Often small non-profits try to make their fundraising look like the big non-profits in their area. “Well, St. Anthony’s has a successful auction, so I bet we could have a successful auction too.”
Don’t fall into that trap! Having worked at both large and small non-profits, I have a good sense of what works at both. Yes, there are some things that large non-profits do that should be emulated: professional asks, quick thank you letters, and 100% board giving. But a lot of what the large non-profits do only works at their scale.
An auction, for example, is much more difficult to make profitable for small non-profits. At the very least, you should have a large volunteer committee to run it — otherwise you’re spending too much paid staff time on it. But even then, consider what those volunteers could do if they were focused on asking major donors, not trying to procure items or sell tickets. All their energy could be toward much larger donations, and without the cost of an auction, would probably be more effective.
Another example: “professional” fundraising would tell you that your board chair should ask their fellow board members for their donations. If they are willing, great — loan them my book with a few suggested ask techniques. But in my experience, in small non-profits, this job usually falls to the Executive Director. As a result, I wrote the book assuming it was the ED who would be making most of the asks.
Long story short: keep in mind when you’re planning your fundraising for the year that not everything the big guys do makes sense at your scale.
