You have to be careful about handing over control off your fundraising campaigns to other companies. For charitable organizations and even for smaller church or school groups who hire professional fundraising groups to solicit donations for them, there may be little return for their money.
While there are great professional fundraising companies to work with there are some large companies that charitable organizations are working with that put a fundraising campaign in jeopardy. Here are some considerations and precautions for working with another company for your fundraising.
Picking the Right Campaign
You have to make sure the game plan for generating your funds is effective. When you shop around for a fundraising company make sure you are on the same page. Are you getting a straight answer from them or are they proposing a campaign that is not a clear representation of your school or organization?
Some questions and concerns that need to be addressed when you are negotiating with your partner fundraising company: When you make contact with your potential fundraising company are they a good fit for you? Is the campaign a representation of your organization? Is selling a product more efficient for generatiing money ? Are the people you are trying to reach going to be open to phone solicitation? Are you selling the right product to market to your potential donors? If you are putting on your major fundraising campaign of the year for the diabetes association should you be selling chocolates?
There have been instances where a charitble organization has hired for profit groups with generating money and regretted the decision.”The public doesn’t expect managers of charities to be risk-prone people – we help to do that,” said Len Wolstenholme, spokesman for Xentel, a professional fund-raising company that solicits Wisconsin residents on behalf of 23 charitable organizations, five of which get 15 cents or less per donated dollar.“
Xentel is a company that was hired by Veitnam Veterans Foundation of Wisconsin in 2006 for their fundaising campaign. There needed to be better understanding between the companies because the campaign was anything but effective. The campaign consisted of phone solicitation, the foundation may have provided a list of past donors but soon the phone calls branched out into first contacts. “It costs telemarketers between $1.50 and $2 to raise a dollar from a new donor. First, it takes 12 calls to get one donor to pledge…only half actually honor the pledge with a check.”
Continued in part 2