chris stoddard Started at 33,000 ft on Saturday 2nd May 2009 aboard Singapore Airlines Flight SQ 317 from London to Singapore.
This book is for all those trustees who have worried: “where is all the money going to come from”. It is for all those Chief Executives who have said to themselves: “How am I going to meet those budgets”. It is for all those fundraisers who have come into a job wanting to change the world and finding that the world of fundraising is rapidly changing them. And it is for all those incredible volunteers who want to give freely of their time and their talents and want to know how to do this to greatest effect.
This book is not a lecture sandwiched between two covers. As the title implies, it aims to provide a road map which fundraisers can follow; a blueprint which fundraisers can apply. Most of all, I hope it becomes a workbook that is put to daily use in helping hard pressed trustees, Chief Executives, fundraisers and volunteers to raise the money needed to keep their charity alive and going in the right direction.
What qualifications do I have for compiling a book with such ambitions? Too few, I am sure. Yet, in 23 years of involvement I have had the privilege of talking and fundraising in the UK, mainland Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa. So what I lack in depth, I hope is compensated for in breadth. Though I myself find it hard to believe, I have also participated in over 2000 fundraising campaigns, most of them admittedly by direct mail. That said, this involvement has allowed me to amass a collection of over 1000 fundraising appeal letters which I have written myself.
I hope readers will find all sections valuable, of course; but most of all I hope the ‘Fundraising Assistant’ section becomes your permanent friend and ally. I believe it is the first time that any fundraising book has provided templates which fundraisers can learn from, adapt to their own situation, or use verbatim. Please feel free to use them as often as you want. All, certainly most of them have been used in the campaigns mentioned above, and to good effect.
As a confirmed direct marketer, I am also proud to say that I have strayed from the true path and into the realms of corporate and trust fundraising, into the mysteries of major gifts fundraising and the even darker arts of bequest and in memoriam giving. This range of work has allowed me to become involved in capital campaigns as well as annual revenue programmes.
I am more than well aware that this background hardly qualifies me to offer a book of this nature. That’s why I am also delighted that so many people from the fundraising fraternity whom I have known all these years have agreed to make their contribution to creating this blueprint.
However, for all its faults and omissions, of which I am sure there are many, I remain solely responsible.
Tags: chris stoddard