Fundraising Plan

Fordham University School of GSS

SWGS 6625 Fundraising

Revised Common Assignment Final Project Fundraising Plan

            Fundraising in a Period of Crisis

Fall 2020

Due: 48 Hours After Live Session 7

This is a 9-10 page assignment with appropriate citations in your paper and a separate reference page.

This special revised Common Assignment is geared to planning the components of an emergency campaign to ensure the sustainability and viability of your selected nonprofit agency. The agency needs to launch this campaign asap and select strategies that can yield relatively quick fundraising results within 6-12 months.

Please identify the name and location of the agency at the top of your paper.

Choose an organization – it must be an actual nonprofit organization that is registered as a 501c 3 with an annual budget of $10 million or less.  The organization selected may be your place of employment or internship agency.  But remember you are to select a nonprofit organization, not a government or private agency.

You should review the Klein Fundraising text chapter 3, Be Clear About What the Money Will Do, which describes the Case Statement, and chapter 4, What You Have to Understand to Begin Fundraising, particularly the first section of Focus on Diversifying Donors. I also request you to integrate other required readings as well as other sources you identify on the net.

The assignment is comprised of four parts, which are three components of any agency Fundraising Plan:

1. Executive Summary (1 page)

2. Preparation of an Agency Case Statement (Case for Support) – (2-2 1/2 pages) – A Case Statement outlines the rationale and justification for an agency’s fundraising effort. Please prepare a Case Statement for a nonprofit agency (501 (C)3 organization. This agency may be your current or past field placement agency, your place of employment, or an agency where you have volunteered. But remember, select a nonprofit agency (not a government or a private agency).

You should review Dr. Goldkind’s asynch power point presentation 5.3.1 The Case Statement for background on the components of a Case Statement. As the template for preparing your agency Case Statement, I would like you to follow the Case Statement outline presented in the attached document by Herb Tobin entitled Case for Support. 

Please clearly label each of the sections of your Case for Support in your written assignment.

In the Agency Aspirations section of the Case for Support, select a specific program you feel your agency needs to expand now or if a new program, needs to undertake now, in order to respond to a specific pressing social and economic challenge(s) and need(s) facing clients and the agency as a whole as a result of the COVID pandemic – your choice.

As an alternative, you might want to launch an emergency fundraising campaign to generate general operating funds to help sustain overall agency operations and infrastructure during this challenging period of loss of client generated income, dropped membership and user fees, cancellation of fundraising events, curtailment or suspension of government support, etc.

Please clearly identify and describe the program you propose be expanded or launched at the agency, or the overall agency campaign you intend to implement on behalf of your agency due to the impact of the pandemic. Include the overall fundraising goal for your fundraising plan.

3. Design the Fundraising Plan that includes the following information: (4 pages)

• the Overall Fundraising Goal for the specific agency program to be expanded or launched or agency operations to be supported, or overall agency campaign
• Fundraising Strategies – a description and rationale and the fundraising goal for each fundraising strategy or combination of strategies selected (individual giving appeal, major gifts event(s), Fundraising 2.0 online giving campaign [using Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, etc.}, special Board member appeal, an online crowdfunding campaign, matching giving program, foundation emergency grant support, a virtual giving circle) to achieve its share of the overall fundraising goal. Include the pool of prospects and numbers that need to be approached for each strategy selected.
• Fundraising Calendar
• Targets and Milestones
• Evaluation Plan that will assess the overall success and efficiency of the fundraising plan in reaching its overall fundraising goal and the success of each fundraising strategy launched in this special campaign
• Highlights of the Ask

Use these 6 underlined and bulleted subheadings to organize and label your responses to this section.

Please use the Rider Street Community Center 2015 Fundraising Plan as a template for organizing the information of your Fundraising Plan.  This includes possible use of charts to present different components of the plan requested above, like the Fundraising Calendar, Targets and Milestones, etc.

Design your fundraising plan creatively given the new realities of fundraising where in-place gatherings, dinners and galas are not feasible. And time is of the essence to generate funds for your agency asap in this period of economic crisis facing your nonprofit.  Think of designing a special time-limited campaign appeal, a virtual event, a crowdfunding campaign, a matching gift challenge with major donors or foundations providing the matching funds, a virtual giving circle, a silent auction, or likely, a combination of these strategies. Select strategies that are feasible and realistic, which do not stretch agency capacity beyond its available resources, including staff and fundraising costs. 

4. An Accountability and Transparency Analysis (2 pages) – This analysis articulates how organizational stakeholders, especially the most marginalized, will be involved in developing and evaluating any fundraising plan. This analysis should include a discussion of the issues of diversity, power, privilege, and oppression evidenced in the organization’s service delivery and fundraising practices.

For this section, you should address the following questions related to your agency and the program you recommend to expand or initiate through a fundraising effort:

• Who are the key Stakeholders?
• Who are the Most Marginalized Groups?
• How does the organization address Issues of Diversity, Power, Oppression and Privilege among the various stakeholders? You also can include how you recommend to the agency how it could address more effectively these issues of diversity, power, oppression and privilege among the various stakeholders. How could the agency promote greater diversity and inclusion in the development, execution, and evaluation of its fundraising plan initiative?
• How does your Case for Support Agency Aspirations section and the overall Plan seek to prioritize people more impacted by the issue/problem and specifically, provide funds that diversify the work of the agency, and/or address those communities more marginalized by the issue/problem that the organization is trying to address?
• How will you know whether you are involved in Mission Drift (following the money) versus addressing the underlying (or root) causes of issues addressing diversity, power, privilege, and oppression vis-a-vis the organizational mission?

Use these 5 underlined bulleted subheadings to organize and label your responses to this section.

In short, this Accountability and Transparency Analysis is asking you to address the Core Competency of Diversity and Difference in Practice.