Think you got what it takes to be a great non-profit fundraiser?
In this video I'm going to share some of the top skills needed to
be successful at fundraising for your non-profit or favorite cause! [Music]
Welcome or welcome back! My name is Amber Melanie Smith and I am a non-profit founder
and executive director and I've done my fair share of fundraising through my journey in
the non-profit world. I love making these videos here on YouTube to help people who want to make
an impact whether that's through a non-profit or social Enterprise or socially conscious business
or just as a volunteer or leader in their Community as always I hope that you find this
video helpful and useful don't forget to give it a like And subscribe to my channel for more content
like this. If you are starting a nonprofit or designing a sustainable fundraising plan
for a nonprofit be sure to check out my website FounderToFullTime.com. I have some online courses
there about those very topics that might be helpful. Alright so let's get into our topic today
whether you are fundraising for a non-profit or cause that you care about as a volunteer or
a board member or you are trying to raise money for a non-profit that you have started or you're
trying to be a professional fundraiser there are certain skills soft skills and hard skills
that you need to be successful in this video I'm going to share seven skills in particular that I
think all types of fundraisers need to be good at and I also want to have the disclaimer that
in an Ideal World everyone in your organization is contributing and helping with fundraising from
all of your board of directors members to your volunteers to your staff in various capacities
in different ways so when I'm sharing these skills you know we can think about how other
people on the team even if they're not the designated fundraiser might be able to use
these skills to help with the bigger fundraising picture too so let's get started so I've broken
these skills into two categories the first is technical skills and knowledge and the second is
soft skills so starting with technical skills the first skill that you need to be a great non-profit
fundraiser is of course excellent writing and communication skills fundraising is basically
99 good communication and by that I mean it's the way you talk about and write about your cause it
has to be a simple clear and compelling enough to inspire people to give and of course understand
it because they probably won't give if they don't even understand what you do so being able
to be clear in that communication is very very important and if you're a good communicator and
can understand how to translate a message or even a complex Mission into something that people can
easily understand that's also going to translate into some of the more specific tasks that you will
be expected to do as a fundraiser such as grant writing writing donor appeals sharing impact
reports with your donors or creating marketing plans for fundraising campaigns so it all feeds
in together the second skill that I'm going to talk about is computer skills or you've got to be
tech savvy enough to at least be able to navigate and properly use a CRM or a customer relationship
management type of software fundraising requires excellent record keeping as your donor base grows
you are most likely not going to remember the names and the details surrounding dozens or
hundreds or maybe even thousands of people who might be supporting your cause or interested in
one day supporting your cause if you can build a good enough relationship with them so if you're
not familiar a CRM is a type of software used like a donor database where people store all
of the information the names the contact uh information email phone number mailing address
Etc about a donor or prospective donor and it could include their giving information so when
was the last time they made a gift how big was the gift what amount of money was the gift do
they have certain patterns of giving do they give it a certain time of year did they tend
to give to certain types of projects that you're doing and you can also usually input
personal notes about your interactions with that donor like the last time you met with them
something that they said that really stuck out to you that you want to remember you can record
it in your donor database or CRM all of this is done so that you can go back and reference your
notes about a potential donor and remember how to engage them further next time a CRM is also
helpful in engaging multiple team members in the active fundraising because if you just have all
the notes about the donors you're working with in your head that doesn't help a board member
over here or another staff member over here or a volunteer over there know what's in your head
and be able to help you so having people be able to access this CRM and you know work to schedule
those meetings with donors and conversations with donors alongside you can really expand
your fundraising efforts the third skill I'm going to talk about is financial knowledge great
fundraisers need to be able to both create budgets for programs and projects or fundraising or
marketing campaigns and also be able to interpret and properly translate the organization's budget
a fundraiser needs to know what they're raising money for so a budget can clarify what are the
dollar amounts needed in order to be able to execute this program or that project and that will
be the incentive and the goal that they set to go raise that amount of money to meet the budget so
you've got to know how to read your budgets you've got to be able to explain different aspects of
the budget and make a case for some parts of the budget that might not be as exciting or inspiring
to donors but you know that they're important anyway such as some of that infrastructure
capacity building and overhead stuff the fourth skill you've got to have is a great fundraiser
is data and Trends analysis and your CRM software that I mentioned before can usually really help
you with this because you'll be able to identify various Trends in giving if you have a lot of
donors who are giving in the month of December or in the month of May you can investigate why
that might be the cause if donors are responding really well to one one appeal or campaign that
you did but not another you can investigate that also organizations have to be accountable to the
community and to their board of directors so being able to explain Trends or data that is related to
your organizations or your fundraising efforts is really important understanding these Trends
can also help you inform future efforts so when you are demonstrating oh look this interesting
thing keeps happening over here or the donors are really responding to this type of campaign you
can sit down with your team and collaborate and think about how can we replicate the success of
this thing over here the fifth skill is research and donor or sponsor prospecting which is the act
of finding and identifying these potential donors or sponsors and then making a determination about
if they're going to be a good fit this is a little bit of an art form and take some trial
and error but the basics of it are that it's all about aligning your values and your interests
um most of the time if you find a donor who wants the same things for the world as you
do they might be inspired by your cause I talk a lot more about identifying prospective sponsors
and donors and my fundraising course at my website founder to fulltime.com if you want to check that
