How to increase charitable donations

Engage your potential sponsors and educate the public about your cause.

 

I hope I got your attention

And you have a few minutes to read through this simple action plan that will increase cash flow into your charity.

Its incredibly easy and you already have everything you need to get started today.

OK enough BS

Here it is

“Guided Horse Walks”

Allow me to explain how this simple activity helped not only raise awareness and educate visitors to our local equine (non profit) facility but also increased donations form all the visitors as they felt they had been given something of value

Knowledge!

This idea is Too Good not to share

How we did it

·    We schedule “ FREE Guided Horse walks” every other Wednesday evening throughout the summer  - 6:30 – 7:30 pm (after supper)

·     We used social media  - community events boards  - TV and newspapers will run the info free on their community calendars to promote the walks. Plus a sign on the gate with dates and times (we didn’t spend any money on advertising)

·     At the designated time and meeting point we handed out “what to watch for when horse watching” field guides. These photocopied handouts gave the visitors clues on what to look for, very similar to a “bird watching” field guides.

·     The horse watching field guides are free to download from www.thehorsewatcher.com

·     Our walk started at the isolation paddock where we explained why the horses were there, and why it is so important not to touch or feed the horses (a perfect place for some safety tips). We also talked about why the horses in quarantine looked sad – how they are herd animals and crave the company of other horses and general information on herd dynamics.

·     Then we strolled along visiting the horses different paddocks and fields (we stayed outside the fences – not actually in with the horses)

·      We taught the visitors interesting facts like

·      How horses are able to sleep standing up

·      Why some horses had blue eyes

·      A horses unique range of vision and of course their blind spots at well

·      How to tell if a horse is sick

·      How much food and drink a horse needs in a day  - and also how much manure they produce (the little boys love poop facts)

·      All these tidbits of information are in my book “The Horse watcher” but I am sure you know all this stuff already

·      In the last paddock we visited we threw in some hay for the horses – so we could talk about the pecking order and how the horses communicated using facial expressions and body language. To determine who got to eat first.

·      The walk / talk lasts for about an hour

·      “Pony Portraits” lastly we had a very quiet and cute pony available for the visitors to take pictures with  - if they wished  - this was very popular with the kids

·      At the end of our tour we thanked them for coming and hoped they could see the benefit in the work we were doing with the horses and asked for a small donation.  (Everyone gave!  the smallest donation was $5 and the largest was a $50 bill) Not bad for a gentle stroll around the facility after supper

·      On average we attracted 25 – 35 people each time

I am sure the visitors told their friends and shared some of their newfound knowledge  - which is why we like to include some quirky snip-its of information.

Like: Why you should never look a gift horse in the mouth

And Why are bad dreams called nightmares

“Guided horse walks” introduce the public to the facility and educate them about horses. The more informed visitors are ,the more empathy and desire to help they exhibit.

Some of our visitors also asked about volunteer opportunities, as they would like to get more involved.  Which gave us the opportunity to mention our wish list of projects   - like additional field shelters that needed building and the endless chore of painting and repairing fences etc.

I hope you find this idea useful

And if you do decide to implement it let me know how it goes
 
Don’t forget to download the Free field guides from
www.thehorsewatcher.com

God bless you for the work you do
Saving one horse may not change The World
But it changes Their World