Donations

From WikiAdvocacy

Jump to: navigation, search

Look at donations broadly. You can obtain money, equipment and supplies in this category. A donations campaign—or even an ad-hoc effort—can be combined with seeking foundation grants, as discussed above, to offer companies a range of options for being involved with your organization.

Contents

[edit] Obtaining Donations

Mary Ann Wilson, Administrative Director
Neurofibromatosis, Inc.

"In 1979, the Neurofibromatosis Mid-Atlantic Chapter started in my dining room in Mitchellville, Maryland. We mailed letters, seeking to identify families, to the local pediatricians listed in the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory. The Chapter needed an inexpensive way to reproduce information about the disorder and communicate with the families and health professionals about various resources and meetings we were scheduling.

The Washington Post published a feature article on the Mars family (that's right—the candy people) in McLean, Virginia just across the Potomac River. I wrote a letter to The Mars Foundation explaining the disorder, the support group just getting started, and the need for a copying machine to help make information available to families and physicians.

Knowing that a lot of different people make a high volume of copies in libraries, I visited the local library to find out the manufacturer of the copiers being purchased by the County Library System. The local representative for the manufacturer quoted us a good price for a tabletop copier after hearing our story.

In less than a month after writing the letter to The Mars Foundation, we received a check for $2,000 for the copier. Until we moved into bona fide office space 10 years later, we used only that machine. We then obtained a donated copy machine with a much larger capacity. That is another story!"

[edit] International Donations

Many organizations are looking for ways to function and get donations internationally. This becomes especially important for rare conditions; the international support is quite necessary with a small population of affected individuals. Arrangements of this nature are a difficult issue, due to differing donation and tax exemption regulations.

The criteria for donations and taxes varies widely among countries. There are individual standards, though there is usually the expectation of a physical presence and offering resources and supports to residents in that country of agreement. Getting status as a charity in the country of operation might also be required. Here are some questions and plans to consider:

Eleni Z. Tsigas Executive Director Preeclampsia Foundation

"...wondering if there might be some value in combining forces to set up an office in some of our key countries that would serve as a 'registered agent' co-op, of sorts. It would serve as the physical address and a local bank account could be set up. We would probably need to contract with a local bookkeeper (for a few hours a week at most, I might think) that would be responsible for taking in donations, allocating them to their respective organizations and then either paying expenses when the money is spent in country or if its allowed, to forward the money to the parent organization."

There are many different types of agreements for managing your organization internationally, and it can be successful if rules, incentives, and representation for the international membership are taken into consideration

Please see our article on international offices for more information.

[edit] Donation Software and Databases

Today there are many methods available to easily store necessary information on donations, like readily accessible software-based databases. One commonly used type of database is a Contact Resource Manager (CRM), which utilizes a database format to easily organize donors in a variety of different ways. While these systems are for the most part straightforward in their approach, a consultant may be helpful to you in efficiently using the software. For the most part, these CRMs also require a fee, generally paid monthly, to be paid to the software company. They are also generally readily accessible online from many locations. Here is a small list of some good options for CRMs, many of which offer free 30-day trials:

This works as an app on top of the Salesforce Platform mentioned above. This CRM offers a fully customizable system that is easily accessible due to its online nature.

Donor Perfect is a CRM that caters specifically to non-profits. It cites larger-than average increases in fundraising as one of its main benefits.

Donor Pro is another non-profit-specific CRM. Donor Pro offers "householding" which tracks the names, e-mails, and other important information of the people in the household. Offers mail merge capability and/or export functionality so a mail merge can be done through Excel.

This is Microsoft's version of CRM software. Microsoft offers personal quotes to potential customers of its CRM. They also offer a wide network of partners to help customize their CRM for your needs.

Applying to the Salesforce Foundation can get you access to everything in the Salesforce app network. Many of these apps have special or reduced nonprofit pricing. Nonprofits may be eligible to receive up to 10 licenses as a donation.

You may also benefit from downloading this CRM review article.

[edit] Acknowledging Donations

Writing thank you letters to donors serves three important purposes:

  • Thank you letters acknowledge the donor's contribution.
  • They help cultivate a relationship between the donor and the organization.
  • They substantiate donations for donors who need their contributions documented (usually for tax purposes).

In addition to these thank you letters, some organizations also send out an end-of-the year acknowledgment recognizing donors who contributed over a certain dollar amount. In other cases, such an acknowledgement is only created for donors who give monthly through an electronic transfer.

[edit] Internal Links

Retrieved from "http://www.wikiadvocacy.org/index.php/Donations"
Personal tools