Whether you’re planning a humble garage sale or an exclusive Chinese auction, here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a successful fundraiser

Penina was flattered when her son’s school asked her to organize a fundraiser. Why not? she thought. How hard could it be?

A lot harder than she expected, it turns out. After deciding on an elaborate Motzaei Shabbos carnival as the event, the friends she had begged to help her flaked out, so she was still setting up as the first attendees walked in. Her poor family went without dinner for an entire week before the event. And worse still, the event’s turnout was only half of what she anticipated, and the proceeds barely covered the sushi budget alone!

Many women today find themselves at the wheel of the fundraising train, whether they’re just looking to do chesed or have been enlisted by their children’s school. Want to avoid Penina’s mishaps as you plan your event? Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about organizing a fundraising event — from marketing to volunteer management, and everything in between — along with tricks of the trade from women who have taken fundraising to a whole new level.

Who’s the Audience?

One of Penina’s big mistakes — something that trips up many first-time event planners — was deciding what type of event to hold without considering who was coming. The critical first step for event planners is knowing your target audience — the people most likely to attend your event and give money to your cause. This can be a make or break factor in the success of the event.

For example, if you’re raising money for your children’s school, the parent body will most likely be the target audience. If you’re working for an organization that assists the elderly, your audience could be their children or other family members who have deep appreciation for the organization. Be as specific as possible when you define your target audience — the more details you can get about what interests or attracts them, the more effective your advertising and event itself can be.

Once you know your target audience, figuring out the type of event is easier. Say you’re raising money from the parents for a school. Tova, an experienced fundraiser, notes that people are often reluctant to simply write checks to their children’s yeshivah. (“They want more money, in addition to all the tuition I pay?!”) Instead, parents would rather participate in a school fundraiser in which they get something in return (such as a dinner or student-made calendar).

On the other hand, a local chesed organization is more likely than schools to raise money via sponsorships and donations without giving anything in return. Similarly, a cause that is very poignant or timely (or both) — like fundraising efforts on behalf of terror victims — may also readily elicit donations without needing to offer a “prize.”

Don’t neglect to find out how your target audience feels about the organization — this can provide good clues as to how to fundraise. For example, when Sarah from New York recently spent a few days in the hospital, a local chesed organization proved invaluable by sending delicious food for Shabbos. “If they would have asked me for money, I would have written a check, no question about it! I don’t feel the need to go to an annual dinner or participate in a Chinese auction. I have so much hakaras hatov for what they did for me!”

Friend-Raiser and Fun-Raisers

Did you know that fundraising events are not always about raising money? Sometimes, the main objective is to create buzz about the cause or expand the current donor base. Creatively called “friend-raisers” or “fun-raisers,” these events aren’t centered around asking for money, rather they’re aimed at raising awareness and generating excitement.

Let’s say you’re organizing an annual breakfast for your community’s Bikur Cholim. You know your neighbors and friends are already squeezed for cash, so you decide not to charge a lot for entrance. While you probably won’t raise enough to fund the entire year’s expenses, you will get the opportunity to tell people more about your organization, raising a level of awareness you couldn’t obtain by simply mailing solicitation letters.

If your goal is awareness, think carefully about what you’ll do once you have your attendees sitting there. Before you enlist the chairperson of the organization as the keynote speaker, consider this: Personal accounts are oftentimes more powerful than statistics and mission statements. Miriam from New Jersey recalls a powerful fundraising event she attended for an organization that helps families struggling with infertility. Instead of long speeches, the highlight was a video chronicling a frum couple’s journey through treatments, a difficult pregnancy, and eventually the birth of their triplets. “This got the message across much better than a speech or glossy pamphlet,” she maintains. “Plus it was interesting to watch.”

Keep in mind that your work is not done when the event is over. You need to contact your new “friends” either by phone, mail, or e-mail to improve the likelihood of converting them into regular donors. The Fundraising Funnel, an online resource for nonprofits, suggests communicating to new potential donors the success of the event — this keeps you engaged with them and more likely to get a donation (assuming you send a personal solicitation letter).

Auction vs. Raffle

Now you’re ready to brainstorm what type of fundraiser you want. Brainstorming sessions are all about opening the floor to whatever ideas people have and not dismissing anything outright. For Ellie Levy — an architect who fundraises as a chesed — the idea for a cute fish theme came from her friend’s elementary school-aged daughter. She turned it into a highly successful sushi-making evening.

Different types of fundraisers include:

• services (e.g., babysitting Erev Pesach)
• _____-A-Thons (e.g., Bike-A-Thons)
• events (e.g., annual dinner or demonstrations)
• raffles (e.g., Chinese auction)
• games/contests (e.g., Dollar Drive — whichever class collects the most dollars win!)
• sales of items students made or collected (e.g., yard sales, student-made calendars)
• sales of products (e.g., prepackaged chocolates)
• sponsorship/donations (letters asking for donations)
• “crowdfunding” (a web-based form of fundraising)

As you deliberate on the type of event, Ellie Levy has some advice: think outside the box. “The frum community gives a lot of tzedekah as it is. If you’re going to have another Chinese auction, people won’t come unless they know you personally.” Be ultra-creative with your fundraising approach to entice people to participate.

