A shortfall structure brings together the most important costs involved in the whole fundraising operation, right from the beginning. It is the final block, precisely because we need to have all the components involved in a campaign already defined, in order to be able to estimate the costs of each one. That’s because when we think about creating a fundraiser we have to think
III . Cost structure of a fundraising campaign
What is a Cost Structure?
How important is it to create a cost structure?
1 . What sources of income the association has, whether it has income solely from donations, income from applications for funding programmes or others;
3 . Think about the activities that we should develop and the associated costs depending on the type of campaign (if we are going to sell merchandising such as t-shirts, caps, pens, pins and others), if we are going to hold auctions, sports activities, raffles, etc…
2 . What kind of human resources do we have, do we have any kind of costs with them, are they volunteers and in number are they enough for the campaign we want to carry out.
4 . What kind of partners should we reach out to, what donations can we use, what amounts can we raise.
What to ask yourself when creating a Cost Structure?
When doing a complete Cost Structure analysis we can ask the following questions about it:
- What are the baseline costs that are derived from my project?
- What Core Resources can represent a considerable expense to the business?
- Which Key Activities may require high costs for the business?
- How do key activities generate costs?
Importantly, 90% of new businesses fail in their first three years of life because they were unable to understand the costs required to develop their projects.
However, once an entrepreneur is able to precisely define their main resources, key activities and key partnerships, costs become easier to calculate.
And finally, keep in mind that your cost structure should be re-evaluated from time to time in comparison with the other blocks. This will be the only way to ensure the sustainability of your project in the long term.
Value Proposition
The value proposition is a practice that originated in Marketing, with the objective of providing the client with a clear, concise and transparent idea of how a certain business can be relevant to him. It is the marketing element responsible for highlighting a business, positioning it to its audience as better than the competition. The goal of this promise of value is to reinforce your ability to solve customer pains, ensuring more sales.