A Blast From the Past: Elements of a Great Fundraising Offer (September 2009)

FundRaising Success published its first issue in November 2003, which makes this our 10-year anniversary year. To celebrate, we'll be taking a look back at past issues throughout the year.

When you raise funds, you're selling a "warm glow." Fulfillment of a religious or social obligation. A sense of significance. The most tangible thing you have to offer is a tax break, which most donors actually don't care about very much. To get right down to it, you're selling almost nothing.

You can accomplish this tall order by creating a powerful fundraising offer — a call to action that will make donors look beyond the intangibility of what they're buying and happily reach for their checkbooks anyway.

The best fundraising offers have these seven elements:

1. A problem
Something isn't right in the world. Something's missing. Somebody is hungry, sick or lost. A situation needs to change. Maybe it's more of an opportunity than a problem: Something great can happen if we take action.

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