Starting a Charity? Fund Development Planning -- Identifying Prospect Pools, Pt. 3

We're discussing the establishment of pools of donor prospects who might give to our new charity. Today we focus on some of the strategies of implementation that can be used.
Prospect Pools – Strategies for Implementation
During the next year, we will want to take the following steps

1. Individuals
We will gather together the names and contact information of individuals in the community who have been sympathetic to our cause and mission and who have been willing to give us contributions. We will send these individuals a direct mail appeal at the end of the year, as well as individual requests for contributions whenever special needs arise for which their gifts can be helpful.

We will keep this information in an appropriate donor database, which we will upgrade on a forecast schedule according to our strategic plan and our advance budget projections.

We will create a subset of the above individuals who we believe have major gift potential, and will devise cultivation and solicitation strategies for each of those individuals. These cultivation strategies will include the assignment of each donor prospect to either a staff member or a volunteer for continued relationship building and follow-up, and for eventual solicitation.

2. Corporations – Community Responsibility Grants
We will gather together the names and contact information of various businesses and corporations in our community, county and region who have been or whom we think might be willing to give us contributions. This information will be uploaded into our donor database for further use and reference.

We will establish strategies for approaching, cultivation and solicitation of these business owners on behalf of our new charity. In this process we will assign each corporate prospect to a staff person or a volunteer for continued relationship building and follow-up, and for eventual solicitation.

We will develop these prospects in three subsets among our corporate responsibility donors as follows:

1. Those who make and/or sell a product or service that has a direct affinity for our mission. These financial institutions, mortgage companies, other lenders, real estate agents and brokers, and the like, will constitute a “direct affinity” group that we will consider primary donor prospects.
   
   For this group, we will craft a special version of our Case for Support that is designed to help them see the logic and the good sense and stewardship involved in making contributions to our mission, so that all members of our community become more knowledgeable and more capable of dealing with and purchasing services from these businesses.



2. Those businesses or corporations that are close to us geographically and share our concern for the well-being of our neighborhood. These retailers, wholesale outlets, service businesses may not have a direct affinity for our mission, but they will undoubtedly greatly appreciate the fact that more stable, knowledgeable community citizens means a better business climate and greater chance of business success.
   
   For this group, also, we will craft a special version of our Case for Support designed to motivate and compel these business interests to make contributions to our work.



3. Those businesses and corporations who are not necessarily close to us geographically, nor have any affinity with us, but whom we believe may be motivated to help us make our community or our regional society a better place to live.
   
   For this group, we may not necessarily create a special version of the Case for Support, but we will attempt to approach these prospective donors in ways that motivate them to give.

3. Corporations – Gifts of Sponsorships
We will gather together the names and contact information of various businesses and corporations in our community, county and region who have been or whom we think might be willing to give us contributions.
We will establish strategies for approaching, cultivation and solicitation of these business owners on behalf of our new charity. In this process we will assign each corporate prospect to a staff person or a volunteer for continued relationship building and follow-up, and for eventual solicitation.

We will establish strategies for approaching, cultivation and solicitation of these business owners on behalf of our new charity. In this process we will assign each corporate prospect to a staff person or a volunteer for continued relationship building and follow-up, and for eventual solicitation.

Following the method above of dividing businesses or corporations into three sub-sets, we will work out different strategies of approach, and a variety of Case for Support nuances that are designed to help corporate marketers and advertisers see the value in giving to our cause and mission.

We will also create a menu of sponsorship benefits as follows (suggested):
Sponsorship Levels:

• Corporate Angel Sponsor $10,000 annually


• Platinum Sponsor $7,500


• Gold Sponsor $5,000


• Silver Sponsor $2,000


• Bronze Sponsor $1,000


• Benefactor Sponsor $500


• Attraction Sponsor $250


• In-Kind Sponsor In-kind

Sponsor Benefits
"Corporate Angel Sponsors" will have their logo imprinted on all educational materials developed for our service delivery clients. Their logo will be featured on our stationery and on our promotional materials for marketing and advertising purposes, as well as on our fundraising literature. Public mention will be made of these sponsors at every public presentation, press conference and public event that we create. Recognition of these sponsors will occur in all media coverage and promotional materials, and will be prominently displayed and features in all of our special events. Their names and logos will also appear on our website and on the donor wall in our new charity’s general offices

"Platinum Sponsors" will have their logo imprinted on all educational materials developed for our service delivery clients. Their logo will be featured on our stationery and on our promotional materials for marketing and advertising purposes, as well as on our fundraising literature. Public mention will be made of these sponsors at every public presentation, press conference and public event that we create. Their names and logos will also appear on our website and on the donor wall in our new charity’s general offices

"Gold Sponsors" will have their logo imprinted on all educational materials developed for our service delivery clients. Their logo will be featured on our stationery and on our promotional materials for marketing and advertising purposes, as well as on our fundraising literature. Their names and logos will also appear on our website and on the donor wall in our new charity’s general offices

"Silver Sponsors" will have their logo imprinted on all educational materials developed for our service delivery clients. Their names and logos will also appear on our website and on the donor wall in our new charity’s general offices

"Bronze Sponsors" will be listed on our website in a special category and their logos will appear in a special panel in close proximity to the listing on the site. Their names and logos will also appear on our website and on the donor wall in our new charity’s general offices

"Benefactor Sponsors" will be listed on our website in a special category and their logos will appear in a special panel in close proximity to the listing on the site, as well as on the donor wall in our new charity’s general offices..

"Attraction Sponsors" will be listed in a general donor listing in which their corporate names will be accompanied by a checkmark or other visible designation that tells viewers that these sponsors have given to our new charity.

"In-kind Sponsors" will be listed at the end of our donor listing on our website, in our annual report and on our donor all in our new charity’s general offices

We will create a small, inexpensive sponsorship brochure that tells about our work in the community and describes the menu of benefits that are available to our corporate donors. As time moves along, and as we have more money available for fundraising. Our new charity will involve our corporate sponsors in other media, such as display books, videos, public displays, kiosks and other marketing and advertising strategies. We will also add sponsorship benefits as we enhance and enlarge our organization and its work.

This rounds out the description of work that needs to be done with regard to creating or identifying pools of donor prospects. In our next post we'll discuss the use of volunteers in our Fund Development Plan.