Effective Frontline Fundraising Part 21

Attached to this e-mail is an information sheet which provides you with a more in depth summary of Betasabas objectives, as well as funding opportunities for your consideration.

Betasab relies almost exclusively on philanthropic support. We are hard at work building Betasab, and forging a movement of supporters here in the US to help lift this organization off the ground. Your gift is an investment in the future of a plagued nation. Your gift will directly and positively impact the lives of these orphans.

Please support us today as generously as you are able. You can either mail a check to the address below, or make a secure gift online at our website, which is www.betasab.org. Please know that you may always contact me via e-mail, or via phone, with questions of how you can get more involved, either as a leaders.h.i.+p-level donor or as a volunteer.

You can be confident that a gift to Betasab makes a difference in these young peopleas lives. I thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely: Jeff Stauch Volunteer Development Officer The text below is what I include as an attachment to the above e-mail.

Our objectives: A safe family environment: We hire and train the mothers and aunties; the children become brothers and sisters. Together they make a permanent family Stable homes including a main house that functions as a transitional house for new children and a meeting house for holidays and other special events and smaller houses, each with seven to ten children, a mother and an aunty Guaranteed education in local schools Support to pursue education and training to the childas maximum potential Means to a secure future including a small bank account in each childas name and practical skills and experiences A broader, supportive community Regular contact with local teachers, mentors, health and mental health providers Interactions with non-Ethiopian volunteers from Middlebury College and other American colleges and universities that will benefit the Ethiopian children and American students Sustainable community development including workshops and programming for both children and adults, as well as vocational education and support for the local community A focus on sustainability in all aspects of the project from small, local economic development to energy and technology sources and training Your Opportunities for Philanthropic Engagement:4 $ 500 would cover rent in the main house for 1 month $ 175 would send a child to school for a year $ 55 would buy meat for all the children for 1 month $ 25 would buy snacks for all the children for 1 month Sponsors.h.i.+ps: It costs almost $ 2,000 per year to support each child. To offset that cost, and most importantly, because we would like the children to form supportive relations.h.i.+ps with a larger, caring community, we will offer sponsors.h.i.+ps of $360 per year, per child. With the sponsors.h.i.+p, you will get photos and letters and updates of your child(ren), and we hope you will enjoy sending them letters, small gifts if you wish, and even visiting them if and when you ever get to Ethiopia. If youare interested in an initial sponsors.h.i.+p, please contact me at the address below.

A Major Solicitation.

Iam now going to provide you with a major gift solicitation of $500,000. This type of solicitation would happen only after I had established a solid footing with John, and only after I had a good understanding of his interests and capacity.

As noted, this is written in my voice, but I wanted to provide you an idea of how you might go about structuring your written solicitations for significant contributions to your nonprofit. Some things to note: I made up a fund name for John, so that he can, as it were, imagine his name in lights.

I request endowed and expendable support, to provide for short-term needs and long-term sustainability.

I tell him that I am going to follow up in the next few weeks if I donat hear from him first.

__________.

4 At the time of this writing, these figures are in the process of being adjusted, due to inflation.

Dear John: Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me during my trip to Franconia a" and thanks for the delicious lunch! I hope that you found the conversation interesting and informative. If you left the meeting with questions or concerns, please do let me know. I would be happy to answer them.

In what follows, I am going to continue the dialogue that we initiated over lunch regarding a potential commitment to [college] in the mid-six figure range. I will present you with two ideas, which I am basing on what I understood to be your interests: a gift to endow a scholars.h.i.+p fund at [college], or a gift to establish an endowed interns.h.i.+p fund here. I think both will hold appeal for you and both are areas for which there is great monetary need at the [college].

I. Scholars.h.i.+ps at [college]: Ensuring Access for All As I noted in our conversation in Franconia, financial aid is the biggest fundraising priority for us here at [college]. It is one of our biggest expenditures each year, second only to the cost of cla.s.sroom instruction (i.e. paying professors). Even full-paying students receive a ahiddena scholars.h.i.+p, thanks to our endowment. Whereas tuition at [college] is $40,000, the actual cost of educating, feeding, and providing housing is closer to $65,000. That gap is filled through the endowment and from gifts from alumni, parents, and friends.

However, not everyone can afford to pay the full tuition. In fact, half of our students currently receive some form of financial aid. The average financial aid package here at [college] is $20,000. [College] is one hundred percent committed to making the unique, elite education here accessible to all qualified candidates, regardless of financial circ.u.mstances. A n.o.ble goal, to be sure, but one that requires significant funding, much of which will come from philanthropic support.

John, to this end, I would like you to consider a gift of $500,000, made over five years. This would entail setting up an endowed scholars.h.i.+p fund of $400,000 and providing expendable funding for financial aid as you build the endowed fund. In other words, you would provide $100,000 per year for five years, with $80,000 being designated to set up your endowed scholars.h.i.+p fund, and $20,000 a year being used as an expendable scholars.h.i.+p.

