Raising money is a perennial challenge for nonprofits. The Great Recession has made things tougher for some and nearly impossible for others. Your nonprofit may be working hard to deal with fundraising challenges.
Traditional thinking about fundraising might lead to thinking like this - “We need to raise $600,000 more money third year. What do we need to do to make this happen?” A discussion of grant writers, fundraising consultants and mailing lists follows.
There is nothing wrong with this approach. At least some of that discussion needs to happen. But, new thinking might also be needed.
Lateral thinking may help you get better results. Lateral thinking is (from Wikipedia) “solving problems through an indirect and creative approach.” The point of lateral thinking is to move “sideways” to new ideas and different ways of thinking.
The point of this little essay is to point out another way of approaching the subject of fundraising. Lateral thinking itself suggests a broader approach to thinking about getting the resources you need. A specific lateral thinking technique will help bring the process into focus.
Lateral thinking includes many types of idea-generating techniques. One easy technique uses random stimuli. The random stimuli could be found in many different ways, but the most common technique involves opening a dictionary without looking and picking a word. For the sake of illustration I’ll just say that I opened up a dictionary and came up with “retirement.”
How is fundraising like retirement? Well, what does retirement make you think of? I came up with these random thoughts about retirement:
1. Comes after a long career.
2. People worry about having enough money.
3. Usually for senior citizens.
4. Planning often involves getting professional financial advice.
5. People tend to invest for many years.
6. You can handle your own investments or turn them over to someone else.
7. We try to estimate how much money we’ll need to retire comfortably.
8. Retirement often allows more time and money to indulge in a hobby.
Think about each of item in my list and see if it sparks any fundraising ideas that you can use. Don’t expect a stellar idea to come to you out of the blue. More likely, you will get the seed of an idea and will see how it could be improved to be workable.
Give it a try.
Traditional thinking about fundraising might lead to thinking like this - “We need to raise $600,000 more money third year. What do we need to do to make this happen?” A discussion of grant writers, fundraising consultants and mailing lists follows.
There is nothing wrong with this approach. At least some of that discussion needs to happen. But, new thinking might also be needed.
Lateral thinking may help you get better results. Lateral thinking is (from Wikipedia) “solving problems through an indirect and creative approach.” The point of lateral thinking is to move “sideways” to new ideas and different ways of thinking.
The point of this little essay is to point out another way of approaching the subject of fundraising. Lateral thinking itself suggests a broader approach to thinking about getting the resources you need. A specific lateral thinking technique will help bring the process into focus.
Lateral thinking includes many types of idea-generating techniques. One easy technique uses random stimuli. The random stimuli could be found in many different ways, but the most common technique involves opening a dictionary without looking and picking a word. For the sake of illustration I’ll just say that I opened up a dictionary and came up with “retirement.”
How is fundraising like retirement? Well, what does retirement make you think of? I came up with these random thoughts about retirement:
1. Comes after a long career.
2. People worry about having enough money.
3. Usually for senior citizens.
4. Planning often involves getting professional financial advice.
5. People tend to invest for many years.
6. You can handle your own investments or turn them over to someone else.
7. We try to estimate how much money we’ll need to retire comfortably.
8. Retirement often allows more time and money to indulge in a hobby.
Think about each of item in my list and see if it sparks any fundraising ideas that you can use. Don’t expect a stellar idea to come to you out of the blue. More likely, you will get the seed of an idea and will see how it could be improved to be workable.
Give it a try.
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