Treat a Charity Fundraiser as a Public Relations Campaign

Raising funds for charities, schools and worthy organizations is not easy. The fact is that raising money takes a tremendous amount of time, effort, money and organization. And unless there is a donor who is bequeathing or giving funds directly, the process of fundraising is arduous.

The overwhelming effort to raise funds is easier if a charity is willing to plan and train like a professional operation, with a special emphasis on treating the fundraiser like a public relations campaign.

Many charities raise money each year by holding functions that serve as a primary means of financing the operations of the cause. And this “annual function” is not without great effort. Many people are involved with a management team leading the effort. Hours are spent before and after normal hours to plan and coordinate the fundraising campaign. Thus, recruiting of volunteers is a taxing effort. Without the proper amount of support, the effort will not have the impact expected.

The logistical support of the fundraiser is essential. As part of the planning process, the management needs to ensure that the proper and commensurate amount of supplies is procured. And if an item is being sold to raise funds, there has to be an adequate supply to satisfy orders. Furthermore, any support team needs the ancillary supplies to support the selling of product, be it forms, pens and promotional literature.

Training of the support staff is essential. Any charity is concerned with not only representing itself well before the public; but, the added burden of asking for money heightens this issue. Support staff, those who are asking for donations, must not only know the mission and objectives of the charity, but they must be able to adequately articulate why money is being requested. This may necessitate that the support staff has a “script” to follow. This script will go a long way to alleviating any fears or intimidation of speaking to complete strangers and asking for money.

Those asking for money must also know what they are selling and any representations made on behalf of third party suppliers. Whether magazine companies, candy suppliers or gift companies, these businesses should be represented honestly. A script is ideal for explaining what the donor is getting for any financial donation. This may require that the support staff be prepared to answer questions. And in the event an answer is not known, it is best to state, “I do not know,” and then find out.

Given the advent of the internet, fundraising may be easier, but the effort expended to raise funds is still intensive. In the end, a fundraiser is tantamount to a public relations campaign. Thus, the charity must ensure that it protects its good name and extends a genuine degree of good will when asking for funds.

Most donors do not mind supporting a worthy cause. But, when there are so many charities competing for limited dollars, the organization that gives the extra effort with planning, organizing, logistics, training and selling is well served.

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Charity Through Fundraising

Many Australian charities are supported through various kinds of fundraising events. The school lamington drive or selling chocolates door-to-door are well known in most communities. Many children's charities could not exist without this generous support from the community; however, people do get tired of the same fundraising event over and over.

Why not make the next fundraising event a little different? In these days of computer technology, an online store for your chosen charity would be appropriate. It not only saves a great deal of time, but is relatively easy to set up.

Not everyone likes to be asked to buy something when they answer that ring on their front door bell. But nearly everyone likes to spend time on their computer and many people have become used to shopping this way. If your fundraising includes things to buy that are practical and useful, then many more people are likely to buy from you and support your charity.

You can make the product something that is personal to each person. For instance, you could offer photo mugs that they will upload their own photo for. This gives supporters a chance to buy something that is unique to them alone. Such a mug will make a beautiful gift for family members, so it is useful too. It will meet a need for a gift in a way that is easy and fun.

If you added other things such as key rings, calendars, photo books, mouse pads and T-shirts you would get a great many more buyers. People would buy because those are things they need anyway. So really you are fulfilling a need in the community as well as helping out a charity – something that will make any fund-raising event successful.

Once your fund-raising event has an online presence it is possible to attract a great many more donors than you could do locally. People all over Australia would be able to find your website and buy goods from your online store.

Save an Innocent Life Through Charity Donation - Sponsor a Child!

An extremely large number of children all around the world are in serious need of help. Sponsoring a child is a great way of helping these poor children live a better life, and by sponsoring a child with a charity donation you will feel a certain warm feeling of satisfaction when you will see that a child which had no hope is now grown-up and happy thanks to your help.

A recent research has proven that nowadays once at three seconds a child dies because of the lack of a home, food and water - things that we can't even imagine our lives without. Needless to say that for these children, schools and education is a luxury that they can only dream about.

If you decide to sponsor a child you will be able to choose the location where you want him to be, and then you can pick the special child you want to help from a list that also has the pictures of those children.

You will then be connected with that child, he will know your location and your name, and he will constantly write to you and tell you how he is feeling and what he is doing. If you want you can also send the child a picture of you and a letter where you introduce yourself to him, so that he knows who is helping him.

Your charity donation sponsorship can bring clean and fresh water, medication, treatment and also school and education to one of the many children in need.

You will be the only person that sponsors one child, because there are many of them and too little sponsors to assign more that one sponsor to one child. Therefore, you will be one of the most important persons in his life. If you want, after some time you can even visit that child and see how he's doing and in what way you've helped him. You're surely receive a warm welcome from the child and his family.

Child sponsorships are usually done through charitable organizations specialized in charity donations. These organizations also make investments with the money they receive so that every dollar you send is most likely multiplied. Besides providing the child you choose and his family with their basic need, a part of your investment is used to train volunteers that go directly at the heart of the matter and help the people there by providing vaccinations and nutritional programs. Also, with the money coming from the people's charity donations, some other major projects can come to life, like the building of schools with all the needed educational equipment, roads and bridges over the rivers so that children from a wide area can come to the schools, and also water and irigation systems - clean and fresh water is highly important for people's health.