Development's Dirty Dozen for Contacting Potential Sponsors

Development's Dirty Dozen:

1. What is the project supposed to achieve?
This semester, my goal is to raise $1,000 from contacting local businesses and private donors. I believe that if I am persistent I should be able to reach this goal.

2. Who is the customer?
This semester I will be contacting local business owners as well as individual contacts (family members, friends) that the Visions Staff knows. My goal is to get them interested in Visions and encourage them to donate money to the undergraduate festival and conference.

3. What are the deliverables?
The deliverables for this project can range from money to In-Kind donations. I am excited to already have a potential in-kind donation in the works this early on for the semester!!

4-5. What is the budget? How long will it take?
The budget for mail-outs this semester is $25.99. I have in place a schedule for contacting sponsors that spans over 6 weeks. Each week there is a new task to focus on, from forming the spreadsheet to the number of times we contact that individual.

6-7. What are the specific skills needed? Resources needed?
The specific skills needed for this project are organization, motivation, time-management skills, and patience. Resources that are needed for this project is time and the money spent for mail-outs. I will try my hardest to always make time for Visions. It is easy to get wrapped up in other schoolwork and stress out. A way to prevent this is to not procrastinate, otherwise, problems are more likely to occur.

8. Who is working on this project? What is each person's job?
Jill: Director of Development and liaison to fundraising and awards. Responsibilities include: contacting private donors and businesses as well as managing the 50/50 fundraisers and overseeing the contacting of businesses for awards donations.
Audra: Development Assistant and Fundraising Coordinator. Responsibilities include: assisting in contacting donors, contacting businesses who donate for raffles, organizing 50/50 raffles and planning the Valentine's bake sale.
Nathalie: Awards Coordinator. Responsibilities include: contacting individuals and businesses for donations in the form of awards for filmmakers and scholars.

9. What is the schedule?
1/27-1/31: 1st contact (emails)
2/1-2/4: organizing 2nd contact--mail-outs (sent out on 2/4)
2/5-2/10: follow up email (3rd contact)
2/11: emails go out
2/17-2/21: fourth contact--phone calls
3/10-3/14: update website with donor info

10. What are the risks?
Small impacts: (likely, low risk) Includes misspelling someone's name on an email or a package. (unlikely, low risk) having a spelling error in a letter that has been proofread multiple times or forgetting to put a stamp on a package.
Large Impacts: (Likely, large risk) Not raising enough money to fly in filmmakers or provide them with activities to do or having a delay in mail-outs due to sickness. (Unlikely, large risk) A potential sponsors putting the wrong organizing on the check they fill out or a check gets lost in the mail. These larger impacts are detrimental to the success of Visions and should be prepared for and avoided if possible.

11. How will you communicate with your team?
I will use various methods to communicate with my team. I will be using facebook, the class to-do list, email and also texting. This will help assure that we are all on the same page when it comes to development.

12. How will you determine if the project was successful?
I will be able to determine if the project was success if I am able to reach my project goal of raising $1000. Also I will also determine how successful my project was by the attendance of this year's festival and conference!