What do I want: planning the fundraising

If you are planning on raising funds for a cause, you may be tempted to jump at any idea that flashes your mind; this is precisely where to stop, sit back and think about it. Sometimes the best ideas to you are nothing to others and more so to the intended audience.

Planning is key to everything like it is rightly said, not planning to succeed is equally a reverse case of planning to fail. People from everywhere around the world have their financial problems, and the timing in approaching them with your financial difficulties is critical, you miss a step and you have missed it all.

Knowing when and how to approach people, socialize, ask for something, or just make them willing to commit to your cause takes a great deal of work and critical thinking. In this list of some of the fundraising planning tips, we highlight the key points you should consider when organizing a fundraising campaign, project, or event. The ideas are timeless and could save you a lot of energy trying to think it out on your own.

Let us dive in:

1. Think Fundraising: Begin by asking yourself the following questions; what do I want to raise funds for? what is fundraising? how do I make people want to assist me? is my challenge worth calling for this assistance? how would my story appeal to the listeners? what language should I use? what category does this idea belong to? who should I tell my story? what happens if no know is willing to support me? how do I start? where do I start? what are the options available to me? what is the right time to carry out this plan? which medium would this plan be best suited? is my cause genuine? am I forgetting a critical point that could lead to my success or failure? Answering the above questions genuinely will widen your approach towards getting better hands-on how to carry out your fundraising campaign. While you ponder over these questions, have your pen and paper handy. Sometimes ideas come to us in flashes and the intuitive ones are difficult to make them repeatable. So, putting them down and they come could save you a lot of time rethinking.
2. Ask Questions: The great Sir Isaac Newton once said "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants". What he meant here is that no man is an island of knowledge and that knowledge is best built upon knowledge. Asking the right questions to the right and trusted people within your network of friends will open up your mind to new and more ideas; giving you a better understanding of what you are up to. Discuss your problems and ideas with others and listen attentively to pick up their opinions. This could also be a critical point in knowing who and who would be willing to help should you finally strikeout. Note that people are becoming more and more sociable, deceptive and flattery by the day due to our quest for social skills, therefore, while you listen, filter what to consider as true, and what could be an attempt to make you feel good. Also, remember that bad advice informs of discouragement could be a form of envy, and don't forget to deal with that. In essence, don't take all advice seriously because some people you call friends are happy to see you fail.
3. Read About Fundraising: One of the best ways of planning a successful fundraising campaign is reading about the subject. There are thousands upon thousands of articles, blog writeups, social media posts, and even books both online and offline about organizing fundraising. Take a few days or weeks if you have the time to go through some of the most recommended and equip yourself with sufficient knowledge on how best to put forward your narrative. By researching on Google or other search engines on topics like fundraising tips, fundraising ideas, fundraising planning, or just fundraising can supply you with tons of resourceful ideas that could influence the output of your story. By reading thoroughly about other success stories, best practices, pros, and cons on the topic will have supplied you with the necessary ingredients that could fuel your own captivating story. As you read on the topic, put down your insight summarily on paper to remind you of what you have gone through.
4. Prepare your content beforehand: Content is everything! Let me say that again; content is everything. Whether you are planning on hosting an event for your fundraising, working for others, joining a team, selling a product, sending some emails, letters, gifts, coupons, or starting online crowdfunding, you need to prepare your content beforehand. Of course, that is precisely the reason for numbers 1, 2, and 3 of this article. Your content is divided into 3 parts, the title (name) of the event or fundraising, the organized body of the fundraising, and the conclusion. The title of your fundraising plan or idea should be compelling, thought-provoking, inducing, and inspiring. Cut off the head and the body is useless, let your title speak and inspire actions, if it doesn't go back and make it so. The body of your fundraising letter, mail, online campaign, invitation, gift card, or event planning should highlight the main ideas, summarize the key points, and encourage a call to action. Fill it with a touch of inspiration, empathy, social engineering, and let it play straight to people's emotional reactions, or a contemporary reaction to an event, faith, or a cause. Natural causes, and events such as storms, flooding, earthquakes, deaths, etc. carry with them the ability to make us think deeper about our survival, and if you happen to be raising funds for these causes, keep it as real as possible because the causes themselves are already threats to our comforts and people would be more than willing to lose that change to support them. Choosing the right images or videos for your content is also critical and sometimes the images or videos do the talking better than words. Since people are always busy with their schedules, most will prefer to see what happens then how it happened.
5. Take Actions: Now that you have thought about it, read about it, asked the necessary questions, and prepared your content; what are you waiting for? If your fundraising idea is for crowdfunding online, sign up here. However, if it is an event or any other means other than online crowdfunding, go ahead and take action by doing what you have to do to start raising funds for your cause. You may be surprised at how people closer to you are willing to help.

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