11/12/2019

Daily Buzz: Define Your Third-Party Fundraising Guidelines

Always follow your fundraising guidelines

You’re sitting in your office when you get a call: An outside organization or individual wants to host a fundraiser for your association. You eagerly, excitedly agree to it—only to find out later that you’re responsible for the fundraiser in everything but name. Invitations, marketing materials, onsite staff—you name it, and your team is expected to do it.

To save your association exasperation, Kivi Leroux Miller from Nonprofit Marketing Guide suggests developing third-party fundraiser guidelines.

“Guidelines in writing can save both you and your volunteer fundraisers a great deal of time, energy, and other types of frustration,” she says. “After all, your nonprofit has legal, ethical, logistical, brand, and fundraising standards that your volunteers may know nothing about. Don’t make them guess about these things (or remain blissfully clueless).”

So, what should third-party fundraising guidelines include?

For starters, they should outline the application process for a third-party fundraiser, if your organization has one. From there, the guidelines should define the level of staff support that will be offered, marketing standards, brand assets available, messaging rules, and how to handle finances.

Then, once you’ve established and written out your association’s third-party fundraising policies, make them accessible. Put them on your association website, for example, so that anyone interested can easily locate them.

Please select this link to read the original article from Associations Now.