Introduction to Fundraising

Registration includes access for up to three individuals from your organization.

Registration for this event includes access to both of the zoom workshops as well as a 1-hour consultation with the presenter.

Understanding Funding Sources – April 18th, 7-8:30pm

Your organization needs money to complete its mission, but there are so many different ways to raise money. This workshop will teach you the basics of grants, large donor pitches, in-kind donations, fundraising events, and more. Organizations are most stable when they have varied revenue streams, but not all fundraising methods will match your audience and goals. Learn the pros and cons of each type of funding stream so that you can decide which are practical funding options for your organization, saving you time and money on fundraising. 

We will discuss ways to analyze potential funders to make sure that your organization and project matches their funding priorities, increasing your chances of success. You will leave the workshop with a better understanding of how to analyze funding opportunities and match the right project to the right donors.

Mapping Organizational Strengths – May 9th, 7-8:30pm

You’ve figured out what funding options are out there, now what? This workshop will help you start to map your organizational strengths so you can move forward with fundraising as efficiently as possible. The logistics of fundraising methods must also be considered. What are your staff, board, and volunteers already skilled at, and what capacity can be built internally? What work should be outsourced to specialized consultants?

To map their resources, participants will ask themselves questions like: 

• Do we have a large mailing list and lots of volunteers to do an appeal letter in-house instead of paying more for a printer to do it? 
• Do we have a handful of dedicated donors who could be cultivated into larger donors? 
• Do we have research backing our outcomes that will boost our chances in grant applications?
• Do we have an energetic volunteer base that could be cultivated as small donors?

About the Instructor: Emily Seitz is the owner of the Seven Valleys Group, a consultancy focused on developing resources for cultural, heritage, and arts organizations and those committed to building equity in their communities. She helps organizations and companies engage with their history to tell the story of their mission, brand, or product.  She holds a PhD in 19th-century U.S. history and gender studies from The Pennsylvania State University and has over a decade of fundraising, grant, and content writing experience in both nonprofit and higher education contexts.  Emily serves on the Board of Directors for the York Day Early Learning and York Academy, and together with her husband finds an enormous amount of joy in wrangling their three young children.  A creative writer at heart, she is at work on her first novel based on her doctoral research about the personal experiences of the first women who trained to be doctors in the United States.

We also recommend the Crafting Your Story workshop. After determining that a funder is a good fit for your organization and project, learn the next steps towards putting together a compelling pitch.

All sales are non-refundable.

Thank you to the Lancaster County Community Foundation for their support of PRC’s Toolkit Series. To see the rest of the workshops in this series, click here.