What Makes Your Fundraiser a Success?

When you look at a fundraiser, you should be able to evaluate the success of it. You want to be able to measure the success to ensure you know if the fundraiser should be repeated next year or next season.

There are a few specific factors you want to look at when evaluating the success of a fundraiser:

1. Money Raised vs. Money Spent
2. Relationships Gained
3. Awareness Spread

Some fundraisers aren’t necessarily designed to raise a large sum of money. Instead, they are more about creating awareness or relationships.

After you’ve completed your fundraiser, here are the ways you can figure out if it was a success.

How Much Money Was Raised

The clearest indicator of a successful fundraiser will be the money raised. In most cases, the main goal of a fundraiser is to raise funds for the group or organization. Of course, you cannot just look at the amount raised, as you may have had expenses along the way.

You want to look at the overall return on investment to ensure your fundraiser was a success. Take the total amount raised and subtract any expenses you incurred to figure out the return on investment.

Of course, the amount raised is just the start. You also want to evaluate how much time was invested in the fundraiser. While you may have raised a few thousand dollars, if running the fundraiser was like a full-time job for several months, it may not have been a success.

The goal with any good fundraiser is to raise as much money as possible while investing only the necessary amount of time. If you have to spend too much time organizing and planning, with very little payoff, it may not be worth running that specific fundraiser again.

Did you Gain Relationships?

Relationships are a very important part of the success of many fundraisers, especially the first few times they are held. Maybe you only raised a little bit of money, but you have gained several relationships with sponsors willing to commit to the same fundraiser next year.

When you gain relationships and you can see the potential for growth with a fundraiser, it may have been a success without raising a huge amount of cash. This is the case for Gala events and Golf Outings. These types of events may take a few years to build and creating new relationships in year one can provide a strong foundation for year two.

Spreading Awareness

In some cases, a fundraiser is less about raising a large sum of cash and more about spreading awareness. Maybe you’re using a custom magnet fundraiser to spread awareness for a specific disease. Your goal may be to raise money, but also to spread awareness.

When evaluating the success of your fundraiser, it’s important to look at both the funds raised and the awareness spread. Maybe you sold/gave out thousands of magnets, so you know you spread a ton of awareness, but you only raised a little bit of money. Your fundraiser can be a success, even in this case.

Figuring out what makes your fundraiser a success will depend on your goals. Make sure you set clear goals for your fundraiser and you’ll be able to easily measure its’ success.