How to Approach & Identify Your Donors

How to Approach
&
Identify Your Donors

In reality every charity will have a natural constituency of donors. This means that there will be group of people who are likely to be interested in your cause. The question is how you can identify these supporters.

How to identify potential donors

The first step is to ask yourself the following questions:

If you have previously fundraised, who has given to you in the past?

What are their demographics? This means what is their age, gender, location, profession. (Tip: not all charities will have all this information. If you don’t have full information but do have email addresses, you can collate and send a small customer survey to help you. A popular (and free) way to send a simple survey is via Survey Monkey which also has v very helpful guides on how to set up and the kind of questions to ask.)

If you have information about your previous donors do you know what were their motivations to give in the past?

For example – were they directly affected by the cause you are raising funds for, or did they read about an issue that they wanted to support and came to you via their own research or you’re advertising.

If you already have volunteers, do they donate? If your charity has participants or users, do they donate? Could they become donors?

Have you ever raised money from companies or Trusts? If so, who has given in the past and why? This will help you identify similar companies/Trusts to approach.

Which groups of people do you want to support you? What are your aspirations in terms of future supporters? Are they of a particular age, gender, income, or profession?

What relationships and networks do you have at board level that could help you in attracting new donors?

Once you have answered these questions and have a better idea of what your typical and ideal donor might look like, you can begin to turn your thoughts to how you might be able to connect with these people or organisations.

Communicating what you want donors to give to

Whether it is a fundraising appeal, website content, social media posts, trust application or conversation with a major donor, your case for support will form the basis for all your communications. It does not matter if its the costs to run your organisation or funding for a specific project, every approach to possible donors should be based on your charities vision, mission, and values.

On a simple level it needs to:

set out what you do & what you want to do

the impact you will achieve

why donors should give to your cause

Building a Case for Support

What does your organisation do?

For example: We raise funds for sports equipment for our local youth community centre.

Why do you do it?

For example:

We do this as our community is situated in an area of high deprivation with 25% of local youth coming from refugee backgrounds. There is very little for our local youth to do and without the community centre they would be on the streets which can lead to anti-social behaviour.

Who benefits from this?

Example:

By running sports activities within the community centre, we benefit our whole community, not just in terms of cutting down on anti-social behaviour but also in working on integrating these young people into community life in their new home, and providing additional services including learning English and much more.

Why does the cause you support need your help?

For Example:

Our community centre receives funding to cover the cost of the centre manager and building costs, but no funds are allocated for equipment to allow our sports activities to take place. In order to fully run our centre we need your help.

What would happen if your organisation was not there?

For Example:

Without these funds and vital equipment we would not be able to continue sports activities.

Our fear, which has also been voiced to us, is that our current attenders would stop coming to the Centre and all the work regarding integration, social cohesion, lowering local anti-social behaviour would be lost.

How much money do you need to raise? How will the funds be used?

For Example:

With a donation of just £1000 we will be able to buy the vital equipment needed to run the following sports activities: football, boxing, etc.

Additional Tips on how to build your case for support

So, you have now identified your donors and built your case for support, but what information to you need to send out other than about your project. It is worthwhile to think about including the following:

Remember to tie in your funding request with the needs of your donors. This ties back to understanding who your donors are. For example: if you are raising funds to curtail anti-social behaviour in a particular area, point out the local benefits to your donors who live in that area. If a company says that they donate to local organisations that support social cohesion, make sure you show how your organisation can do that.

▪️ Set out your organisations’ strengths and your ability to actually deliver. If you have delivered previous projects successfully let them be known.

▪️ Add colour to your cause using case studies, anecdotes, data, and success stories. Do you have any quotes from participants, how many people do you help, etc.

▪️ Always remember to demonstrate the impact of your work as this helps donors to understand what can be achieved when they make a gift.

▪️ When explaining what you do, try to include a mix of emotive and rational language. For example: stories about the people your organisation helps (emotive), stories from your team on the front line (emotive), testimonials from service users, staff, and partners (emotive), data presented in interesting and engaging ways, that clearly highlight key results, such as the number of lives saved or changed (rational), photos – one strong image can be a powerful way to highlight your impact (emotive).

NPG IS HERE TO HELP YOU

We combine ROI-oriented grant fundraising with story driven proposals, we create fundraising campaigns with compelling narratives that exceed fundraising and growth goals. We begin each project with a full understanding and firm commitment to your strategic objectives.

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