Resources/Useful links

Aspiration's leadership team met a couple of days ago to discuss and update our fundraising strategy for the year. We divided the meeting into three fundraising strategy areas.

1. Individual Donors

2. Corporate Funding/Events Sponsorship

3. Foundation Funding

We are following a different strategy for each fundraising area. If you are new to fundraising or need a refresher course, here's a brief description of each fundraising area.

1. Individual Donors:

Last night I facilitated, "Starting a Nonprofit" group at the Craigslist Foundation nonprofit night. As we were discussing fiscal sponsorship options for start-up organizations, I said, "there are very few organizations who provide fiscal sponsorship."

Please prove me wrong!

Here are three Nonprofit eNewsletters I read.

1. tm Consulting Services HR eNewsletter:

I have no idea how I got subscribed to this eNewsletter, however Ted Medeiros, an nonprofit HR expert in California provides helpful HR tips and resources that I can apply and use in my nonprofit. His HR tips are helpful for nonprofits outside of California too.

1. Thanks to the Mission Based Management Blog for making me aware of this! The Center for Civil Society at Johns Hopkins University just released a report by Lester M. Salamon titled, "Employment in America’s Charities: A Profile." The Center’s website also includes links to other great reports from their Nonprofit Employment Data Project.

2. The Center for Nonprofit Leadership at Arizona State University has a new Initial Self Assessment Tool for nonprofits which is part of their, "Principles of Effectiveness in Nonprofit Organizations program." The 10 core principles are focused on:

Wikipedia is doing a cool fundraising thing today. Today someone is matching all the donations that Wikipedia receives. So, on Wikipedia's home page they have a thermometer which shows the total donations they are receiving. The amount is increasing quickly! I can also click and see who has donated and how much. They call it "live" donations.

I realize most nonprofits don't have the amount of traffic to their website as Wikipedia does, however this is a great online fundraising example!  

In continuation to my earlier post about Fiscal Sponsorship, here is additional information that I learned recently.

Projects and Organizations looking for a fiscal sponsor: 

1. The Foundation Center has a great fiscal sponsorship tutorial for anyone interested in learning more about fiscal sponsorship. 

2. The Community Resource Center in Colorado also has a great step-by-step explanation about fiscal sponsorship and the difference between the term "fiscal agent" and "fiscal sponsor."