Introduction

Virtually all organizations need income to perpetuate their respective missions. iEARN is no exception. Obtaining this income, whether it is in the form of grants, gifts, membership dues, product sales or special events, is never easy and takes a comprehensive strategy and plenty of hard work.

iEARN, with Its small budget, decentralized organizational structure, and its pioneering services and product, is often at a disadvantage raising funds when compared to bigger, flashier and more well-known organizations. Yet, several iEARN centers have proven to be very effective fundraising for iEARN and iEARN as a whole has benefited greatly from this collaborative fundraising.

This chapter will share fundraising strategies with those iEARN coordinators new to raising funds for their programs, or those coordinators who are looking for new ideas to try out. The success of iEARN has always been through open dialogue and collaboration. Similarly, fundraising success for iEARN coordinators around the globe will be achieved through open dialogue and collaboration.

The iEARN coordinators around the globe have gained much knowledge about writing text, developing budgets, and preparing supporting materials for proposals. The following guide shares this knowledge so that iEARN Centers worldwide can raise funds more effectively.

There are five major sources, or streams, of funding:

Ideally, most organizations would like to have a diverse set of income streams, to insulate itself from sudden shortages in any one stream. Practically, most organizations have too limited staff time, budgets, contacts and expertise to have equal success obtaining income from each of the five streams. iEARN Centers have had varying success with their attempts to raise funds from each of the five streams. We hope to the share the lessons learned from our various fundraising attempts so that iEARN as a whole can be more successful.

iEARN staff and coordinators, representing many countries, points-of-view, and fundraising environments, will contribute to our fundraising chapter, which will be an ongoing effort. We will share sample proposals, strategies, charts, graphs, budgets, letters of support, and others fundraising tools with the network, as well as share research, contacts and expertise. Then, each July during the annual conference, iEARN will host a fundraising workshop for coordinators at which we continue our collaboration though face-to-face interaction and share additional materials.

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