5 Reasons Why Fundraisers Fail
We’ve been in the business of fundraising for over 40 years. We’ve seen tens of thousands of groups, both large and small, run into the same pitfalls.
As North America’s premier fundraising provider, we have the experience and the know-how to make your group’s fundraiser hum along perfectly and make sure your group’s fundraiser achieves success.
Here are the top 5 reasons that fundraisers fail.
They don’t set a goal
Many groups will fundraise “just because they have to”. We can’t tell you how important it is to set a real, attainable fundraising goal for your group. By having a goal, your group will know what you’re working towards and how close you are to achieving it. Setting a goal is also a good way to keep everyone motivated and working toward hitting that magic number. If you need help hitting your goal make sure to ask your friends and family how they can help out. (Our books are easy to sell with all the instructions on the order envelope.) And make sure to reward one another when you hit goals/milestones!
They start too late
Make sure you give yourself enough time before your event. While we can get you set up today, shipping you the materials and showing your team how to take down orders and successfully sell does take some amount of time. More importantly, however, if you start too close to your event, your fundraiser might not have enough time to be fully effective. Which leads us to the third reason fundraisers fail, tied closely to this one....
They end too early
Let’s face it — one or two weeks simply isn’t long enough to reach everyone in your community. Why cut it off right when you’re picking up steam? Often times this mistake is simply a misappraisal of the how long you actually have or a lack of experience with regard to how effective fundraisers work. Both are easily fixed by planning ahead.
They go on too long
While not quite as bad as ending prematurely, there is a sense of ‘exhausting’ your fundraising market. They say that fundraising starts off easy as you connect with people who are nearly guaranteed to buy a coupon book. After a certain point, there are a bit of diminishing returns. We’ll help you plan a campaign that is as effective as it can be.
They are unnecessarily narrow
The internet has changed the world profoundly. While that’s a little scary, it also makes some things a lot easier. Fundraisers were previously limited by your geography – the schools, churches, and sports teams and near you. But two big developments in the last five years have made fundraising both easier and more effective.
First, you can sell online with a unique URL to the benefit of your group. If someone across the country wants to support your group, you can just email or message them a link and their payment will be securely processed.
Second and more importantly, we at SaveAround are continually customizing our books. Beyond just offering better deals, we are making more books for more cities and making them for more specific regions. That means those links you can share to distant family members will offer them as great a value as if they lived right down the street.
Now, no matter where you live, you can offer a great value in a coupon book that matters to them in their location. You can sell any of our SaveAround books, from California all the way to Maine, and they will benefit your group just the same!
