Convincing an viewers to take any sort of motion requires making an efficient pitch. Nonprofits know this all too properly. While you depend on folks’s donated help to push your work ahead, you should be capable of confidently clarify to your donors what you want, why, and what the profit will likely be.
A nonprofit case for help is on the root of the way you make a compelling pitch to donors. It’s an important a part of operating fundraising campaigns and successfully speaking your mission.
What’s extra, a case for help can (and will) be an lively software for higher fundraising—not only a pre-campaign activity to get out of the way in which, however an actual asset that may gas your success.
So how do you create one? What ought to your case for help include? What errors do you have to keep away from? We’ve bought you coated. This crash course will cowl all of the necessities, together with:
Nonprofit Case for Help FAQs
Let’s begin by establishing some context:
What’s a case for help?
A nonprofit case for help is the core set of explanation why donors ought to help a selected marketing campaign, venture, or group’s work as an entire. It’s a elementary fundraising framework or idea on which you’ll construct your campaigns.
Circumstances will be developed for all kinds of contexts and audiences, making them extraordinarily versatile instruments to information the fundraising course of in any state of affairs. They primarily search to reply the questions, “Why ought to somebody care, and what are we asking them to do?”
It’s essential to notice that whereas this time period is usually used to explain a tangible doc or different useful resource, the underlying set of arguments themselves comprise the case for help. We’ll check out some examples under.
Whereas a case will likely be distilled into varied printed and digital assets throughout a fundraising marketing campaign, overly fixating on a particular doc can in the end restrict a nonprofit’s imaginative and prescient and the general effectiveness of its case.
Why are instances for help essential?
Circumstances for help give your fundraising crew a transparent roadmap and speaking factors to make use of when selling your campaigns or total mission to donors.
When created and used properly, a case for help will standardize your messaging and make sure that you talk a transparent, unified, and compelling imaginative and prescient to potential supporters. Then, with the scaffolding in place, your crew can use it to create tailor-made variations, individualized pitches, and every kind of useful assets that may help the general imaginative and prescient of your fundraising marketing campaign.
When do nonprofits create and use instances for help?
Nonprofits develop instances for help in a spread of various conditions. They could be created to help:
They’re mostly mentioned within the context of capital campaigns as a crucial early step within the marketing campaign planning course of.
However be aware that you simply’ll profit from a case for help in any state of affairs during which your crew might want to make a transparent pitch to donors to solicit help. So long as you perceive what a case for help is and what it ought to accomplish, you should utilize its framework to help your targets.
Who in a nonprofit ought to create a case for help?
A case for help needs to be created by the fundraising or growth crew that will likely be immediately concerned in operating that specific marketing campaign. An overarching case for help for the group’s work as an entire also needs to be owned by the fundraising crew.
Nevertheless, the general growth course of needs to be collaborative. Gathering enter and ideas is a vital a part of creating a compelling case. Many organizations additionally search the direct enter of main donors when crafting their instances. Plus, you’ll normally must safe management buy-in on the finalized case for help.
Important Components of an Efficient Case for Help
A compelling case for help ought to cowl just a few necessities. By together with these core speaking factors or sections, you’ll make sure that your crew has the robust framework they should make an efficient fundraising pitch.
- Goal. What’s going to your marketing campaign accomplish? Why are you fundraising? Be as particular as attainable—concrete goals will at all times be extra compelling than obscure or intangible ones as a result of they permit donors to ascertain the true impression of success.
- Fundraising purpose. How a lot cash are you searching for to lift to fund your goal? Once more, specificity is vital. Spell out your wants in order that your crew can higher articulate them to prospects.
- Connection to mission. Your mission needs to be clearly seen by way of all your fundraising efforts. Even when it appears self-evident, take the time to outline the precise ways in which finishing your goal will push your nonprofit’s mission ahead.
- The issue. What’s the context behind your goal, or what drawback are you intending to resolve or alleviate? What steps have you ever taken to fight it previously?
- The impression. What’s going to the impression of your success be in concrete phrases? Projecting impression will be tough, but it surely’s at all times price doing. Take into consideration the way you’ll measure the success of your goal in relation to your mission and use these metrics or key efficiency indicators to assist decide some concrete impression projections.