Ellie also recommends looking at communal trends — what people do for fun. “If your target audience loves to cook, offer a cooking class. Running is another trend in Brooklyn, so make a sports event.” One of her fundraisers centered around a cooking demonstration that ran four times, every 20 minutes. Participants paid an entrance fee to learn how to make dazzling food. “You have to think about what will make someone leave their families at night.”

Be open to ideas beyond the Jewish community. “Walk-a-thons were not born in the frum world. We got the idea from the secular fundraising community. Try using Google to see what the major organizations are doing,” notes Ellie.

Look to what your community wants, suggests Shoshana Raff, marketing and business coach of Raff Business Consulting. “My friend has a used-sheitel gemach that she uses to fundraise for a family that lost their mother. Everybody wants a new sheitel but doesn’t want to pay top dollar.” She also recommends researching fundraising programs that are already in place. “There are so many untapped opportunities out there, like the Amazon Smile and Target’s Take Charge of Education — these don’t require an initial financial investment and can bring in a lot of cash for your cause!”

The two programs Shoshana mentions might just be the best-kept secrets for fundraisers. With Amazon Smile, people can shop online at smile.amazon.com where they’ll find the same items as amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a percentage of their purchase to a nonprofit of their choice. Similarly, sign up a debit or credit card, and Target will donate 1 percent of the total receipt to your school of choice.

Once you have your idea, you’ll need to figure out how you’ll execute it. Sit down and write up a detailed list of everything you need to do, then time-table it, creating deadlines for each task based on how long you think they’ll take. It may help to work backward from the day of the event and, using your to-do list, figure out when specific tasks need to be completed.

Start early, notes Tova. In fact, figure out when you need to begin prep work, and then start a week before that. Why? “Last-minute problems and hitches always come up.” Allow more time than you expect for each task, as well as a day or two for unanticipated tasks that creep up at the last minute.

Spreading the Message

Once you have a plan, it’s time to develop a clear message about your event that you’ll articulate to your target audience. Your message tells them why they should donate to your cause. You’ll use this message not just for advertising purposes, but during your event as well.

Your donor base doesn’t want to hear, “We need $1,000 to run our programs,” according to Nell Edgington of Fundraising Success magazine. They want to feel more invested, engaged, and committed to the work your organization does. In other words, they want to invest in the social impact your cause creates.

Imagine you’re organizing an event for a local organization that helps kids at risk. Instead of, “Help us reach our goal of raising $100,000 for our program,” a message of social impact sounds something like this: “Invest in our work to get 100 kids off the street and give them a future, saving their lives and making them contributing members of society.”

According to Meira Feinman, assistant marketing director at Etta-Ohel, the West Coast partner of Ohel, which provides support and services to Jewish people with disabilities, the first step in crafting your message is brainstorming with your partner or team. As before — when thinking up fundraising activities —  don’t snuff any of the ideas presented, since you never know which one will be the winner. After you generate a list of ideas, slowly cull them until one begins to shine above the rest.

To ensure a concise message, Meira suggest the old “elevator pitch” trick — could you explain it in a 30-second elevator ride?

Message in hand, you can finally plan the advertisement and marketing of your event. The goal: Reach your target audience through all means possible, leaving no stone unturned. Think about how your target audience gets their information, as well as places they frequent — where they’re likely to see a banner or flyer. If it’s a school-based fundraiser, you probably just need to put a few announcements in the school newsletter and create a phone committee that will call the parents individually. You may be able to gain free publicity by sending a press release about your event to a community paper or magazine.

Tova generally sends out “save-the-date” solicitation letters for her events, followed by official invitations — that have detailed information like the location and the speaker — and finally, phone call reminders to each person. She also makes sure to alert the community calendars of her event. “People need to be reminded over and over and over again. Make your event everywhere your target audience looks. And call twice.”

Finding the Right Volunteers

You can’t do all the work yourself. For most fundraisers to run smoothly, dedicated committees and volunteers are essential. While you may have to enlist your friends and family members for help, organizations usually have a core group of supporters who are always willing to lend a hand.

But finding the right volunteers is tricky, and making them work efficiently can be even trickier since you’re basically asking busy people to take on more work, for free.

As you delegate, try to also identify the specific talents and skills of each volunteer so they can be utilized to their fullest capacity. For example, a woman who loves baking shouldn’t be stuffing envelopes — she should be baking cookies!

“It’s not enough to know your volunteers well,” says Tova. “You need to know they’ll come through.” Don’t assign a crucial task, like picking up all the Chinese auction prizes, to a stranger you haven’t worked with before. But if last time Hindy volunteered for you she ordered all the food on time, you can probably trust her to be reliable when it comes to picking up the prizes.

Ellie Levy adds a note of caution about being too hands-off and just trusting that everyone will do their duties. “You need to make sure your volunteers are on the ball. Call them once or twice a week to find out what’s going on, help resolve issues before they become big problems. It’s about managing and empowering them, not controlling them.”

