Be Careful with the Money You Have | Fundraising Directory

Be careful with the money you already have

December 9, 2021 in

Be careful with your hard-earned fundraising money!

When we are fundraising for a target, it can be easy to focus on bringing money in and forget to take care of the money we already have.

I have written before about how a dollar saved is a dollar earned – the more careful you are with the money you have, the lower your fundraising target needs to be.

There are many elements to this, and here are just a few:

Have as many outlays as possible donated to save cash. Take a look at our sponsorship resources (extra tip, sign up to become a VIP to get your hands on the free templates) to help source as much as possible that would otherwise cost you money.
Do you have a substantial amount of money in your bank account? Consider transferring some to a term deposit or high interest-bearing account.
If possible, try to keep some money set aside – this is important to deal with emergencies and enable dollar-matching for grants.
Have spending controls in place. Do you do the ‘nice thing’ and approve all expense claims or do you have protocols for making sure spending decisions are strategic? Eg if running a fete, do you reimburse all claims without question or have you made it clear up-front that expenses need to be pre-approved according to certain criteria? Over-enthusiastic convenors have been known to eat into profits with their decorations or prizes… It’s best to circulate a policy in advance.
Do you have general financial controls in place? The last thing you want is to be susceptible to fraud…

These tips are not as exciting as the ones that make us money, but it is so important to keep our houses in order!

Happy fundraising!
Mandy Weidmann

Originally published 7 July, 2017