Three Important Fundraising Principles

In this short video, a fundraising expert explains three main principles about fundraising. These three principles are central to successful fundraising, and need to be learned before getting started.

Kim Klein: Grassroots fundraising is very political. It makes people think about how they want their community to be run, how they want it to be funded, what should be paid for and how it should be paid for. So, yeah, it's very exciting, people think it's some kind of just technical you know we are turning out letters and turning out emails, and turning out proposals, that's part of it, but its way, way more than that. Laila: Whether you are soliciting donations or you are making them, fundraising effects us all, I am your host Laila for watchmojo.com. We would like to have answer of your questions about raising sources of capital and to do that, we have brought you a former recipient of the Outstanding Fundraising Executive of the Year award, Kim Klien. Kim Klien: Actually there are three things you need to know about fundraising, and there are lot of other things that vary place by place. But you keep three things in mind, you will really be set. One is that, in order to raise money you have to be willing to ask for. How may you ask for it is going to vary place to place, culture to culture, whether you are going to be more direct, less direct and so on, but you do have to be willing to ask for it. You have to have a cause that makes sense to people. And the third thing is that people do raise money for themselves by themselves, but that's not sustainable. You really want a group of people who all think, yeah this is a really good thing and we are all going to pull together and if you have those three things in place, pretty much then you can adapt accordingly to your culture. I mean, I have taught fundraising in 21 countries, some very different ones from another. And if people kept those three things in mind and then add it on to the culture realities and economic realties of their situation, they generally were successful. Laila: How business savvy or political savvy does someone have to be, to be a successful fund raiser? Kim Klein: They need to follow some basic business principles, I think, of marketing, being really clear about what's your message, what's your product. What are you trying to do in the world, how are you trying to make it better, why do you think that will succeed. Ideally either the person who starts the program or someone in the program has some business sense in terms of accounting, and kind of keep tracking the money and manage budgets and so on. I really think the driver for success in fundraising is vision and commitment.