- Name to motion. Spur your potential donor to motion. Once more, clearly spell out the connection between your mission, goal, purpose, wants, and impression.
You may assume that these key speaking factors may sound just like the sections of a grant proposal, and also you’re not mistaken.
Nevertheless, remember the fact that, in contrast to a grant proposal, a case for help will be extra versatile and tailored to your particular targets. There’s nobody particular format to observe—this will likely be formed by the precise fundraising context when you’ve established the core set of arguments and particulars listed above.
Growing a Case for Help: 9 Steps
You’re able to develop your subsequent case for help and drive your greatest fundraising outcomes but. How do you get began? We break it down into these key steps:
- Type a crew. A small group of fundraisers or growth employees ought to oversee the case growth course of. Relying on the aim or scope of the fundraising marketing campaign, nevertheless, chances are you’ll need to proactively contain a board member or different organizational chief. Group-wide or capital marketing campaign instances for help are situations when getting a broader management perspective early will likely be useful.
- Decide your case for help pointers. What’s the context for this case for help? Is it for a selected marketing campaign or initiative? Align your crew on the context and goal.
- Draft your key components. Work by way of the checklist of key components of a case for help above and draft just a few sentences for every. Brevity is vital—a handful of extremely impactful sentences will carry way more weight than rambling paragraphs. Moreover, at this stage, you’re searching for to create a framework, not a accomplished construction!
- Guarantee coherence. Learn your preliminary case for help carefully to make sure that it clearly ties again to your group’s mission. Do the important thing factors you’ve made align with how the marketing campaign is being mentioned internally? Are there extra compelling speaking factors or impression particulars that you simply may be capable of present?
- Overview and revise. Take a while as a crew to evaluate what you’ve developed. Proofread and search for weak spots in your argument the place your claims or calls to motion could possibly be higher supported. Make fast revisions as wanted, however don’t get too slowed down in creating the right completed product simply but.
- Take a look at and refine. Subsequent, search suggestions outdoors of your case for help committee. Different fundraisers, entrepreneurs, and leaders in your group could have useful views. In the event you’re creating a case for help for a capital marketing campaign, that is if you’ll collect direct donor suggestions by way of a feasibility research. Make changes to your case and marketing campaign plans as wanted to make sure your technique and argument are set as much as succeed.
- Safe buy-in. Current your finalized case for help to organizational and/or marketing campaign management as wanted. Get their suggestions and approval to maneuver ahead with utilizing the case as the idea on your fundraising messaging going ahead.
- Save and share. Save your case for help in a central, accessible digital location. Then, publicize it to your broader fundraising and advertising and marketing groups.
- Distill into marketing campaign supplies. Over time, as your fundraising marketing campaign progresses into new phases that focus on completely different audiences, use your case for help to information the messaging in new marketing campaign supplies. Brochures, electronic mail appeals, letters, texts—every thing associated to your marketing campaign or this specific fundraising push needs to be a part of a coherent complete.
Knowledgeable Ideas for a Extra Compelling Case for Help
Now that you simply perceive the method and goal of making a case for help on your marketing campaign, what are the tactical suggestions to remember when really drafting it? We’ve bought some suggestions.
1. Make it impact-centric.
Your case for help ought to revolve across the optimistic impacts of your success. That is the last word cause for the marketing campaign and its goal, so there needs to be a crystal-clear throughline from the ask to the target to the impression.
Not solely will this guarantee coherent, compelling messaging throughout your marketing campaign later, but it surely’s additionally more and more regarded as a prerequisite by many donors. If donors are unclear on what precisely will occur with their reward and the way it will go in the direction of the issue at hand, it’ll be more durable to safe their help. Actually, youthful generations are more likely to say they won’t donate in the event that they’re not sure what the charity will do with the cash (37.8% of Gen Z donors vs. 15.2% of Mature age donors).
2. Collect compelling storytelling particulars.
Whereas your core case for help needs to be concise, goal to embed compelling storytelling components that may assist make the ask and impression actual to your donors. Assist them perceive and really feel the urgency surrounding the issue that your marketing campaign’s goal will resolve.
