A fundraiser toolkit is an essential requirement for those seeking funding. We’ve discussed what a fundraiser toolkit is and why you need one, but we didn’t go into detail on the key components of what it should include.
There are four main elements your toolkit should contain:
Reusable sections and assets
Key messages
A storybank
Proposal templates
Keep in mind that a toolkit is not limited to these items—you may find you need additional components to best serve your team.
Reusable sections and assets
A toolkit should include reusable sections of text that can be applied in communications such as proposals, brochures, emails, and any other interactions.
These will cover basic topics such as ‘about us’, ‘what makes us different’, and ‘our impact’.
Having these reusable sections on hand creates alignment within your communications, ensuring that potential funders and other parties receive consistent, focused messaging from your organization.
Think about which aspects of your brand that you and your team discuss the most often.
Any regularly occurring content should be formalized and added to your toolkit as a section of text that you can use over and over again. Photos, case studies, and user testimonials are also useful and reusable assets to add to your kit.
Key messages
Your key messages are the main points of information that you want your audience to take away with them after any communications with your organization.
You don’t just want them to hear these messages—you want them to be fully understood and remembered.
These are the summaries of what you do and why. They clearly and simply explain what sets you apart from others in the industry, and they show exactly what your value is for stakeholders.
Strong and effective messaging is concise, strategic, highly relevant, simple, and above all, memorable.
Key messaging is important as it serves as part of your organization’s branding and marketing efforts. It creates consistency and helps your team stay focused when speaking to media, stakeholders, and potential funders.
A storybank
A storybank is an inventory of anecdotes that highlight your organization’s cause and mission.
For example, perhaps one of your beneficiaries has shared their own personal story about the impact that your programs have had on their life. This would be a fantastic narrative to share with funders and media alike to exemplify the purpose of your brand, as it goes beyond emotive words and shares an authentic case conveying the real effects of what you do.
To create a storybank, consider the different types of stories that might motivate your donors. It is best to have a range of narratives to share, as they can highlight different aspects of your programs, different ways in which you help, and ultimately, they can appeal to different motivators for funders.
Once you have a story written for a specific channel, it can easily be re-crafted to fit other channels. Think about how one media outlet might frame a news piece in a very different light to another outlet, depending on their target audiences.
Similarly, you can tell your stories in different ways to suit your intended audience.
Proposal templates
A proposal template is a master document that includes all the basics of a standard proposal, which can easily be edited in order to best reflect the motivations, style, and preferences of each recipient.
Investing time in creating a series of proposal templates can save you and your team a great deal of time in the long term, as it avoids writing and creating from scratch for every single proposal.
It means that you won’t need to rewrite the same section over and over again, as many proposals will include very similar sections, and it helps to keep your messaging consistent from one funding request document to another.
Essentially, your toolkit should contain everything your organization needs in its regular communications with funders, media, stakeholders, and others. It serves to save you time, make your life easier, ensure consistent brand messaging, and ultimately, encourage the funding you need.
If you’d like to chat more about your toolkit, or any aspect of fundraising, the Fundtracker team is always ready for your call. Book a free consultation today to discuss how we can improve your fundraising efforts!