Development Today: A Fund Raising Guide For Non-profit Organizations

Fifth edition of one of the most popular books in America on one of the least popular subjects in America: fund raising. Development Today is now being used successfully by thousands of organizations nationwide to raise the capital, project and operating funds they need at a time when the competition for such funds has never been more intense. I know. In my capacity as development counsel to a wide range of organizations around the nation and as a trainer in fund raising and organizational development techniques to hundreds more, I have worked with the executive directors, trustees and staff of nonprofit organizations to make sure they know exactly what they need to know to make their fund raising activities successful. Having done this for many years, I have a very clear sense of what it takes to raise money - and the things nonprofit personnel often find it so difficult to do. Development Today aims to deal with both areas by providing you with the exact technical information you need to raise the funds you must have and by giving you techniques to overcome your own reluctance (and that of the people you'll be working with) towards raising money. I know you probably hate fund raising, that you approach the subject with distaste, anxiety and an acute desire to get it over with as quickly as possible. I know the people you'll be working with probably feel the same way. No wonder! Fund raising is a time-consuming, slow-moving, intrusive, and often frustrating process. It's also a crucial activity in the kind of country we have where approximately one million organizations rely in some measure on voluntary support - the kind of support Development Today will help you get. Until now nonprofit personnel - be they trustees, executive directors or staff - have had very little assistance with the task of raising funds expeditiously and inexpensively, of getting the kind of help they need to get on with a job they so often dislike. This is not to say that there is limited fund raising literature. Quite the contrary. But all too often this literature is maddeningly theoretical, or, even worse, it stops just at the moment you need very practical guidance. Development Today is my attempt to correct matters. I wrote this book to make generally available the kind of pragmatic, tested, thoroughly utilitarian advice we've been offering our clients for years. I know the kinds of problems which arise in the fund raising process, and in Development Today I deal with them. Here's just some of what you'll find:

• A planning process which ensures success
• Determining the right level of capital, project and operating fund raising objectives Getting the Board of Directors to contribute Involving the Board in the fund raising effort
• Deciding which corporations and foundations to apply to, and for how much
• Gathering links to funding sources
• What to do with the links when you've got them
• Making a "No!" into a "Yes!" if a corporation or foundation declines your proposal
• Organizing an annual fund raising effort
• Creating the Coordinating Committee to supervise it
• Crafting persuasive fund raising documents at low cost
• Mounting successful special events
• Identifying Leadership Gift prospects
• Motivating and training volunteers
• Undertaking successful solicitation visits
• When and how to use direct mail
• Techniques for ensuring the success of a Capital Campaign
• When and how to use professional fund raising counsel and other technical assistance consultants.