Fundraising through various activities as sales, silent auctions, walk-a-thons, races, or entertainment events is a popular revenue generator for charitable and non-profit organizations. However, quite a few obstacles exist in the pursuit of running a successful fundraiser, including lacking or overworked volunteers, limited payment methods, limited reach, and overall process inefficiencies.
Fundraising organizers are realizing that in order to complete the event with a significant amount of raised revenue, it must be run as efficiently and resourcefully as a business. Websites, online payment capability, and electronic payment processing are three key factors that can help overcome many of fundraising's obstacles.
A website with online payment functionality not only enables your fundraiser to reach past the local neighborhood, but helps to automate processes. Customers can enter their own information into the secure online form and the transaction is processed automatically. Volunteers no longer have to spend countless hours sorting paper checks and making trips to the bank.
Donors also appreciate the ease of being able to give donations online as their own busy schedules permit?instead of having to make time during regular business hours. They also like being able to choose from a variety of payment options including credit cards, ACH direct-debits, and the ability to give smaller amounts on a recurring schedule, rather than a larger one-time donation.
All of these options pay-off for fundraisers. According to www.electronicpayments.org, charitable or non-profit businesses utilizing electronic payments have a 98 percent fulfillment rate'50 percent higher than businesses using mail-based processes. Accepting payments online for a fundraiser will decrease processing costs, reduce volunteer manual labor, provide more flexible payment options to customers, improve overall efficiency, and decrease headaches for all involved?making fundraising once again a fun and enjoyable experience.
Read on to learn about one Boy Scouts Troop that simplified and automated the entire order process for its annual fundraiser by adding online fundraising functionality.
The Boy Scouts of America are well known for their good deeds and outdoor activities. To support these activities and charitable events, Boy Scout Troops hold fundraisers. Troop 970's most important fundraiser is its annual Mulch Sale, which promotes teamwork, instills personal commitment, and helps Scouts pay for High Adventure camping trips throughout the United States.
As Troop 970's Mulch Sale grew in size in recent years, so did the fundraising challenges it faced, including cumbersome order tracking, inability to automatically capture customer information, untimely deposits of revenue, and limited payment options.
To simplify the process, and to provide more flexible purchase options, the Troop adopted an online fundraising system with a securely hosted custom-branded online payment form, enabling it to take orders and accept payments from customers online. Customers could pay via credit card or ACH direct-debit from a checking account, and the system processed the transaction and automatically deposited the collected funds into Troop 970's bank account.
With custom field capability, the system accepted additional detailed information the Troop required. In this case, customers were able to provide the exact location where they wanted the mulch stacked. Using a secure password, BSA volunteers could access order information, and once the system showed the payment had cleared, the volunteers could deliver the mulch, as requested.
With sales approaching 20,000 bags, Troop 970's 2007 Mulch Sale was a resounding success. Online fundraising enabled the Troop to manage both the financial and logistical aspects of the sale more effectively and efficiently, and it created a customer database that the Troop plans to use for future fundraiser marketing.
Breaking it down into subtasks makes it easier to contemplate. Ponder mountain climbing, for instance. From the base of the mountain, you cannot see the peak because clouds hide it. That mountain looks too dangerous to climb; how will you do it? You scale that mountain in the only way possible. One step at a time.
Now consider writing your ebook in the same manner. It takes many subtasks to find yourself at the mountain peak, able to see above the clouds. First, you will want to get organized. In this case, you are organizing your ideas instead of mountain climbing apparatus. Before you start, there are some steps you should take. You may be ready to write your ebook once you finish going through the following list.
How to Start Writing Your ebook ?
Start by figuring out what your title will be. If you write down your list of titles, sooner or later, one will strike you as the right choice. Titles can help you anticipate the questions your readers will ask, and thus help you answer them more effectively. Often, non-fiction books will have subtitles. Clear and clever titles will help you sell books. But don't be too cute with your titles. One example might be: Twenty Ways to Count More Sheep: How to Prevent Insomnia. Another example would be: Get up and into shape in fifteen different ways.
