Your nonprofit is always considering their bottom-line, and how your organization can benefit from fundraising. However, when the holidays are around the corner does your nonprofit stop and consider community members who may not be able to afford a turkey and all the trimmings for Thanksgiving? Or that nearby families they are grasping at straws in trying to figure out how they can provide for their family a wonderful Christmas. They don’t know how they can pay all of their bills let alone purchase presents for their family members.
Fundraising is not always about furthering your mission and your incoming revenue. Around the holidays consider fundraising for members of your community. To begin your fundraising project organize a meeting with all of your upper management. Discuss how your organization can come together and raise funds for the community. Ask them to discuss the fundraising project with their departments. Then plan a meeting in the next 7 days to begin your project.
While your organization is gathering ideas, consider doing the following projects:
- Adopting a Family for Christmas- There are many individuals that adopt an entire family for Christmas. What makes this project unique is that you are able to provide a wonderful Christmas for the whole family not just the children. Typically it is the goal of the organization to provide gifts for the children and assist the family with their Christmas meal. If this sounds like a program your organization would be interested in, use a search engine and search for adopt a family for christmas. Include your city and state in your search to find a nearby organization.
- Adopting a Family for Thanksgiving is always an option also, but Thanksgiving is a few days away and may no longer be an available project for 2013. However you can consider this a community service project for 2014.
- Conducting a food drive for the holidays is also an alternative, but with this choice you are helping a nameless and faceless family. If you are considering making a greater impact, consider one of the options above.
- Another alternative to helping those in need is to contact nursing home and independent living facilities. See if there are senior citizens in your community who your organization can sponsor. You can purchase gifts but perhaps you can make it a community service project that goes beyond helping an individual during the holidays. Maybe you can sponsor a senior year-round by making weekly visits, remembering their birthday, and other special occasions.
Once your organization discusses the community service project and decides on a fundraising project, the next step is getting the employees involved. Send an email to all employees describing your community service project. List the dates that your organization will be collecting funds. Put the project in your company newsletter to ensure that all employees are notified of the fundraising project and have time to donate to the project.
During any other time of year, it is logical for your organization to focus solely on collecting revenue and your mission, but during the holidays a fundraising campaign to benefit the community is a fresh change of pace, and rejuvenates your employees.
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