Fundraising is all about relationships — but what do you do if your organization is so new, or so grant-focused, that you don’t have any relationships with individuals who might become donors?
In other words, today’s question is: How do you get individual donors for the first time?
Fortunately, the answer for how to get first-time individual donors is simple!
Start with your Board and Staff
Start with your board and staff members. Why? Because they (and you) already have relationships with individuals, including individuals who might be interested in making a gift to help your nonprofit achieve its mission.
But don’t worry — you don’t have to make a list of everyone your staff and board members know. Instead, do a variation of a fundraising exercise I do at board retreats:
- Draw a circle and write your name in the center (have each board and staff member do the same).
- Draw several spokes (maybe six or eight) from the center of that circle. At the end of each spoke write the name of a group of people you know, such as “friends,” “family,” “neighbors,” and “colleagues.”
Now, identify one person from each circle who share these two key characteristics:
- Capacity. They don’t have to be rich! However, they do need to have some disposable income to share.
- Inclination: An interest (or preferably a passion) for your mission, the cause you serve, or your organization.
This is how the vast majority of nonprofits raise their seed money — by leveraging the personal relationships of their key staff and board members.
Cultivating First-Time Donors
Now that you know the basics of generating that first prospect list, the next step is learning how cultivate these prospective donors and prepare them to be asked for gifts. We’ll cover that topic in an upcoming edition of “Ask the Fundraising Expert.”
In the meantime, if you want more details about identifying prospects — particularly major gift prospects — my new book, Major Gift Fundraising for Small Shops, will guide you step-by-step through the entire process in under 5 hours per week.
Let’s Talk About It!
Has your organization developed a unique way to connect with first-time donors?
Share your stories and ideas in the comments.
Do you have a question about fundraising that you’d like to “Ask the Fundraising Expert”? Ask in the comments below or contact me here.
For regular video lessons from Amy Eisenstein, ACFRE, subscribe to Amy’s YouTube channel.
Fantastic post Amy.
Such a simple, yet effective way of starting your individual Donor program and finding new donors.
Fundraisers and Nonprofits should also always remember to have the end goal in mind when bringing in new donors, and that is to build a strong, long term relationship with those donors that keeps them giving every year. ie. Approach new donors with the mindset of retaining those donors for life.
So when approaching new donors, they should already have a plan set in place for retaining those donors.
Love your work Amy.
Thanks, Rob!
Thnks too
Brava! I also love the mix of video blogging and old school blogging. Thank you!
Dear Amy,
I need individual donors for a non profit organization I am heading and its a new NGO started in 2007 as CBO and registered as a National NGO in 2012.
Please help to link me up.
My books and blog posts talk a lot about how to identify and solicit individual donors. I also provide training and coaching on this for board and staff members. Feel free to send me an email so we can discuss how I can help.
good work Amy. I also need you to link me up with some individual donors you know to fund my project if you can
brava! Amy i like your work of helping other people God bless you.
Thank you for the big work you are doing.Really help me to help other people.
We have for several times tried to get donors for the organisation but all in vain, we have done several measures but have not yield fruits yet. Work at the organisation gets hardened, hope this will work for us
We have been trying to get a donor in our ministry but we have not yet succeeded, our ministry was registered in 2014 still new ,please give us advice thank you.
First ask your board members. Then ask them to ask their friends. That’s how it begins.
Hi Amy thanks, i also want to start a not profit organisation to help children who are HIV positive and i need a donor in order to start it. Thanks.
Sounds like an important cause. I hope this post helps you find the donors you need.
I would like to have one question for the donetion for the children who has lost father.
Amy..I also would like to get in touch with you to guide me more on a personal level on how to attract local cooporatw donore
Amy, am greatly impressed by your work. I am in charge of a registered NGO in Kenya and we are really in need of donors. We serve vulnerable children’ and youth. Our areas of focus are education, healthcare and livelihoods. Kindly assist us. Thanks
Hello Amy, thank you so much for the great work. Started up a CBO with the main goal of supporting orphans and vulnarable children here in Uganda and we are really in need of donors to boost our projects forward.
