Fund-Raising Fundamentals: A Guide to Annual Giving for Professionals and Volunteers (Wiley Nonprofit Law, Finance and Management Series) [Paperback]

James M. Greenfield (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471595349 | ISBN-13: 978-0471595342 | Publication Date: March 1994

Fund-Raising Fundamentals A Guide to Annual Giving for Professionals and Volunteers Learn how to carry out spectacularly successful annual giving campaigns that will help your nonprofit organization grow and increase its financial resources. Fund-Raising Fundamentals explains the basics of annual giving methods and techniques, ranging from direct mail solicitation and membership drives to special events and volunteer fund-raising. It shows you how to develop a total annual giving strategy that uses these methods in concert with each other. Plus, it shows you how to evaluate them so you can improve performance year after year. Find-Raising Fundamentals shows you:

• How to find likely first-time donors
• How to test, test, and test again for optimum results
• How to set goals for annual giving solicitation
• When to mail, to whom, and how often
• How to improve results through multimedia solicitation
• And much, much more

Complete with sample forms, checklists, and worksheets, Fund-Raising Fundamentals contains everything you need to manage and carry out a comprehensive annual giving program with maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

FundRaising Fundamentals
Second Edition

For many nonprofits, annual giving is the fuel source that will fund their programs and services throughout the year. A successful campaign requires constant creativity, enthusiasm, energy, and immediate results, which makes it a most challenging endeavor.

Fundraising Fundamentals presents step-by-step guidelines for carrying out all aspects of an annual giving campaign that begins with direct mail solicitation and expands using membership organizations, donor clubs, special and benefit events, and volunteer solicitation to illustrate how to develop a total annual giving program using these reliable methods and techniques. Supported by a generous supplement of authentic case studies and examples, this updated Second Edition covers the latest strategies for telephone, telemarketing, and Internet solicitation, as well as approaches to soliciting from corporations and foundations.

Nine principal methods of annual giving are detailed here along with expert advice on managing each of these multiple fundraising methods as a comprehensive program. Whether you are a professional or volunteer, learning how to orchestrate these nine principal methods to build on one another will help you raise more money and establish lasting relationships with donors. Other means of fundraising are addressed to supplement the principal nine, such as advertisements and coupons, door-to-door solicitation, federated campaigns, gambling and games of chance, and cause-related marketing. A comprehensive section on managing the annual giving program provides invaluable information on performance measurement, budget preparation and management, cost-benefit standards and guidelines, financial accounting, gift reporting, and much more.

With sample forms and letters, checklists, and charts, Fundraising Fundamentals contains everything you need to manage and carry out a comprehensive annual giving program with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover

"Fundraising Fundamentals is a practical and valuable resource for fundraising professionals, trustees, philanthropists, and nonprofit executives who aspire to raise substantial monies for worthy causes. I have utilized Jim Greenfield’s literature in various fundraising courses . . . my students have benefited from the theory and substance that Jim so clearly conveys along with real-life models that can be applied to their respective organizations."
–Stephen M. Levy, CFRE, President of Levy Philanthropic Counsel
Former Chair of the Association of Professionals Foundation Board
Adjunct Professor of Philanthropy, Columbia University

Proven methods and techniques for running a successful annual giving campaign

Learn how to carry out winning annual giving campaigns that will help your nonprofit organization grow and increase its financial resources with Fundraising Fundamentals. Complete with the essential basics of fundraising and comprehensive enough to help experienced fundraisers improve their campaigns, this up-to-date Second Edition features key material on:

• How to find likely first-time donors
• Membership organizations and donor clubs
• Methods of donor renewal, upgrading, and reward
• Recruiting and training volunteer solicitors
• Multimedia and Internet soliciting techniques

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471595349
• ISBN-13: 978-0471595342
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,054,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An invalauable resource, April 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Fundraising Fundamentals: A Guide to Annual Giving for Professionals and Volunteers (Hardcover)

Fundraising Fundamentals by James Greenfield has been around for some time, and I have used it as a trusted resource time and again. This new edition is even better than the first. There are new sections covering telephone/telemarketing sklls, corporate solicitation, and the internet (this is particularly useful). There are also plenty of case studies and examples to help readers learn to implement the guidance Greenfield provides in their own nonprofit. Whatever your experience/skill level in your nonprofit, this is the one resource you should not do without!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you want a fairly complete guide to tell you about Annual Giving Programs that all NPOs should have, then look no further!, December 23, 2007

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fundraising Fundamentals: A Guide to Annual Giving for Professionals and Volunteers (Hardcover)

As fundraising books go, this is a pretty good one. I didn't love it because it was kind of dry. But I'm going to throw it a bone with a 5-star because it is packed with content. And I didn't see any inaccuracies in what it talks about.

This book concentrates on the methods and techniques nonprofits use to promote annual giving or donations. It's about what nonprofit fundraisers call Annual Giving Programs (AGPs) which help nonprofits finance their annual operating budgets. Other fundraising topics could have been major gift capital and endowment campaigns, and major gift planned giving campaigns. But they were not covered in this book

AGPs are the backbone to any nonprofit's fundraising efforts. They are like the sales prospecting efforts that salespeople perform when trying to create a customer or client base for a for-profit venture. It's strictly a numbers game. The more people contacted by the nonprofit month in and month out, then the more likely the nonprofit will find people interested in giving a little to the nonprofit.

In sales one tries to build rapport with prospects and turn them into candidates or buyers. As a relationship develops between a salesperson and a prospect, the more likely the prospect is to become a buyer. And once a buyer buys once, then they are more likely to buy again and again as long as the salesperson does not trash the relationship that has developed.

Well, the process followed in AGPs works the same way. In this book the author explains that nonprofits hit the donor prospects with direct mail pieces. When a recipient nibbles, then they follow up with a request for a small donation while at the same time attempting to build rapport with them. Over the next year a few more contacts are made to further build rapport and start a relationship. As the relationship evolves (if it does), then the donor ends up giving more and more gifts as time goes on. Ultimately, over many years the nonprofit has such a well-developed database of donors that it starts hitting on them for major gifts (over $10,000) and planned gifts (over $10,000) as part of its AGP.

Besides direct mail which the author explains very well in this book, AGPs in their second year or later use telephone and telemarketing, and email and Web sites, to the mix of methods to move a first time giver into being a second time giver and more. There are also membership drives, activities, and special events that represent yet other ways nonprofits build robust databases of donors that support them.

Whether or not direct mail is ever used by a nonprofit for fundraising, just about all nonprofits seek sponsorships from corporations and grants from foundations as part of their AGPs. And smart nonprofits also take advantage of publicity and public relations efforts to attract donors. Some resort to advertising, but this is not the norm.

My favorite part of the book was Chapter 13 that gave a wonderful overview of how to manage a comprehensive AGP. The book is clear, well organized, and fairly well written. I also very much liked the inclusion of the List of Exhibits (many exhibits were included). It made the book easier to digest and to use as a resource. 5 stars!