There are far more worthy causes on the planet to donate to than any person or business could possibly support.
So choosing is inevitable.
Less than 10% of the many requests I receive for money or goods are well thought out.
Most donation-seekers are volunteers. The work they do is very time consuming and valuable for the communities and organisations they’re helping.
Some points for donation seekers to consider, to maximise return for time/effort:
- ‘Sponsorship’ is in fact a donation, only usually for a much larger amount – often set at an unrealistically high level. A few businesses benefit from sponsorship because naming rights builds their brand profile or increases their image as a community-minded company. But the vast majority of businesses – large and small – do not gain financially from sponsorship. If you’re asking for sponsorship, you’ll get best results from businesses in your immediate area, who share an interest in supporting the community the owners and employees live amongst; or businesses directly involved in the specific industry your cause is related to.
- If you’re running a small local event then seek donations locally. If you’re running a statewide event, then seeking relevant donors statewide will make sense, if there’s a specific reason why they may be interested. Ditto national events. If you are running a local event, it does not make sense to ask someone thousands of kilometres away for a donation. It doesn’t mean your cause isn’t a worthy one – but it’s implying that either you think the business has so much money they can afford to donate across the whole country, or that causes closer to the donor aren’t deserving of their support.
- Only very rarely do donations of any kind result in sales (for me, it’s less than $1 per $1000 worth of goods donated. Fortunately I’ve never expected ROI.) IE donations are gifts – they are not investments that businesses will get a financial return on (so shouldn’t be promoted as such). Far better to be upfront & call them donations, end of story.
- If you are a registered charity then yes donations are tax deductible. However tax deductibility only means receiving back a small percentage of what was spent (30c/$, or whatever the rate of tax the business is paying). And when times are tough, the amount of tax a business is paying will be negligible anyway. So it’s best not to try to suggest that tax deductibility means it doesn’t cost the business anything to donate.
- Do not ask a business to donate to you if you have never bought anything from that business, and/or if the group you’re seeking a donation for are not customers. It’s just rude and there’s nothing that will make me run away screaming more quickly than someone who is asking me to donate but who has never bought anything and never intends to, and who hasn’t even stopped to think about that. I know of businesses who have donated generously to organisations, only to discover that a rival business has been given the organisation’s business! If you (or your organisation) are regular or sizeable customers, then clearly spell out what you’ve bought and when. Not to make it sound like an expectation, but by way of demonstrating that you are mindful of the fact that the business you are asking for help, does need to earn a crust in order to survive.
Best practice, for seeking donations:
Computers make template letters so easy there’s no excuse for not including detail; with just a bit of tweaking of letters sent to different people. It doesn’t have to be Tolstoy, dot points are fine:
- Ask in writing, by mail or email. NOT by phone or social media. Be professional & don’t put people on the spot.
- Explain exactly why you are asking this particular business for a donation – why should the business decide to donate to you, in particular (you are a previous customer, or you know there are a lot of customers involved in your event? The cause has direct relevance? There’s a local problem that you hope they’ll care deeply about?)
- Include a sentence or two explaining your cause (history/track record or is it new; aims/why it exists etc; and are you a registered charity?).
- Include a sentence or two of details regarding the event you’re asking for a donation for (where, when, who is running it etc).
- Specify what you’re seeking (goods, specific expertise or perhaps time to help promote it, etc) and if it’s goods, how they will be made use of (raffled, lucky door prize, auctioned? If the latter, who is the auctioneer?) And be realistic. Remember that small businesses are just made up of people working hard to earn enough money to feed themselves and their family, they aren’t cash cows.
- A paragraph on how the donation will be publicly acknowledged (social media/website mentions? In advertising/editorial material? Verbally when the function is on?) This is not because donors expect public thank-you’s (although it would be great to think donor generosity might be rewarded with more business), but because everybody appreciates being thanked. And mention whether a receipt will be issued.
Ensure that what you’ve said will happen is realistically do-able, given that volunteer time is in scant supply. And if what was predicted didn’t happen, explain the reason for the change.
After the event, ensure a written thank-you is issued to all donors. If their donation was auctioned, tell them how much it raised and who the purchaser was. Following up is hard to do – we’re all busy – but your donors will be much more inclined to donate again in future, to you or other good causes!
Who do I donate to?
Worthy causes I come across, and people I have built up a relationship with over a period of time. And it’s very rarely people/organisations that ask me for a donation or ‘populist’ causes. Instead I find causes in remote areas where the population is sparse and where there’s less resources for them to call upon (usually, places that are having a tough trot). Or well-known causes that I have a particular interest in. Donations I make are rarely mentioned publicly; I give when I think a contribution will make a positive difference to someone else, not because I am seeking this kind of publicity. Over the course of 20+ years, business-related donations I have made would run to many thousands of dollars in value.
Ideally I wouldn’t even have to sell books, I’d just give them away to people whose lives would be made better by having them. But in order to keep recording life in the bush and helping to bridge the urban/rural divide – and to keep eating – I have to sell them.
Lastly:
Thank you to all the tireless volunteers who keep community organisations going. Volunteers and small businesses are the backbone of Australia.
Tags: Fiona Lake Photography