SEATTLE, April 27, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Ten years ago, former social worker Terry Axelrod felt a calling to teach nonprofits how to tap into people's natural caring, appreciation and generosity. She founded Raising More Money Inc. (RMM) to teach nonprofits a system for fundraising based on connecting people to the organization's mission.
Since Axelrod led her first workshop in April 1996, RMM has trained 2,400 nonprofits from every state in the United States, as well as groups in Canada and the United Kingdom. More than $100 million has been raised by RMM-trained groups in the last three years, and 137,000 guests have attended RMM's signature Ask Events in that same three years.
How has RMM changed the culture of nonprofit fundraising in the past decade? Here are five ways:
1. More and more people now talk about donor compassion rather
than donor fatigue. RMM is helping nonprofits to shift their
thinking from scarcity to abundance.
2. Groups who previously spent hours putting on complicated events
now fundraise by finding and cultivating the people who are
passionate about their mission. As one result, The Sojourner
Center of Phoenix, a domestic violence shelter, now has a
substantial budget line dedicated for unsolicited gifts. The
shelter also has 150 donors who have agreed to five-year pledges
ranging from $1,000 up to $125,000 a year.
3. Groups who never imagined a sustainable future are now thinking
big. They are starting endowments and finding the courage to ask
people for money. In 2005, four of RMM's groups received gifts of
a million dollars or more. They say that without RMM's training,
they never would have thought of asking for that much or dreaming
that big.
4. More groups are relying on individual donors to offset cuts in
federal funding. For instance, the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation
in Minneapolis, faced with four years of federal budget cuts, is
using RMM to grow its individual donor program from 4 percent of
its budget to 20 percent.
5. Groups have learned to tell their story with emotion. They are
learning how to connect with donors, even if it's just for a
five-minute conversation. Rodney Bivens, the executive director
of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, said that before RMM's
training, he had never considered sharing his own personal story
with hunger before.
So what drives Axelrod to do this work every day? "My love for nonprofits and my desire to stop their suffering about money," she said. "I feel it's a privilege to have this kind of calling." For more information, visit www.raisingmoremoney.com.
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