Rethink Your Fundraising | Shaking Perspectives! #1

Welcome back to our #toolkit series.

When you are thinking about starting a new fundraising campaign, you need to step back and take stock of how things have changed since you first fund-raised. It’s time to shake up perspectives. So in this post, we’ll give you questions that will help you think about your social business in a fresh way and revisit what you do, why you are doing it, and how you are doing it.

1 WHAT ARE THE VISIBLE SYMPTOMS OF THE ISSUE YOU ARE ADDRESSING?

• What do you notice?
• How has the problem changed?
• Is it the same?
• How is it worse?
• How is it better?
• How is it weirder?

2 REVIEW THE UNDERLYING CAUSE

• Why is this problem happening?
• What are the underlying causes?
• Have you looked at underlying causes from different perspectives?

3 REDEFINE THE USER(s)

Your users may have changed, trends and habits may have changed. Look at the people you are targeting and how they have evolved, and be clear about their persona. It may be helpful to, stretch your thinking, think about victims, perpetrators, primary service users, secondary service users, close relatives and so on.

Here’s a tool to help you describe user personas.

4 REDEFINE THE PRODUCT/SERVICE

• What is the product/service in one sentence
• What does it solve
• Who does it help?
• Who does benefit?
• Is it still relevant, now you have identified changes above?
• What is your Impact now, soon, later
• How do you know all this?

Now you have clarity about these things you are in a strong position to create a compelling funding proposition. 

In the next post, we’ll look at your next step - redefining your funders.

If you’d like to do some more work on your social business proposition book a Thinking Booster.  Our swift paced and upbeat sessions are are great if you want to reflect, find a sense of direction and leap into action! 

Tags: Social Innovation, service design, women social entrepreneurs, fundraising. #1MillionImpactWomen