Connect Funding to the Impact on a Person's Life

One of the principles we stand on at Tailored is, "You usually don't raise money the same way you spend money."

What does that mean? Most of the time, people want to fund impact rather than the items in your budget. For example, you may want to hire someone to direct all of the marketing efforts for your organization. But it's very, very difficult for a donor to see how that impacts lives or makes a difference in this world. This is what makes a vision-based budget so important. 

Sometimes (rarely for most organizations), you can raise money the same way you spend money and do it quite effectively. For example, if your organization has a school in a low income area and one of the students needs emergency surgery, most donors can see the impact of donating  money. Side note: that's usually when crowdfunding works best -- when the impact of what you're spending money on is so obvious.

All in all, connecting funding to impact wins the day.

Russell Cooper, Co-Founder