Seven Strategies for Successful Solicitations

Putting the Puzzle Together for Major Funding

How do you write grants for $150,000, $300,000, $1 Million or more? How do you win over corporate sponsors, or raise money from major gifts or a capital campaign? We have helped well more than a hundred non-profit organizations raise millions of dollars in grant income and fundraising income. The secret lies in having a robust plan that includes the following:

  • Strategic Planning
  • Program Creation with Measurable Outcomes
  • Partnership Development and Coordination
  • Marketing Planning
  • Leadership Development or Authentication

Introducing a Group Training Program: Clients have paid $9,500 or more for all these services. Now, NNPRC is providing a group training program that will train your organization how to do this on your own with our support, with your own volunteers and staff, and with the ability to go after grants, major donors, corporate sponsors, and more. The program includes:

Board Development:

  • Understanding a board’s roles and responsibilities.
  • Review of policies, bylaws, and advise the board on when changes to bylaws are required.
  • Organizing a board into working committees, to make the best use of the board’s resources.
  • Best practices in running a board meeting.
  • Developing a Confidentiality Policy for all board deliberations.
  • Preventing any Conflicts of Interest before they arise.

Strategic Planning:

  • Reviewing and understanding the purpose of a strong Mission Statement.
  • Creating a Vision Statement for the future growth of the organizations.
  • Using a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) to analyze NPO.
  • Understanding the differences between goals, strategies and objectives.
  • DFY written strategic plan with goals and outcomes, related to the mission, to direct the future activities of the NPO.

Program Development:

  • Evaluating programs based on participation, use of space, and alignment with Strategic Plan.
  • Develop programs that relate to the NPO’s Strategic Plan and the State Plan on Aging.
  • Creating new programs that appeal to new target audiences to grow .
  • Identify community partnerships that could enhance current and new programs.
  • Helping all programs relate to one another and cross-promote other programs and the NPO.
  • DFY Program Development.

Partnership Development:

  • Acting as Partnership Brokers between community partners and the Program Committee.
  • Creating community partnerships that can enhance current programs and begin new programs.
  • Recruiting business partners that can support the NPO as members of an Advisory Board.
  • Soliciting financial sponsors that can support NPO programs and fundraising events.
  • Maintaining community partners and keeping them happily engaged in support of the NPO.
  • DFY partnership creation.

Marketing & Publicity:

  • Learning to tell your story so that your NPO is a “Hero” for the benefit of your NPO members.
  • Summarizing your marketing message in 20 words or less, and then to 7 words or less.
  • Sharing your marketing message online, in social media, in print media, by word-of-mouth, etc.
  • Learning how to create website and inbound/email marketing, and Facebook marketing.
  • Creating a branded message that can be easily identified wherever your story is told.
  • Creation of a marketing plan.

Revenue Diversification:

  • Maximizing membership revenue through dues, activity fees, and program revenue.
  • Developing hall rental income, including policies and best practices.
  • Balancing event/fundraising revenue by targeting different audiences with different events.
  • Writing grant applications with goals, measurable results, and partnership development.
  • Developing financial partners/sponsors by appealing to altruistic motives.

Leadership Development:

  • Identifying future leaders from current volunteers, donors, members, and community partners.
  • Giving board members, staff, and donors tools to recruit future leaders.
  • Providing volunteer and board member training for committee and program work.
  • Ensuring that the continuity of leadership and the process of this development plan continues.

How do you raise money without capacity or without donors? The number one need for most non-profit organizations is not fundraising, but capacity building to make fundraising sustainable, even if you do not have a large donor base.

Cost-Effective Training: Because this is a group program, the cost is considerably less than if your organization paid for one-on-one training, or hired NNPRC to do all the work for you.

Sustainable Revenue: If your organization has the resources, it could hire a consultant or a Director of Development to coordinate these services, but even then you would want the support of your board members, volunteers, donors, and staff to support your fundraising initiatives. This training, even for organizations that have the professional services of a Director of Development, is a cost-effective means for providing training and support to maximize the efforts of your organizations’ staff and volunteers, and provide consistent, sustainable fundraising revenue!

Email our Executive Director, Stephen Forbus, for costs: Stephen.Forbus@NNPRC.org. Or click the “BOOK AN APPOINTMENT” button on the right side of this page.