Whereas getting ready a case for help, collect a spread of storytelling particulars that you should utilize later when creating extra fleshed-out and tailor-made variations on your marketing campaign advertising and marketing supplies. These might embrace:
- Anecdotes and testimonials from constituents and donors (with their permission)
- Photographs of your nonprofit’s applications at work
- Information to help your claims about the issue and your goal’s projected impression
Assembling this sort of “case for help package” will likely be extraordinarily useful as soon as it’s time to create marketing campaign supplies like net pages, brochures, electronic mail templates, and extra—see the examples under for this technique in motion.
3. Enhance your persuasion energy with clear writing.
Persuasive writing is direct, clear, and evocative—set your fundraising supplies up for fulfillment by baking these qualities into your case for help from the very begin. Contemplate these greatest practices:
- Preserve sentences brief and impactful. Write as particularly as attainable to naturally preserve issues concise.
- Keep away from utilizing too many adjectives and adverbs to explain issues and issues. Let the small print and the context communicate for themselves and paint an image for readers.
- Be intentional and particular together with your phrase selections. It’s simple in nonprofit work to get slowed down in obscure generalities and jargon, however these won’t ever provide the impression it is advisable make a convincing pitch to individuals who aren’t knee-deep in your mission all day.
- Perceive the facility of passive and lively voice. Energetic voice tends to be clearer and extra impactful and will take priority in your core case for help. Passive voice has its position and is extra useful for explaining advanced ideas and conditions, however attempt to wait till you’re writing longer-form marketing campaign supplies to make use of it.
4. Perceive your viewers and context.
Actively take into consideration who your case for help is chatting with and why they need to care about your mission and ask.
For a lot of instances for help, you’ll be writing to a common viewers of supporters. In others, you’ll be concentrating on a extra particular phase from the get-go, like
- Main, mid-level, or lower-level donors
- Volunteers
- Occasion attendees
- Potential donors for a particular giving program
- Potential company sponsors
Draft your case for help with the pursuits and motivations of your viewers in thoughts. For instance, optimistic model consciousness is a main motivator for company companions, so make sure that your core case statements spotlight the scale of your viewers and the general public attain that your group has. Tax incentives usually encourage main and non-cash donors, so you possibly can point out these when discussing the optimistic impacts (each on your mission and your donors) that your fundraising initiative can have.
Getting Particular: Utilizing Information to Take Your Case for Help to the Subsequent Degree
Concrete particulars make for simpler pitches. When compiling a brand new case for help and any related kits of particulars and tales, don’t overlook the info.
For a case for help, this supporting knowledge may embrace info like:
- Particulars about different funding sources for the marketing campaign or venture
- Details about your company companions
- Your group’s present matching reward income
- Statistics about your volunteer program
Why collect this info? Relying on the viewers and context of your case for help, being ready with this knowledge will be extraordinarily useful.
For instance, main donors may need to realize it to gauge your group’s effectiveness earlier than committing to a big reward. Foundations and sponsors may require this info. In very particular circumstances, like if you happen to’re laying out the case to recruit sponsors for a particular donation match problem, details about the scope of your fundraising efforts will likely be integral to the settlement.
By having this knowledge available and baked into the messaging pointers of your case for help, you’ll be capable of simply create detailed, customized pitches on your prospects.
You may have already got a lot of this info in your CRM. For knowledge particular to your grants or company philanthropy efforts, make sure to use devoted grant administration and company philanthropy instruments that make it simple to generate stories and projections (and to lift extra of those funds normally).
Take a look at this video to study extra about how the precise platform, like 360MatchPro, can’t solely unlock new income streams on your nonprofit but in addition equip you with the instruments it is advisable construct and report extra thriving giving applications throughout:
Watch Out! 5 Case for Help Pitfalls to Keep away from
Making a case for help ought to turn into second nature anytime your group takes on a major new fundraising marketing campaign or launches a brand new giving program. What are the widespread errors to keep away from alongside the way in which?
- Mistake 1: Beginning with a doc or brochure.
- Bear in mind, a case for help is a set of persuasive arguments and particulars, not only a doc. You’ll distill your case into a variety of marketing campaign supplies like brochures, emails, net pages, and extra, however leaping forward to that stage may restrict your imaginative and prescient and the case’s total effectiveness.
- Mistake 2: Not securing buy-in.