Thanks for the great work ur doing, we really need donors to fund our medical centre in Uganda. We offers free immunization, free deliveries, antenatal care, post natal care,circumccission, treatment of medical conditions, cancer screening. Thanks for ur help .
Hi Amy,good work,helping the ends meet!!!.We have our program addressing Hygiene and safety concerns of young girls http://www.hhhprogram.org,past 4 years we have been managing funds internally, guide us to cpnnect with interested philanthropist to help us reach more girls
Hi,
Am Andrea Herbert
I have established Nursery school project purposely is to help kids of 2 to 4 years from poor families, orphans, albinos and street children to access quality education as other kids, now am looking for individual donors and sponsors.
Currently i have 28 kids and all of them are day cares, we need learning materials, desks and chairs, projectors, tv, 1 printer and photocopy machine, tables and chairs for teachers and other workers, indoor and outdoor playing games and learning materials, mini laptops for kids,small mattresses for kids of 2 to 4 years, white boards and marker pens, exercise books and text books, beds for kids to rest, first aid kits,
Also we need our own land and buildings because currently we lent the building and we have only two rooms no offices for teachers.
Thank you and stay blessed.
mobile number: +255 769 851 511
email: faithnurseryschool17@gmail.com
postal address: Faith Nursery School, P. O Box 1055, Arusha Tanzania.
Hi Amy thanks so much for the insights,we are currently tryiung to fundraise for early childhood eduactional program in kenya for a school known as Balozi academy.
We have started our fundraising platform at M-Changa.co.ke, here is the link
https://secure.changa.co.ke/myweb/share/14334
Kindly help us reach out to potential donors, we are relatively new in finding support for the children
Am grateful for the work you are doing. We have started a pre – primary school in my village in northern Uganda, a place that suffered from political instability for nearly 20years. This civil war left the region lagged behind in terms of education, health, infrastructure etc. The guns have gone silent for nearly 7years and we are at the point of recovery. We chose to help children of our community offer them pre – primary education. Major challenges we are facing are; no descent class room, no descent water point and toilet, in adequate scholastics materials and store. We are currently looking for donation to help us construct class rooms, build water point, build toilet, buy some books, pencils, pens and pieces of chalk. I will be grateful when you suggest us to some donor body.
Hi I appreciate your support.
Hi Amy, i’m impressed with the great work you are doing. I have started a pre-school for children age 2-5 years in my home village in Northern part of Uganda and in its young stage, the school lack basic requirement for learning. i would love to connect to any donor who would support my school project with:- desk, construction of permanent class rooms, provide scholastic materials and some indoor and outdoor play materials. The school lacks those essentials for it to be fully registered under the ministry of education and sports. Any possible link would be helpful for the school to grow to a better standard that will provide quality education to the people in the north and Uganda as a country.
Starting up a non-profit to fill an unmet need of long-term group support for survivors of human trafficking is my passion but after 3+ months of fundraising on facebook and fondly, I have raised about $190. My Board consists of three people, none of us have many friends and family to reach out to for donations so how do I find donors to get this non-profit fully operational?
Check out my series – The Major Gift Challenge on this blog. It will take you step-by-step through the process of fundraising. First step – recruit more board members to help with fundraising. It is all about networking and who you know. It’s a team effort, and you need a bigger team.
I think my organization needs help becz it has really very big space because its attached to a health center called kyakasenene health center in Kagadi town Uganda near lake Albert
I deal with hepatitis B test and vaccination the major terget is primary school going children but adults are also included
great advice from the expert
Hello Amy,
Thanks for your advice.
Hello Amy,
Thanks for that grate work.
My NGO has got a right path for our goals to come true. The lives of Orphans and vulnerable children have to change. We are ready to think big.