Annual Fundraising Plan
List of Current Revenue Sources
Fundraising Calendar
Strategies for 2013
Grants Campaign
Modular Grant Writing System
Grant applications and letter of inquiry templates use a small set of common questions. In response, most grant writers use a 'boilerplate', a versatile outline of answers to these common questions, as a starting point. We are essentially adopting this practice, but our Modular Grant Writing System allows for collaborative review and workshopping of the language through the use of Google Docs.
Development Advisors
We will develop a network of advisors who work in the field of nonprofit development and who support our mission to act as advisors guiding our grants campaign.
Build Long-Term Relationships With Current Foundation Partners
A nonprofit organization sets themselves apart when they are able to demonstrate what tangible benefits a foundation's investment made in the world. This is an tactic we can use to build long-term relationships with foundations and other supporters, so that we can move into multi-year pledges of support and long-term financial planning.
Government Grants
Government funding happens in stages, where small pilots that can prove their outcomes warrant larger investments in the future. This pool of funding grants us access to new networks of advisors and technical assistance. We will strive to receive our first government grant this year.
Requirements for Success
Financial Operations
Budget
Most funders want to see a non profit organization's budget.
Accounting System
Most funders want to see audited financial statements.
Financial Statements
Most funders require financial statements to be submitted with grant applications.
Board of Directors
A nonprofit organization's board of directors provides credibility, access to funding, and access to personal networks of money and knowledge aside from fulfilling their roles in managing operations and lending expertise to the organization. It's important that we build a track record of following best practices while we build a robust board and then put it to work for us as things evolve.
Evaluations Data
As we start delivering programs to the public, whether through documentation/training materials, on-site trainings, or through pilots, it's crucial that we document our successes and evaluate our programs to not only strengthen them but to also weave a compelling story for our founders to hear and to rally their further support.
Team Cohesion
Everyone needs to understand how their parts interrelate, the goals of each department, and how working together promotes one another's successes. For example, the Development Team needs people working on pilot projects to understand the importance of providing evaluations data, or the accounting team needs to understand how grants are encumbered, etc.
Tactics
Comprehensively Research Grants Prospects
Foundation Directory Online
The Foundation Directory Online is an online database providing information about foundations and grant opportunities as well as about non-profit organizations and who their major funding sources are. The database is managed by the Foundation Center, and they have a library with a computer lab in San Francisco, where members of the public can use the Professional version of their database for tools. The Foundation Directory Online Professional Version contains the following information:
- Detailed profiles of 108,000 grant makers
- A searchable database of over 3 million grants
- A searchable database of information on over 4,000 corporations and their giving programs
- A searchable database of over 1 million 990's for nonprofit organizations
Using this database on their on-site library of development resources, I will build a comprehensive list of grant opportunities to strengthen our Fundraising Calendar.
Crowd Sourced Funding Research
We will make it easy for supporters, fans, and the general public to inform us about grant and other funding opportunities.
- Blog post inviting the public to tell us about funding opportunities.
- On the About/Contact Us page on the websites, make it easy for people to contact the Fundraising Team.
- Periodically request information through OSEmail and through our social media channels.
Personal Networks
- Meet with our current foundation partners to request meetings with other foundations or private individual contributors.
- Ask the in-house team and people working closely with Open Source Ecology for ideas and leads to research.
- Train the in-house team and advisors on how to easily make recommendations in the future (email addresses or online forms).