Finding Funding for Creativity by Shannon Williams

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Organizational and development assessments Strategic planning Organizational Planning Organizational and development assessments Strategic planning Community collaborations Leadership Development Board retreats and training Staff coaching and recruitment Fundraising Counsel Annual, capital and endowment campaign planning and execution Feasibility studies Case for support

Three Case Studies

The Challenge Race for the Cure registrations were in decline Fundraising for the Race had declined for two straight years Staff and volunteer transitions strained relationships with some key partners Komen volunteers and staff were looking for ways to breathe new life into the event Budget and staff had both shrunk leading into the Race

Making Lemonade How a Social Inspiration Board Came to Life by Shelly Leslie

Live hashtag hub that aggregates content from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Google+ and app.net Toggles between latest posts using the hashtag and featured posts WRAL practiced with it for about two weeks

“We named our baby the “Social Inspiration Board.” Komen promoted the hashtag about two weeks before the event in email blasts, on their web site and social media. WRAL created social share graphics that both the station and Komen posted to its social networks.

Results “The WRAL campaign trended online for 11 hours, the reach Shelly and her team got for #KomenTri could have easily been over 6 million people with the impressions even higher than that,” Jenni Hogan, Chief Media Officer of #tagboard. KomenNCTC’s facebook page saw a 453% increase in fans, and a 328% increase in reach. Tagboard reports 660 unique posts, not including shared posts. Twitter made up half of these posts, with Instagram and Facebook making up the other half. Race revenue trended positive for the first time in two years 2016 Race registrations and sponsorships are ahead of last year

The Challenge Fundraising was declining C level leaders were no longer actively engaging with the organization as they once did John Rex Endowment funded an organizational assessment Wake Ed Board and Staff agreed to a look under the hood

The Findings The controversy of the Wake County School Board had a paralyzing impact Community leaders challenged WakeEd to boldly define its organizational purpose; redefine its message, develop its case for support, and refresh its brand. WEP was know as the go to source for truth in education—how could that be leveraged to improve fundraising There were no funds to support the work that needed to be done

Return to the Source

The Response C suite leaders re-engaged with WakeEd Board members agreed to take a more active role in fundraising Fundraising revenue trending upward Cornerstone donors growing

The Challenge New ED at RLT four years ago Early part of tenure was focused on rebuilding relationships and strengthening the bottom line Launching a major gifts effort focused on a little TLC of RLT Brand and website need TLC too No budget to support communications need

The Results ???

The Common Theme Funding for creativity is the same as any other fundraising It is about relationships

So, think Who are your partners who have an expertise that you can tap into? Can you leverage your relationships to create a think tank around executing your idea? Do you have a special fundraising opportunity where you can build in money for creative work? Have you applied for a capacity building grant lately? What can you realistically pay for?