Fundraising

Fundraising Overview

Because Free Geek has regular streams of earned and unearned income to approximately cover its basic operating costs at this time (a great position to be in!), I don't foresee having to have paid fundraising staff over the next few years.

The only exception might be if we decide to mount a huge capital campaign for a building. Even then, I imagine we would merely purchase targeted assistance as needed.

That said, we do need to ensure we are fully utilizing volunteers for fundraising, something we don't currently do very well.

Here's what I suggest:

• Continually examine new avenues for earned income from hardware donations (through thrift store, new lines of equip, legacy, etc.)
• Increase and improve materials/pitch for donations from people coming in the door, I think we can increase this amount without a great deal of expense or effort.
• Once the long term plan is in place and needs that require additional funding are identified, I offer to sit down to look at each category and decide which makes sense for foundation funding, major donors, etc. Discussion of connections between Long Term Planning and fundraising can be found here: Meta Fund Raising.
• I think Free Geek has greatly underutilized major donors (not surprising when there is not a plan in place) and underutilized foundation funding (again, a plan is a prerequisite).
• Fundraising events are underutilized (but having a specific need to raise funds for helps a lot)
• I think there also may be ways to get ongoing funding from other sources (e.g., employment training, etc.)

-- Marie

Earned Income

• Equipment Fees

  This is income from fees charged for donating certain items, like CRT monitors. It would be good to carefully track this to see if the fee is actually covering the total cost of handling the monitors.

  Question: Are there other items fees should be charged for because FG has to pay to handle? What about LCD displays?

  Additional note: is FG adequately utilizing the educational opportunities presented through the use of fees, viz., that there is a cost of responsibly disposing of technology that must be factored into the cost of consuming technology.

• Thrift Store Sales

• Recycling Income

• Online sales

• Bulk Sales

• Fees for Service

Contributed Income

• Individual Donors

• Corporate Donors

• Foundation grants

• Fundraising events

• Government funds

• Planned giving