How to Present Your Nonprofit’s Project Idea in a Grant Proposal
The project idea section of your nonprofit’s grant application answers the question Who will do what to whom over what period of time? If you’re writing your proposal for a research project, generally [more…]
How to Establish Evaluation Criteria for a Nonprofit Grant Proposal
If the grant writer has carefully shaped the goals, objectives, and outcomes section of the proposal, the nonprofit’s desired project results are clear. The [more…]
How to Discuss the Budget in a Nonprofit Grant Proposal
Because a proposal is a request for money for the nonprofit, your proposal should present information about project costs and the other funding that’s available. [more…]
How to Include an Additional Funding Plan in a Nonprofit Grant Application
When writing grant applications, your nonprofit should follow the age-old concept of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Between many foundations’ reluctance to pay for 100 percent of a project’s [more…]
How to Compile an Appendix for a Nonprofit Grant Application
Not all nonprofit grant proposals include a conclusion.Some writers feel that a conclusion is repetitive and unnecessary. On the other hand, if the proposal ends with a discussion of future and additional [more…]
How to Seek General Operating Support for Your Nonprofit Organization Organization
If you’re seeking funds for general operating support, your proposal needs to make an argument for the work of the entire nonprofit agency rather than for a specific project. [more…]
How to Find Seed Money for a New Nonprofit Agency
Some foundations specialize in “seed funding” for new projects and new nonprofit organizations. A seed proposal has two key ingredients: careful assessment of the problem to be addressed and special qualifications [more…]
How to Create a Successful Nonprofit Fundraising Letter
Your nonprofit fundraising letter isn’t just a letter; it also includes a mailing envelope, a reply envelope and card, and sometimes a brochure, a copy of a newspaper clipping, or a photograph. All these [more…]
How to Write a Telemarketing Fundraising Script for Your Nonprofit
Every call should open with a clear, direct, personal greeting: “Hello, Mr. I’m-Getting-the-Person’s-Name-Right, I’m Ms. Call-a-Lot and I wanted to talk to you about the Scenic Overlook Preservation Fund [more…]
How to Coach Tele-Fundraising Volunteers for Your Nonprofit
Telemarketing can be an excellent nonprofit board or volunteer group effort. If someone involved with your organization works in an office that has multiple telephone lines, see whether you can borrow [more…]
How to Create a Case Statement for Nonprofit Fundraising
A case statement is a tool often used when asking for a contribution. It’s a short, compelling argument for supporting the nonprofit that can be presented as a brochure, a one-page information sheet, or [more…]
How to Identify Potential Nonprofit Donors Using Circles of Connection
A common brainstorming exercise that nonprofit organizations use to identify possible individual donors is known as Circles of Connections. This exercise is most effective if both staff and board members [more…]
How to Engage Your Nonprofit’s Board of Directors in Potential Donor Identification
Every year, or before you start work on a special event or letter-writing campaign to raise funds for your nonprofit, ask each of your organization’s board members to provide the names of ten or more people [more…]
How to Cultivate a Major Gift to Your Nonprofit
Face-to-face visits are the best way to secure large contributions to your nonprofit organization. Generally, several contacts must take place before a major donor is ready to make a commitment. [more…]
How to Safeguard Your Nonprofit’s Financial Systems
Even in a small nonprofit organization, you want to establish careful practices about how you handle money and financial documents. If you have a one-person office, creating all the following controls [more…]
How to Estimate the True Cost of Moving Your Nonprofit’s Location
Nonprofit organizations with what seem to be straightforward plans for moving into new facilities often overlook the true costs of making such a move. Some spaces may need to be altered to suit your organization’s [more…]
How to Decide If New Construction Is Right for Your Nonprofit
What if no existing building suits your nonprofit organization’s needs? You may just need to move some walls and expand the bathrooms; or you may be in for a major effort to substantially renovate a space [more…]
How to Determine the Insurance Needs of Your Nonprofit
Insurance is a vital component of risk management for every business — for profit and nonprofit — but a nonprofit organization’s insurance needs vary according to the following: [more…]
How to Analyze the Fundraising Potential of Your Nonprofit
Different approaches to raising funds work best for different kinds of nonprofits. When you make a fundraising plan, you have to be both ambitious about your goals and realistic about what’s likely to [more…]
How to Draft a Fundraising Strategy for Your Nonprofit
Implementing a nonprofit fundraising strategy is a lot easier when you have a guide to follow. In the first stage, you brainstorm and then refine your list of ideas, creating a fundraising strategy that [more…]
How to Move from a Nonprofit Fundraising Strategy to an Action Plan
A good nonprofit fundraising plan fills in the practical details that move it from being a list of goals and contacts to being a road map for your fundraising’s direction. These three steps help you incorporate [more…]
How to Budget for Nonprofit Fundraising
Raising money costs money and the costs need to be in your nonprofit’s budget. No nonprofit receives every grant or gift that it seeks. So it needs to be sure upfront that it can afford its potential fundraising [more…]
How to Raise Funds for a New Nonprofit Organization
One tried-and-true rule of fundraising is that people give money to people they know and causes they care about. Making a contribution to a new nonprofit is an expression of trust. That means the likeliest [more…]
How to Successfully Ask for Contributions to Your Nonprofit
The key rule of fundraising is “If you don’t ask, you won’t get.” Taking the step of asking is critical, but so is knowing how to ask. According to marketing experts who study motivations for doing just [more…]
How to Interview Candidates for Nonprofit Jobs
After you’ve chosen the top three to eight résumés for the job opening at your nonprofit, invite the applicants in for an interview. Interviewing job candidates is a formidable task. Big companies have [more…]
