I spend a lot of my time helping groups assess their fundraising effectiveness. This article looks at two of the factors I use to help them understand what they can do differently. I will address other factors in upcoming articles.

Should you put a priority on raising money from businesses? Or building your annual fund? Or writing proposals to foundations?

Board members are usually concerned about these strategic choices. And one of them will often make this comment, posed as a question: “A group where my friend is on the board just got a huge new gift. Shouldn't WE be raising more money from [foundations/ major donors/ corporations/ events/ planned gifts/ online giving/ (pick your source) ...]?”

The answer to their question is "Maybe..." But what are the factors to consider?

Here are the ten factors I offered for you to consider in an earlier post. These may be helpful to share these with your board members as well.

How many people you serve and their profiles
The geographic coverage of your mission
Composition of your board (business/social/professional profiles)
The age of your organization
The nature of your mission and work
The size of your development staff
The size of your annual budget
How much of your revenue is earned income versus gifts and grants
Whether you have an endowment
How many volunteers you engage and what they do for you

That’s a lot of factors -- and I'm sure I've missed some. Let’s look at two important ones and leave the others for future posts.

1. How many people you serve and their profiles

Why It Matters

The number and profile of “people served” is close to the heart of most nonprofit missions, but how are those factors important in choosing the mix of fundraising programs to develop over time?

Let's envision a human services nonprofit – a shelter for homeless families. Now think about a lecture series on world affairs.

On first consideration, you might assume the homeless shelter would get most of its funding from governmental sources, and the lecture series would get most of its funding from ticket sales and sponsorships from professional firms. (And that may be the case). But when each of these organizations fundraises, how might they take into account the people they serve?

You may think the homeless shelter cannot raise funds from those they serve, and in terms of total dollars, the number will probably be low. However, to the extent that people served can contribute even a little bit of funding to the operation – perhaps months or years after being served – it’s powerful. (Your volunteers, and family and friends of those served can also be quite generous.) And of course, the number of these families served -- and why they are homeless -- is very important to the story the group conveys to foundations, federated giving campaigns, corporations, and individual donors. This mix of fundraising constituencies makes sense, because of the people served.

On the other hand, it’s easy to conclude that the world affairs lecture series needs to raise its charitable support from those served – the attendees. Again, that makes sense. An annual fund strategy that invites attendees to give at various levels will be effective, if implemented well. Additionally, you can move some annual fund donors up to become major donors or even program sponsors.

However, there may be individuals, foundations and other organizations in the community (or even the region or the nation) who don't necessarily attend the series but may be very interested in helping to bring attention to your group’s topics or themes. Don’t ignore these donors just because you don’t see them in your seats.

2. The geographic coverage of your mission

Why It Matters

There are funders in many states – large businesses, particularly -- that only want to fund statewide organizations. If you are a statewide organization, it’s important to make these funders part of your mix. More commonly, however, nonprofits look for charitable support in the geographic area they serve. It makes sense to approach those funders and donors having a close view of your work and your impact on your shared community. And remember they may have an employee gift matching program.

When geographic coverage can be a problem: Your organization may serve people (or other critters or the land and water) in geographic areas where there are no foundations, no corporations and very few people, let alone many people who can give charitable gifts. (This applies in much of the U.S., after all.) While you should include the people who live there when inviting support, you will most likely need to engage foundations – regionally and perhaps nationally – and visionary individual donors willing to learn about the critical nature of your mission. In fact, there are now foundations that reserve large portions of their grantmaking for groups in isolated areas.

If your geographic service area includes tourist facilities, you might consider partnering with the organizations offering those facilities, for sponsorship from them and to reach visitors to the area.

To illustrate -- I will never forget visiting Moraine Lake Lodge in the Canadian Rockies (pictured above) and enjoying wonderful presentations by naturalists every evening we were there. There were several nonprofit organizations working in the area to improve bear habitat and that of various other animals and plants, but on the property, there was no literature describing their work or invitations to give. It seemed like a lost opportunity to me, but perhaps the Canadians pay adequate taxes for these purposes!

My next post will cover two additional factors important to choosing fundraising programs and strategies.