In fact, Ellie notes, empowering your volunteers leads to a better end-product because they’ll feel ownership and pride over their task. Allow them to make some decisions to help motivate them — they may not be able to decide on the type of event or what to serve, for example, but they can be in charge of how the food is laid out or where the flowers should go. Ultimately, you want the fundraiser to belong to a lot of people.

Developing this connection to the event is good for turnout too. The volunteers will automatically talk up the event and bring “their people” to participate.

Money In, Money Out

An over-the-top “Around the World”-themed Chinese auction with a cooking demonstration and the best prizes in town including four tickets to Israel may sound like fun, but will you make any money — or end up in the red afterward?

One of the most important aspects of planning a fundraising event is figuring out your expenses and assumed income for the event. Without an eye on your budget, you could end up spending more than you earn. The easiest way to address this problem is simply by estimating your expenses as well as your income from the event, regardless of how much money you have in the bank.

Start by writing down all your anticipated expenses — printing costs, food, facility rental, etc. Research how much each line is likely to cost. You might need to break up this task among a few people since finding the cheapest price (or donors who would be open to helping with the costs) could take you a bit of time.

You have to be very creative and conscientious about buying supplies for your event, Tova asserts. “I’ll buy things online, at closeouts or dollar stores or on Black Friday. However, I see people produce fundraising events like it’s their son’s bar mitzvah! They blow a lot of money needlessly, which takes away from the nonprofit they’re collecting for.” Save money by buying wholesale, she recommends, as long as you have your organization’s tax ID number. For example, just do an Internet search for “wholesale florist” and you’ll come up with a few places — even if they’re far away, the savings are worth the drive.

Look also for funding from corporate sponsors. Ellie is often able to get businesses to help fund her events. On one such occasion, she asked a local supermarket for a $100 shopping spree, which allowed her to provide refreshments. In order to give the store publicity, she mentioned the business as a corporate sponsor both in the opening remarks of the evening and in the flyer everyone received upon arrival.

Aside from local businesses, ask volunteers and even registered participants if their companies want to get involved. You can also reach out to local restaurants and supermarkets for gift cards or food donations. Remember, companies use this as advertising (and a tax write-off) so treat this like a business opportunity for them. Most companies, especially local businesses, have a budget to do this every year.

Once you know how much your event will cost, do a bit of research as to how much money you’re likely to make. You can search out people from your target audience and ask them how they feel about coming to the event or buying the product you plan to sell. If you get positive responses, estimate (on the low end) how many “sales” you’ll make. You can also figure out the potential “sales” for an event if you take reservations ahead of time (perhaps offering a discounted ticket for early-bird RSVPs). From here you should be able to gauge about how much profit you’ll bring in, and ultimately how successful your event may turn out to be.

Though money can be tight, avoid the common, “Sorry for the boring event — we have no money” pitfall, which turns both people and their money away. “People want to have a good time at a fundraiser,” reports Tova. “If you don’t have a good speaker, at least make sure that the food is good.” Or, better yet, find someone who was helped by the organization to speak. It will not only cut costs, but also make for a more meaningful event.

Ellie Levy also reflects on this common dilemma: You want your event to look good, but you don’t want to go overboard. “For this event I organize every year, I always wanted to have flowers. Finally, I decided to get a donor to buy the flowers — just $100 worth of roses — and got super creative about stretching them. I put one bud in a vase and used a bunch of vases of different heights. It looked like a million bucks!” In other words, you need to figure out how to go the extra mile without spending the cash.

Finally, after the big day (or night), as you’re cleaning up, take some notes on what worked — and what didn’t. Include your volunteers when evaluating how the event went and seek solutions and feedback for future events as well. Making mistakes is inevitable, especially if this was your first event, so don’t feel bad — we learn most from our failures. And definitely don’t forget to also celebrate your success! You worked hard and earned some crucial donor money for your organization — plus some brownie points in your chesed account!

Do’s and Don’ts of Fundraising

DO consider opening up your event to the other gender as well. Tova says that when she made an annual dinner and finally included men at the party, she made much more money than in previous years.

DO believe in your cause. If you’re organizing a fundraiser, a strong connection to or passion for the organization keeps you going. It’s a lot of work to organize an event, so if you don’t love it, reconsider.

DO make an event that reflects the values of the organization. If you’re raising money for the poor of your city, don’t make an ultra-extravagant event in which you auction off a fur coat.

DO plan a school fundraising event closer to the beginning of the school year than the end. Most parents are excited for a new school year in September and willing to participate in an event. Come March, they’re burned out and just waiting for the year to end.

DON'T allow long speeches — five minutes, max!

DON'T only honor the people with the big bucks. Tova remembers how the profit was the same between events with a wealthy honoree and ones in which the honoree was just a special person who did a lot for the organization.

DON'T organize a fundraiser if you can’t make dinner for your family too. Someone else will do it.

DON'T judge people based on what they give (or don’t give). You never know what other causes they’re giving to, in addition to yours.