Fundraising is the idea of raising funds for a cause. The scope of fundraisers is immense as the cause itself can be personal, public, religious, corporate, idealistic, entrepreneurial, and even just mutual interest to name just a few. Despite the idea of fundraisers being very potent, it’s certainly not an easy job to pull one off successfully.
More importantly for someone who has never been part of fundraisers before, it’s difficult to find the confidence to start one alone. We are going to share a few key points with our readers today that might just help them feel the confidence and motivation they need to start their own fundraiser event.
Go through Cause-Specific Ideas
Just because an online crowdfunding project was a big success last year for raising money for a video game, it may not be the best idea for the cause you have in mind. We need to find ideas that have already worked for the particular cause in question. For example, you will find church fundraising ideas on Fundraising Brick that do actually work. The confidence that their church fundraising ideas will work comes from the simple fact that they have worked countless times before.
Go through Past Success Stories
Let us assume that the goal is to raise funds for the welfare of homeless people in your area. In that case, go through past instances of successful, public welfare events that were conducted in your town, or even your locality. The public library is always a good place to start your research, and then you can even talk to some of the people involved to help you with some valuable advice. If you are lucky, they may even join the fundraiser in some capacity.
If the event is less public and more personal or idea-centric, the internet is going to be your best friend. Search the subject you have in mind, go through accounts of successful crowdfunding events in the past, and join a few related forums for active guidance and help.
Start Small
The thing about true confidence is that it always grows with experience. Therefore, the principal hurdle here is that of getting started. Overcome your initial fears by starting as small as you need your first fundraiser campaign to be. Do your research, go through the right ideas, ask for help, and then arrange a small fundraiser event with modest goals.
As you are likely to succeed at this point due to your knowledge base and the project’s small size, it will provide you with experience and thus, confidence. You may even be able to find a few important contacts for future reference. Do it a few more times with the event growing bigger each time and your confidence towards conducting a successful fundraiser should come naturally.
Even if you support the cause, attempting to arrange a fundraiser for it is a completely new set of additional responsibilities. It is, therefore, only natural to feel underconfident about something that you have not been a part of before. In fact, it is actually a good sign. It’s better to start with something when you are ready for it, rather than jumping into something with overconfidence.
