ilbiscom's Blog

Category fundraising

October 06, 2007

Fundraising is the process of soliciting and gathering money or other gifts in-kind, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gather funds for non-profit organizations, it is sometimes used to refer to the identification and solicitation of investors or other sources of capital for-profit enterprises.

Fundraising is the primary way that non-profit organizations obtain the money for their operations. These operations can involve a very broad array of concerns such as religious or philanthropic groups such as research organizations, public broadcasters, and political campaigns.

Some examples of charitable organizations include student scholarship merit awards for athletic or academic achievement, humanitarian concerns, disaster relief, human rights, research, and other social issues.

A capital campaign is when fundraising is conducted to raise major sums for a building or endowment, and generally keep such funds separate from operating funds. These campaigns encourage donors to give more than they would normally give and tap donors, especially corporations and foundations who would not otherwise give.

Online fundraising is the use of Internet-based technology, marketing and communication techniques by non-profit organizations to bring in revenue, frequently as donations.

Fundraising for non-profit organizations and membership organizations has traditionally required a combination of personal requests, direct-mail asks, telephone solicitations and special events.

The practice of fundraising online has evolved from the basic strategy of the Donate Now button, where organizations developed a simple web form to capture credit card gifts and posted a "donate now" button on their website, to more complex strategies using lessons from traditional direct mail appeals and the expediency of email campaigns to solicit gifts from a list of opt-in supports; and now organizations have begun employing new strategies with web based tools like blogs, community networking, social peer-groups and advanced virtual worlds. First coined by Vinay Bhagat, this practice has become known as Electronic Constituent Relationship Management as it is closely related to electronic customer relationship management. It is most effective when used as part of a broad based communications and marketing strategy.

Email based campaigns reduce the need for door-to-door canvassing and can increase the safety of those individuals involved. Traditional product-based fundraisers are also migrating to the web with product and service offerings that make selling products via an internet store easier and more effective than traditional canvassing.