Starting a Charity? Fund Development Planning, Case for Support, Pt 2

We're working on the Fund Development Plan of a start-up charity. And we're in the section having to do with the organization's "Case for Support;" this is the set of reasons why anyone would or should give us any money. We've discussed the reasons why people give, and the fact that these reasons will be the basis for writing our case for support.

It is vital to the success of our fundraising efforts to remember that we are seeking funding from our constituents not only for mission accomplishment, but for capacity-building, infrastructure acquisition and maintenance and fundraising. We need to be well aware that our revenue targets include money for administration and for the salaries and benefits we pay our staff as well. In fact, we will need to constantly and consistently interpret to our prospects and our donors and friends that the the nonprofit organization cannot do its work, and cannot achieve its mission or its aims in society, unless all aspects of the organization’s life are funded together.

It has become fashionable in recent years for some members of the public (particularly those with knowledge of business enterprise) to attempt to designate their giving and to hold nonprofit organizations hostage to their personal preferences. We read stories in the media and hear anecdotes about people who want to use “ratios” in judging nonprofits they help; we hear sometimes that people dislike giving to “administration” and “salaries” and want their money to “go directly to the poor and needy.” Many of the charity “watchdogs” whose websites attempt to help would-be donors get the biggest bang for their donated buck, encourage such comparisons and the use of ratios.

But we know that while such compartmentalization and use of ratios may be appropriate for certain business enterprises, these techniques do not work well at all in the voluntary sector. We know from experience that the rendering of services to those in the community who need what we provide involves time, careful management, increasing costs to deliver, as well as the required infrastructure and capacity building necessary to deliver services that truly make a different in the lives of those we serve.

As part of The nonprofit’s Fund Development Plan, therefore, we will resist these efforts by donors to separate out various components of our program so that they can fund just those pieces, and not all the rest of the organization’s work. We will make every effort, through all the media available to us, constantly to interpret to our friends, prospects and donors that the accomplishment of The nonprofit’s mission, and the nature and quality of service we provide to the community, depends on having a solid foundation of growing fundraising capability, expert management, qualified service providers and continual capacity-building and infrastructure enhancement; and that without these components the community’s needs cannot be well served. We will construct our financial reports with simplicity, candor and transparency, and will share this information broadly with our constituents and our public on a regular basis. In so doing, we will demonstrate the unity and integrity with which our nonprofit organization is managed. We will constantly ask donors to fund our total operation as a service in meeting the community’s need.

Tomorrow we'll work on selecting projects for donors to fund.