out too okay the sixth skill that I'm going to talk about under technical skills is event
planning and I want to offer the disclaimer that not all fundraising does include nor
should necessarily include fundraising events I've talked in other videos about how events are very
um Logistics heavy they take a lot of time to plan they might take a lot of resources to pull off
effectively and that after all of that sometimes they aren't worth it financially and sometimes
they are so um just something to consider that events are just one tool and a fundraising Arsenal
that said event planning is a great skill to have and there are other types of events besides
fundraising events that a fundraiser might have to execute such as a donor stewardship event or
a recognition event where you're thanking your top supporters skill number seven and the last
one under the technical skills category that I'm going to share is some basic volunteer management
slash leadership skills you can greatly expand your fundraising efforts if you have a base of
inspired knowledgeable and confident volunteers so knowing how to manage these folks well is
really key and that's everything from recruiting the people with the right skills to keeping them
motivated throughout a fundraising campaign to knowing how to equip them with the right tools
and information they need to be successful to help fundraise so definitely an important skill before
I move on to soft skills I just want to share that if you are really serious about fundraising or
perhaps you want to do it as a professional I highly recommend looking into getting the
certified fundraising executive credentials or CFRE. There's some coursework and certification
and some cost involved to get certified but it can be really worth it all right let's get into eight
soft skills now that are just so critical for fundraising professionals or fundraising people
of any professional level the first is resilience and Agility because you are probably going to hear
the word know a lot and you have to not let it get to you most people in the world are not going to
donate to your non-profit and you just have to be okay with that it's usually nothing personal your
cause isn't a good fit or they aren't in the right economic position to make a donation at that time
but maybe in the future there are many reasons that someone could say no that have nothing to do
with you as a person so just keep that in mind as for agility there will be times when your donation
campaigns your appeals are not going very well or your fundraising events are something crazy
is happening at them and it's a huge disaster and you're going to be needing to think on your
feet and be agile and come up with Solutions on the spot soft skill number two is being a great
networker fundraising is all about relationships and math I just commented a moment ago about how
not everyone is going to fall in love with your cause and the math plays out if you think about it
you in order to have a good sized base of donors you have to know way more people than you have
donors because not everyone that you know is going to become a donor right so you have to build those
relationships and do a lot of Outreach through networking make a lot of contacts and connections
then from all the people you know you've got to build relationships you've got to find the
people who might be interested or inspired by your cause these are the people who might become future
donors that's smaller pool within that smaller pool then you have to find people who are able
to make a donation and willing to make a donation that's an even smaller pool so you see it's kind
of like a funnel right you've got to meet and know a lot of people to find the donors in the
of all those folks to grow your donor database the third soft skill is being a good conversationalist
and actually introverts Excel really well at this because donors are humans too and the more you're
able to have an interesting and meaningful and deep connection with the donor the more likely
they are to donate so instead of the how's the weather questions or skimming across the surface
level of a conversation being able to have a deeper conversation about values and life and
philosophy can actually be very beneficial to your fundraising efforts I once heard uh an amazing
fundraising professional Gail Perry say the worst thing you can be to a donor is boring so think
about that when you go to have a conversation with a possible donor number four is being a great
relationship Builder and cultivator I alluded to this earlier but fundraising is all about
relationship you have to be able to sustain those relationships over time though and that means
being able to keep people engaged keeping people in the know about your impacts and the work that
your organization is doing the fifth soft skill is being organized great fundraisers remember
details they remember a donor's birthday so they can say hey happy birthday today they remember
when grants are due and if they can't remember all that stuff they're at least very very good
at taking notes and setting up systems to remind themselves of those things soft skill number six
as being a great Observer listener and pattern finder a good fundraiser is great at listening for
and looking for opportunities for their non-profit or their cause perhaps you just heard about a new
business opening up in town and they're going to need some good marketing and PR so partnering with
your non-profit could be a great opportunity to achieve that maybe you were talking to a donor
and they were talking about how they really loved dogs and you happen to be a dog rescue non-profit
or have an event coming up where dogs are allowed finding these little connection points can really
help you build those relationships and find new donors seventh fundraisers are great story
finders and storytellers they have to be able to listen for great stories that they hear that
might relate to their cause and be able to share those stories with others and come up with their
own stories because a good story is often the defining factor in someone making a donation and
the eighth and Final skill to talk about today is patience great fundraisers are patient they
know that fundraising takes time it takes time to build relationships it takes time to grow and
they've got that staying power all right I want to hear from you now what are some of your top skills
or top superpowers and how do they help you with fundraising or how do you think that they could
help you with fundraising after hearing about some of these other skills today share in the
comments below as I mentioned before if you are starting a non-profit or developing a fundraising
plan for a non-profit I have some great online courses at my website FounderToFulltime.com so
I hope that you can check those out I have a Facebook group also called change the world
or bust where we have thousands of people from around the world making an impact and sharing
each other their stories with each other and asking each other great questions so I hope that
you can join me there too finally I also have a newsletter for change makers and non-profit
leaders you can find a link to subscribe to that below and opt in and opt out anytime you
like but it's there for you to to get some great resources as always I hope that you found this
video helpful and useful once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith and I hope to see you next time