accountability

 

With any fundraising activity you need to be accountable.

This accountability is to the general public, the government, the people who will benefit from the donations as well as the donors who made the contributions.  Accountability also relates to your reputation, publicity and image of your organisation.

There have been many examples where bad publicity through the misuse of publically raised funds has had an adverse impact on the ability of the charity to raise funds and in some extreme cases the ongoing viability of the charity.

So what can you do to protect yourself and be properly accountable to your stakeholders?
  • Prior to the fundraising activity, be clear and concise in relation to what the fundraising is for and understand your important timelines.
  • Make sure you have proper finance and accounting systems to track the funds.  If you use a bank account which includes other sources of funds you need to be able to reconcile the balance and know how much relates to donated funds.
  • Make sure expenditure related to the funds is properly recorded and tracked over time.  At any given stage you should be able to easily ascertain the remaining balance of the funds.
  • Prepare financial reports that link the use of the funds against the original budget that you should have prepared as part of your development of the fundraising strategy.
  • Prepare reports that relate to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that may have been used to evaluate the success of the fundraising activity.  For example, this may be the increase in enrolments, memberships or subscription or any other KPI s that were identified as part of the development of the fundraising strategy.   
The next important issue is to get the information out and be accountable.

Depending on your organisation and how you communicate with your stakeholders, this can be done through regular updates on your website, the inclusion of information in a newsletter or even via the media in the local paper.

Another important element that is often overlooked is to obtain a comment or testimonial from the people who are gaining the benefit of the donations. 

Nothing more powerful than hearing from the people the donations were raised for about how they appreciate the efforts and how much difference the donations have made in their lives.