Creating a Fundraising Plan

Successful fundraising begins with a clear understanding of why you are raising
money. Although, the MS Society has a strong national awareness, your potential supporters be they friends, family or colleagues, will often want to know to which part of the organisation their money is going too. It could be to support MS Research, to fund a local MS Nurse or to provide a grant through our Young Carers Programme.

In addition to understanding the work of the Society you will need determination and time. These ingredients are critical: without them, your attempts to raise money will surely suffer. Assuming you satisfy these basic conditions, our advice is to follow these three commandments of fundraising:

1. Thou shalt always plan, and plan some more
2. Thou shalt always strive to raise money from a diverse range of activities
3. Thou shalt always ensure that everything you do is legal and that the reputation of the MS Society is never brought into disrepute.

To hit your fundraising goal, your first step is to draw up a fundraising plan. Some people may find this daunting initially. However, we are all used to planning either through our work or at home. A simple plan should incorporate what you are going to do, when you are going to do it by and how you are going to do it:

1. List all the potential sources from which you could ask for support. Then organise them by likelihood of support and priority of effort.
2. Develop a calendar to illustrate key dates in your plan. Ideally, you should have 90% of your fundraising target achieved at least four weeks before your event.
3. &Based on your fundraising activities and range of potential supporters, project how much your are likely to raise. This will help you to see if you need to do more or maybe even less.

Based on the experience of thousands of our supporters who fundraise on behalf of the MS Society, the most successful fundraising plans incorporate a range of activities.

Diversity in your fundraising will help to ensure that your plan isn’t over-dependent on one specific source of potential support. This will provide you with a greater margin of safety for those inevitable times when your fundraising doesn’t live up to expectations.

Step 1. Set goals and timelines
Before making a plan, a little preparation work is needed. Initially, you must have a ballpark idea of how much money you want to raise and when you need to raise it by. This ballpark figure will help you to build your plan as it sets the goal on which to base your fundraising activities around.

If you have fundraised before, then the most logical step is to start with the amount you raised previously. Consider how easy or difficult it was to raise this amount and then decide whether you think it achievable again or if you could even increase the figure. In some instances, your fundraising goal may be determined by a minimum sponsorship level required for activities such as a guaranteed place in the Flora London Marathon of for taking part in an overseas challenge. Once your have set you target figure, then you need to do some simple calculations to determine how much you have to raise by when.

Timelines are an important tool in ensuring that you hit your daily, weekly or monthly fundraising targets. The table below, illustrates how much would need to be raised per hour over a six month period for a range of personal fundraising goals:

(Daily amount based on an eight hours working day)
(Weekly amount based on a five day working week)

Step 2. Develop a list of ways to fundraise
Once you’ve set your goal, consider how you are going to hit your daily target. For example, if you want to raise £ 2,000 over a six month period, then it means raising approximately £ 15.00 per day. If you’re a smoker and a drinker, then a simple way would be to cut down on the drinking and stop smoking. Not only would you be improving your health, you would also be well on the way to achieving your daily fundraising goal.

The key to achieving your fundraising goal is to be creative and to develop your own A-Z of Fundraising Ideas. A combination of tested and untested activities normally creates the strongest A – Z. However, it’s important not to dedicate all your time to untested activities. By their very nature, it will be difficult to predict what money they will raise. But, you may also find a winner!

Before deciding on your final list, we would recommend doing some research. Ask your friends, family and colleagues if they have any ideas from past experience. The internet can also provide a wealth of ideas and suggestions. When you have finally drawn up your list, get a second opinion. Whilst you may think your ideas are good other people may not. A good fundraising list should be innovative, fun
and have something for everyone.

Step 3: Develop your fundraising calendar
Once you have your list of fundraising ideas, you should create a calendar. Since much of your fundraising may require some advance planning, develop a calendar that spans the period you are going to fundraise.

Fill in as many deadlines or dates for your fundraising activities as possible. You may need to add or amend dates to the calendar throughout the span of your fundraising as your plans change along the way. In addition to your calendar, you may find it useful to make up a task plan. This should simply list what should be done to ensure that you meet your deadlines.

Step 4: Keep accurate records
Experienced fundraisers will always promote the need for keeping accurate
and up-to-date records. If you are raising money from a variety of activities then
you need to know how well you’re doing.

This is also very important if you have recruited friends and family to help you. If you are only using sponsorship forms, then this is relatively easy. However, if your fundraising plan consists of a variety of activities, then list them separately to keep an overall rolling balance.