After that, create a thesis statement. The thesis of your book should clearly state the book's main point, what problem the book will tackle and what solution it will offer.
The rest of your ebook will flow directly from this thesis statement. The thesis statement is the foundation upon which your book can be built. You can then build successive chapters on that foundation.
Your main focus while you work on you ebook will be your thesis. Remember, all the chapters must support your thesis statement. If you can't support your thesis, don't include the chapter in your book. One thesis statement might be: Everyone has suffered from insomnia, and here are 20 ways to keep it from bothering you. When you've settled on a thesis, be sure that it is good enough to sustain your book before you begin to write it.
Questions you should answer include "Does this book provide readers with relevant information on a topic they care about?" Will your book positively enhance your readers? lives? Will your book contain enough interesting material to keep readers involved? Is the problem that your book addresses important? You will feel comfortable about the potential of your ebook if you can answer these questions.
Also, it is important is to determine who your target audience is. These are the people you are writing for, and their interests will guide your book's vocabulary, tone, style, and length to some extent. Think about the specifics of your target audience; age, sex, interests, class, etc. Do they fall into the category of people who enjoy reading fashion magazines or those who enjoy book reviews? Are they online for hours each day, or do they write longhand letters? It will be easier to write your book after you pin down the target audience you are writing for.
Write down a list of reasons motivating you to write this ebook. Do you intend to promote an online company? Would you like your website to receive quality traffic?
Would you like your reputation enhanced? Cement your publishing goals by putting them down on paper. You need to decide if you want to offer it as a reward for ordering or for filling out a survey, or if you want to offer it for sale on your website. Are you planning on using these chapters to make an e-course or an ebook? The actual writing will be easier if you know more upfront.
You need to choose the formatting for your chapters. Keep chapter-to-chapter formatting consistent when writing non-fiction. Maybe you will use an introduction and then four sub-topics. You might decide to divide it into parts, and start each one with a relevant story.
How to Make the Ebook Desirable to Read ?
Work on writing to keep the reader's attention to make your ebook appealing. Graphs, advice, tips, photos, and small stories will keep readers interested. Sidebars offer a change from the density of plain text and organize your information so that your readers can quickly absorb it. Then accomplish this by using utilizing a tone that is casual rather than formal.
Readers appreciate it if they think the author is trying to have a conversation with them. To avoid putting your readers to sleep, break up the structure and length of your sentences. If all of your sentences are the same length and have the same structure, your readers will be bored. To write well, you need practice. It requires much practice.
Try to work your schedule so you write at least a page daily. Write down tips as you read books and magazines that discuss the process of writing. Writing takes a lifetime to learn; each book you read or write will make you a better writer.
Your sales figures will increase as your writing becomes better. Readers' eyes need breaks when they are reading ebooks on a computer screen. Using white space will allow you to do this.
Readers' eyes need to rest on cool white, or negative, space every so often. If you use too much information, your reader will become bored pretty fast. Use numbered and bulleted lists in your writing. Lists make information easier to absorb and are easier to read than crowded paragraphs.
Lastly, choose a design that's easy-to-read. Use an easily read font consistently. If you use tons of different fonts, your ebook will be hard to read and your readers will quickly tire of it. Use a font size that is big enough so that text is easy to read on the computer screen, but not so large that the whole page is not visible on the screen, and have at least one and a half lines of space between lines of text. To determine the correct combination, you will need to experiment.
Obviously, you should run a spell and grammar check on your work. Don't allow your book to be ruined by the misuse or overuse of punctuation. Finish the book with a bibliography and a subject index.
That's the end! The book is complete! Publish that ebook online, and you will soon have people anxious to download it.
Both Sarah Jordan & Steve Tonelis are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Sarah Jordan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fundraising. Sarah Jordan, Marketing Analyst. Sarah Jordan's top article generates over 1600 views. to your Favourites.
Steve Tonelis has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fundraising. The author, Steve Tonelis is the ownner of Cyber Profit Systems. A website to help others make money on the internet.