Fundraising Guide – Table of Contents
Part 1: Pre-Ride Safety Check
● The Art of Re-Conceptualising Fundraising
● Why We’ve Got to Ask You for Cash
● Breaking Down the £800 Figure
● The Bursary Option
Part 2: Saddle Adjustment
● The Heart Of The Matter: Ten Key Fundraising Guidelines
● Pre-Game Ethics
Part 3: The Ride
● Receiving Donations 101
● Five Approaches to Fundraising Glory
● What Not to Do
Part 4: The Dismount
● Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) That You Might Encounter or That You Might Have
● Final Words
The Appendix
● A) Sample Fundraising Plan
● B) Instructions For Using ‘Virgin Money Giving’
● C) Sample Email/Letter to Individual Potential Donors
● D) Otesha Donation Card
● E) Letter More Appropriate for Local Businesses and Service Clubs
● F) Thank You Letter for Donors
PART 1: PRE-RIDE SAFETY CHECK
the art of re-conceptualising fundraising
Alright, we’ll be honest. Asking people for money may not be one of your favourite pastimes. But you’ve got to get over your money-asking fears right now. Here’s why:
We spend money all the time (obviously), and it’s becoming increasingly clear to a lot of us that what we spend our money on has an impact on the world around us. The rise in sales of sweatshop-free clothing, fairly traded coffee, and local and organic food are all examples of this trend. Someone who gives you five or 10 or 100 pounds to help you go on a cycle tour is making an even more profound investment. For example, if your friend, relative, or a stranger thinks that fairly traded coffee is a good idea, then by spending £5 on you it means that thousands of people will be exposed to this important product through your educational and engagement efforts. In other words, it’s as if £5 towards a cycle tour is like buying 1000 bags of fairly traded coffee – not bad.
Also, remember that most people like putting some of their money towards things other than material purchases. A cycle tour is an especially attractive source because they’ll know exactly what they’re giving to – a group of cycling, educating, sustainably living enthusiasts who are promoting social justice and sustainability. They won’t have to worry that their donation will get lost in the administrative maze of some big organization. Once you realise all of this, and help others to realise it, you’ll reach your fundraising target in no time. And thus concludes our guide.
<Ahem>
Okay, so just in case the inspiration from this fundraising re-conceptualisation isn’t quite enough to get you going, the following pages are full of suggestions, approaches and key ideas to raising those funds.
why we’ve got to ask you for cash
“I am excited to get on a bike, live in a mobile, sustainable community, and pass on lots of social justice-y and earth-friendly knowledge to communities across the UK, but I don’t get this whole money-raising thing. What’s that all about?” – a fictional quotation from a cycle tour applicant.
Well, we’re thinking far into the future. If we want to keep our programs running for many more years – or at least until everyone’s riding bikes, eating mostly local diets, and everything is fairly traded – then we need a really good organisational fundraising strategy.
The original Otesha Project, which started in Canada back in 2002, at first ran solely on public and private grants. After a few years, it became very difficult (and stressful) to run an expanding organisation this way – mostly because many funders support one-time projects and have specific interests that limited their programs. So they designed a strategy to allow Otesha to enter an era of financial independence, security and sustainability by building up their alternative income streams through presentation fees, keynote speaking, Otesha Book sales, participant fundraising and other fundraising strategies. When Otesha UK began in 2007, we looked at this learning and realised that it made sense to include participant fundraising as part of our strategy too. Team members on cycle tours have the capacity to reach a whole range of donors that we would never have access to, and at the same time will be able to further spread the good work that Otesha stands for! Dividing the task of fundraising amongst all the team members (as opposed to just one or two people at our office in London) also makes running the programs that much more possible and successful.
breaking down the £800 figure
To keep you and your donors in the loop, here’s a brief breakdown of a cycle tour budget. This way you can see exactly how your project contribution fits into the bigger picture of a cycle tour.
Direct Costs of a Cycling and Presenting Tour:
Direct CostTour Liaison stipends and office space / £400
Food and Propane on Tour / £3,780
Accommodation on Tour / £200
TOUR EXPENSES / £200
Mobile Phone on Tour / £100
CRBs and CRB Postage / £90
Staff and Facilitator Travel to Tours / £500
Bursaries / £1,500
Outreach / £400
Bike / Touring equipment (trailers, stove, bike repair kit, etc) / £150
Coordinating costs / £13,440
Unforeseen events / £250
Total per tour / £21,010
We’re able to keep the tour costs this low by relying on in-kind donations of food and accommodation en route, and because of the volunteer hours offered by the team members and interns.
the bursary option
Otesha UK provides partial bursaries for cycle tour participants on a needs-based, first-come first-serve basis. See the Bursary Form that came with your information package for more information or find it online in the ‘cycle tours’ section of our website at www.otesha.org.uk/cycletours.
PART 2: SADDLE ADJUSTMENT
the heart of the matter: ten key fundraising guidelines
Re-conceptualisation
Go back to Part 1 and reread the section titled, The Art of Re-conceptualising Fundraising. And as you go along, keep reminding yourself this: by asking people to donate you’re not bothering them. Instead, you’re giving them an opportunity to spend their money on something really amazingly important to the future of this planet – you!
Honesty and Clarity
Always be upfront with people about what you’re raising money for. You should be able to answer all of these questions clearly and concisely: what is an Otesha cycle tour? What is Otesha? What are you hoping to gain from this experience? Why are you doing this? And so on. If you’ve made it to the fundraising guide, it means that you’ve probably got some pretty compelling reasons for joining up. Write them down and practise saying them out loud. It might seem bizarre – or overly rehearsed – but it will aid your efforts immensely.