Once fully endowed, [college] will be able to avail $20,000 each year from the John D. Donor a77 Scholars.h.i.+p Fund for a scholars.h.i.+p that would live on in perpetuity. That $20,000 is the average aid package for half of the students here at [college]. And the $20,000 that you would provide in expendable support while your fund builds to $400,000 would allow you to have an immediate impact on the life of a current student.

Based on your own narrative, John, I know that financial aid made your education at [college] possible, so I am hopeful that you might consider making that same opportunity a possibility for a student today.

II. Experiential Learning: Outside the Cla.s.sroom Education The other option that I believe might be of interest to you is establis.h.i.+ng an endowed interns.h.i.+p fund at [college]. Experiential learning opportunities are becoming ever more important to a studentas education as the world becomes increasingly globalized. Compet.i.tion for jobs is ever steeper, and many employers openly admit nowadays that the vast majority of their hires come out of their summer interns.h.i.+p programs.

While some interns.h.i.+ps are paid, a good number of them, especially in the nonprofit and NGO world, are not, and there is very high demand for those types of opportunities here at [college]. The challenge is that many students cannot afford to have an unpaid position over the summer, so instead of pursuing these opportunities, they are forced to return to their hometowns to find a job which does much less to prepare them for life beyond college.

Currently, we are able to meet less than half of the financial requests for summer interns.h.i.+p funding. Our goal is to be able to provide any student who wants to pursue an unpaid experiential learning opportunity with the funding they need for a summer. As I mentioned in our conversation, the average cost is $5,000.

John, if you were to make a gift of $500,000, then that would provide interns.h.i.+p opportunities for four students who seek to pursue an outside-the-cla.s.sroom learning experience over the summer. If you were to choose this option, again, it would be my hope that you would give $100,000 a year for five years, with $80,000 being set aside to establish the John D. Donor a77 Interns.h.i.+p Fund and $20,000 a year being used as expendable, immediate use support to fund the interns.h.i.+p experience for four students.

III. Next Steps John, I acknowledge that I have put a lot in front of you. I wanted to provide you with a few options that I do think would be of interest to you. Please know that I am happy to answer any questions or address any concerns that might arise from what is contained in this e-mail. I can be reached by phone at 555-555-5555 or by e-mail. I will plan to follow up with you in a few weeks if I have not heard from you first.

Thank you so much, John, for all that you have already done to support [college]. I appreciate the fact that you are considering furthering your philanthropic relations.h.i.+p with your alma mater. I look forward to hearing from you.

With my kindest wishes: Jeffrey David Stauch.

Notable Websites.

Here are a few websites for you to check out. Girl Effectas front page is a video that is a call to action. Itas an incredibly well-done piece that you should sit through. Centre Pointas website has a particularly solid layout. Before you have to scroll down, the tabs are actually labeled with the various elements of a good appeal: Home (who we are), The issue, The solution, What you can do (the ask). On the United Way Capital Areaas site, donors can calculate out exactly what their gift is awortha in terms of the impact is. Happy browsing!

The Girl Effect: http://www.girleffect.org/video Centre Point: http://www.centrepoint.org.uk/ The United Way Capital Areaas Impact Calculator: http://www.unitedwaycapitalarea.org/give/impact_calculator.php.

Funding Sources Beyond the Individual Donor.

This appendix will provide you with resources to help you seek out funding from sources other than individual donors. There is some overlap from Appendix A. Please note that this list is by no means exhaustive.

I chose not to include individual foundations that give away money. There are simply too many to list. There are thousands of foundations out there, each with its own rules and regulations, some of which arenat even considering new grant applications at the moment. Also, their missions are often quite specific, so it doesnat make sense to list a number of foundations that donat apply to you. I did include links to government funding.

There are grant search engines, some of which are listed below. Youall often have to pay for these services. You can also do your own detective work via Google or your search engine of choice to see if you can find foundations on your own. However, I would recommend taking a trip to your local library and speaking to a reference librarian to help you navigate the sea of charitable trusts and foundations out there. They might even have access to the paid grant search engines. Research libraries on college and university campuses often do.

Here is a listing of resources to help you seek out those alternative funds: Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partners.h.i.+ps: www.hhs.gov/partners.h.i.+ps/ Charity Navigator: www.charitynavigator.org/ Federal Grants: www.federalgrants.com/ Federal Grants Wire: www.federalgrantswire.com/ The Foundation Center: foundationcenter.org/ Fundsnet Services: www.fundsnetservices.com/ The Giving USA Foundation: www.aafrc.org/gusa/resources.cfm Grantmakers Online: www.grantmakersonline.com/ Grants.Gov: grants.gov/ GrantVine: www.grantvine.net/ GuideStar: www2.guidestar.org/