boomers) and older - and single give more to charity than males in the same demographic Cabrera, 2012). Women have a greater impact on issues in today's society and giving is no exception.
Some issues that a manager may face is poor governance and networking. Some regions may not be able to network as well as other areas. This is a hinderance but one that the manager must overcome.
REFERENCE:
Lysakowski, L. (2014). 10 Qualities of a Successful Fundraiser.
Cabrera, D. (2012). 3 Target Demographics to Boost Nonprofit Fundraising and Engagement Results in 2013.
Peer #2
In a nonprofit organization the manager has the core responsibility in their position to help the organization by raising money and organizing events in particular areas sometimes this can be a large geographic area that they could be assigned to. The fundraising manager focuses on recruiting volunteers and making sure that they have a good rapport with companies that make donations to the nonprofit organizations in order for them to be willing to donate to that particular organization.
The fundraising manager must above all have very good communication skills because their main job is going to be communicating with all types of people from different organizations and not just the one they are working for. They must be able to speak with people about finances and not be afraid to ask for monies for their company either via verbal or written and have and must have the ability to conduct research so they know exactly where to look for funding.
The fundraising manager must also deal with the budget and be able to manage accounts and make sure they are able to meet deadlines and targets for the company's budget before they go asking for funding from other sources because they will have to show their budget is in line and not spending out of control and requiring funding to cover their financial mistakes.
The manager also needs to have some sort of marketing experience if they want to be able to help raise money for the organization and have to know how to target certain groups for assistance or even how to target people to come to their events and how to make it sound like something people will want to come to.
They must have experience to know how to get the attention of people while advertising why it's important to their organization to raise money and what they plan on using the money for like to help the community and not just for their business pleasure. They are the driving force behind the fundraising efforts and it's very important on how much they put into their advertising. "The manager will develop the project, make sure it is well run, and ensure that goals are met" (Doyle, 2017).
It is very important to know the donor demographics when getting involved in fundraising as you have to know who to target to give to the cause because not everyone from every demographic will give contributions to the cause (www.opensecrets.org). There are many people who do events such as blood drives frequently maybe a few times a year in my local area and they almost know exactly where to target for a great turn out of the amount of blood they are trying to raise for people who are in need of it.
For example, I take the local area I live in with the blood drive that we perform at my offices and we set the standards for a certain amount of pints of blood we anticipate to collect and it's pretty much a sure shot that we will raise more in the Williamsburg area than we can in the Newport News area of Virginia, each time we have the events. It has been narrowed down to the donor demographics as the cause of why the pints we collect in Newport News are so much lower than Williamsburg so we have had to lower the anticipated pints whenever we do these events based on the area.
As with anything else there will be some issues with fundraising for the nonprofits so they must stay current on their strategic planning and constantly keep track of their donors and making sure that they are still interested in donated to the cause because if they lose the interest of their donors then they have nothing because the donors are needed to continue success (Hrabik, 2018). For the current donors the organization has, it's important to continue to honor those donors to make them feel important so they don't have a problem investing/contributing again or even speak to others about the organization and why they like to donate to them, opening up opportunities for more donors.
Sustainability is another area that can cause an issue with nonprofit organizations, in order to be in it for the long haul it's important to have the best resources in the right place and making sure that costs are not higher than the contributions coming in, have to keep the costs down and ensure that the money is being spent properly while keeping the donor community updated (Hrabik, 2018).
References
Hrabik, L., (2018). 3 of the biggest Struggles for Nonprofits (and how to overcome).
Opensecrets.org., (2018). Center for Responsive Politics. Donor Demographics.
Doyle, A., (2017). Nonprofit Job Titles and Descriptions.