Diversify
Don’t expect to get all your money from one approach (we discuss a few different ones below) and especially not from one source.
Time Management
However long you think it will take to raise the money, it will take longer. There could be a lag of a few months between when you start to get the word out and when you actually have some money. Make a plan and stick to it, using the timeline provided by the Otesha team. Start now.
The Plan
Bet you thought that we already covered this in Time Management, but it’s important enough to give it some more attention. When making your plan, make sure to read through the whole guide, and then chart out all the approaches you’re going to take (remember: diversify!) and draw up a master list of all the people and organisations you’re going to ask (your treasure map). Keep all your files together and keep them all organised. See the sample plan in Appendix A.
Proofread everything
There is nothing that will hurt your fundraising efforts more than a porly writenn leter ful of sppeling mistakkes Get someone else to read through everything you’re going to send out.
Fundraising as an Exchange
At all times, frame your ask as an exchange: “if you donate to me, you’ll be supporting such a great cause <insert lavish praise for Otesha’s programs here> and I’ll keep you updated with emails, postcards, pictures, a final report and/or presentation, etc.” You can offer them the chance to sign up for Otesha’s monthly e-newsletter to keep them abreast of the great stuff you and your team are doing! They can sign up to our newsletter here: www.otesha.org.uk/newsletter
Another way to look at this is to think of each pound as a 'unit of change.' That means that you can tell your donors that every pound donated equals a-little-bit-more-than each mile that you will cycle on the tour or that each pound equals at least two students that you are going to reach (each tour reaches at least 2,000 young people).
Thank yous
Showing your appreciation to your donors through kindly worded thank you cards is essential. All the other great stuff you’re going to hook up your donors with – email updates and postcards en route, etc. – will ensure that fuzzy appreciation feeling as well. It will also increase the likelihood that the next time you want to fundraise for something, they'll be happy to help you out.
Learning experience
Think of the fundraising process as a way to gain valuable communication, public speaking and organisational skills. These will be an asset to pretty much any job or activity that you're going to want to do in the future.
Nuggets of wisdom
If at any point during the fundraising process you’re feeling a bit lost, then read through these old chestnuts of fundraising lore:
· There are three major principles to fundraising: persistence, persistence, persistence.
· Be serious, be professional.
· It will not just happen on its own.
· The more you ask, the more you’ll get. If you don’t ask, you won’t get anything. ‘Nuff said.
· Let your passion and confidence in what you’re doing shine through all your fundraising efforts and you’ll inspire people to help you.
pre-game ethics
So for all those new to our Otesha family, we’re pretty big on walking our talk around here. That means that we go out of our way to ensure that all our programs, office purchases, resources, funding, etc., are as in-line with our values of sustainability and social justice as possible. Otesha t-shirts? We buy them second hand, print our design on them, and, because they’re so cheap, we donate £2 for every shirt to projects run by Traid. Traid is a charity committed to protecting the environment and reducing world poverty through clothing recycling, delivering educational programmes and campaigning within the UK. Otesha’s cooking? Well, let’s just say that our favourite cake is vegan, organic and made with fair-trade chocolate and sugar – if only the ingredients were local too!
As far as fundraising, no one is going to analyse your sources, and if you’re really psyched about going on a bike tour then it’s unlikely that you were about to send off donation cards to Unilever, Chevron and McDonalds. That said, throughout the fundraising process keep in mind that your goal isn’t to do anything to get money – rather to get it in as socially and environmentally responsible a way as possible. If you have any ethical concerns, queries or questions about an event you’re planning or anything at all just give us a ring or drop us a line.
And now just a bit more on what is likely to be the toughest route from an ethical perspective: the corporate one. Though we’ll discuss the practical pros and cons to this approach in the next section, here are some questions that might help you decide which corporate donations you can feel good about:
· What are the company’s operations? Are they attempting to employ ‘best practices’ in their field?
· Do your research. Do the company’s operations directly conflict with your own personal beliefs and what you feel is ethical corporate behaviour?
· Has the company committed any serious wrongdoings in the past, such as violating human rights or causing an environmental disaster? (check out www.multinationalmonitor.com, http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ as well as www.responsibleshopper.org for good places to look up corporations to find out their environmental and social impacts)
· Consider the degrees of separation: is this company a smaller subsidiary of a larger one?
· What will be expected of you as a result of taking the funding in terms of logos, presentations, press releases, pictures, etc.?
PART 3: THE RIDE
receiving donations 101
Before we talk about different approaches to getting donations, here are some essentials that you should know when it comes to receiving money.
Online payments (with a credit card or Paypal account)
Whenever you solicit someone for a donation, encourage them to donate securely online through Virgin Money Giving – http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/chooseFundraiser.action – a website that lets you do web-based fundraising for free, since we have an Otesha UK account. With this system you get to create your own online profile with photos, a biog, fundraising goals, and details about the tour. If/when you’re sending out an email asking for support you can include the link to your site and anyone can go and donate to your fund via credit card. All online donations from UK taxpayers can claim Gift Aid, which will add 28% of that donation to your total. For information on how to set up your Virgin Money Giving account please see Appendix B, which explains the whole process step-by-step.
Otesha Donation Card
Again, the easiest way to accept donations is online through Virgin Money Giving. This is by far the easiest method to track, and most people feel pretty comfortable giving donations online these days. However, if any of your supporters would prefer to donate by cheque, please print out and give them two copies of the Otesha UK Donations Card (Appendix D). One copy is for them to keep as a record (like a receipt), and the other they should post to us along with their donation. Using the donations card means that we can leverage the donation into even more money through Gift Aid (as long as the donor is a UK taxpayer). It’s also a good way to make sure that we’ll know that the donation was meant for you!