- A case for help is a foundational fundraising useful resource—your group ought to really feel assured that the pitch it lays out aligns together with your imaginative and prescient and targets for the marketing campaign. In the event you don’t get sign-off from marketing campaign or organizational leaders early, you may threat needing to backtrack later to replace fundraising supplies that had been based mostly on an outdated model of the case.
- Mistake 3: Not testing your case for main campaigns.
- A case for help means that you can take a look at your pitch within the lead-up to a capital marketing campaign. These sorts of main fundraising campaigns are huge investments of your time and assets, they usually have excessive stakes, so it is advisable guarantee your messaging is as efficient as attainable early within the course of. Use a feasibility research to introduce a small group of high-impact supporters to your marketing campaign, ask for suggestions in your case for help, and use their enter to enhance it earlier than shifting ahead.
- Mistake 4: Turning into too donor- or organization-centric.
- The main focus in a case for help needs to be on the optimistic impression that will likely be created if you obtain your marketing campaign’s goal. Nonprofits usually see recommendation about making donors the heroes of their pitches, however that’s not essentially the purpose in a case for help. You possibly can emphasize their position in later messages that you simply create utilizing the case for help. Equally, keep away from overly-centering your group because the lively participant—it’s all concerning the goal and impression at this stage.
- Mistake 5: Veering into scarcity-thinking.
- Your case for help ought to convey a optimistic and bold however real looking imaginative and prescient for attaining your goal. Keep away from limiting your self (and utilizing toned-down or pessimistic language) in your case for help since its core messages will make their method into all your fundraising supplies later. When you don’t need to positivity-whitewash the issue you’re tackling, which could downplay the urgency, you need to nonetheless emphasize your strengths and are available off as assured.
Nonprofit Case for Help Examples
Let’s check out some robust examples of case for help paperwork created by main nonprofits. We’ll study them from either side:
Public-Going through Case for Help: UNICEF
That is the public-facing case for help for an bold 10-year initiative, The UNICEF and WHO Joint Programme on Psychological Well being and Psychosocial Properly-being and Improvement of Youngsters and Adolescents. This marketing campaign seeks to lift $50 million in donation commitments to realize its crystal-clear goal:
“By 2030, youngsters and adolescents residing in nations focused underneath the Joint Programme will expertise decreased struggling and improved psychological well being and psychosocial well-being and growth.”
This can be a “world” case for help doc for the marketing campaign, which means it may possibly function the only supply of reality for fundraisers to create new marketing campaign supplies and have extra focused discussions with potential donors. Its prime quality additionally means it might simply be shared immediately with prospects and information shops as-is, too.
What this Case for Help Does Properly
- Consists of extraordinarily clear and impactful language
- Repeats key phrases and imaginative and prescient statements throughout your entire doc
- Conveys true urgency with out coming throughout as darkish or dire
- Emphasizes the impression of proposed options and offers statistics to again them up
- Very clearly structured with headings that reinforce the aim of the doc
Inside Case for Help: YMCA
That is an internally-facing case for help written by the crew on the Santa Monica Household YMCA to help an annual fundraising marketing campaign.
This specific case doc could possibly be an especially useful instance on your nonprofit. It offers us a direct glimpse into what a working case for help seems like and how much info yours ought to embrace.
We love how mission-centric this instance is—each part clearly connects again to the group’s mission of strengthening communities by way of supporting youth and fostering wholesome residing. With this useful resource in hand, it could be simple for YMCA fundraisers to craft compelling reward solicitations and promotional supplies.
What this Case for Help Does Properly
- Begins by clarifying the aim of the useful resource for YMCA employees
- Clearly connects all sections again to the group’s mission
- Explains core applications and areas of operation in easily-repeatable language to be used in additional supplies and donor discussions
- Ends with a brief library of constituent tales damaged down by program—invaluable for fundraisers within the area!
Writing a case for help (for a marketing campaign, occasion, or simply on your fundraising efforts normally) is likely one of the most essential issues you are able to do to set your nonprofit up for fulfillment.
With an easy-to-use information on learn how to speak about your goals, wants, targets, and plans, your crew will be capable of sort out any fundraising problem with ease. If it is advisable draft a case of help of your personal, begin by working by way of the “Important Components” defined above and following our advisable steps. You’ll be partaking your prospects, funders, and company companions with compelling fundraising pitches very quickly.
To continue learning, discover these extra fundraising guides:
