Let’s build a fundraising team!

Teamwork makes the dreamwork! But how does one make a team? This page offers a 5-step process to start a team, an overview of common donor organizing team models for volunteers, and resources and activities for team support and reflection.

Once you have your squad organized, you can enter Advanced Mode in the Experienced Tips & Tricks page.

5 Steps to Start a Team

Donor Organizing 101 Overview (credit: 18 Million Rising)

Overview of 5 Steps to Start a Team

1. Identify Your People

   Exercise & Template

2. Define Your Why

   Exercise

3. Make Asks

   Primer on One on Ones (credit: Montgomery Education Association)

   Primer on Efficacy

4. Host a Kickoff

   Agenda Checklist

5. Provide Support & Community

   Training & Gathering Ideas

Common Team Models

How do we make decisions and work together?

Common Donor Organizing Models

Resources and examples of these models in the wild:

Giving Circles

• Giving Circle Resource Library (credit: Philanthropy Together)

• Giving Project Money for the Movement Workbook (credit: North Star Fund)

House Parties & Community Events

• House Meeting Handbook (credit: Leading Change Network)

• Sample Invitations, Polls, and Thank Yous (credit: Flip the Vote)

• Host a House Party Guide (credit: Flip the Vote)

• Host a House Party Resources (credit: Movement Voter Project)

• House Party Toolkit (credit: Walk the Walk USA)

• Event Planning Checklist (credit: Jody Lerner, Neighbors for Progressive Action)

• Fundraising Event Toolkit (credit: Walk the Walk USA)

Membership

• Fundraising as Organizing

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Programs

• Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Overview: Tools, Recruitment, Goal Setting, Planning

• Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Guide (credit: Showing Up for Racial Justice)

• Template Donor Tracker for peer-to-peer campaigns (credit: In Our Name)

Volunteer Fundraising Team

• Climate Mobilization Volunteer Orientation

Team Support and Reflection

How to we build our team, develop an engagement ladder, and ensure that we incorporate our learnings into future efforts?

Get Started

• Resources to Design, Launch, and Support Teams (credit: PowerLabs)

• Team Charter Template (credit: PowerLabs)

Build a Member Engagement Ladder

• Empathy Map and Journey Map Templates (credit: PowerLabs)

Build Community

• Combatting Time Scarcity with Community

Group Exercises

• Who Do You Know? Exercise (credit: Sha Grogan-Brown, Grassroots Fundraising Journal)

• Recruitment & Retention Idea Generation Exercise

• Asking for a Major Gift: A Team Training Exercise (credit: Priscilla Hung, Grassroots Fundraising Journal)

• Volunteer Fundraising Group Assessment

Reflect on Learnings

• Retrospective Templates: Before Action and After Action Reviews, Sailboat, 4L (credit: PowerLabs)

• The Power of Reflection to Develop Long-Term Motivation and Capacities (credit: PowerLabs)

Stay as a Ragtag Group vs. Become a Formalized Organization

• When Everyone is a Volunteer (credit: Kim Klein, Grassroots Fundraising Journal)

• Is Fiscal Sponsorship Right for You? (credit: Priscilla Hung, Grassroots Fundraising Journal)

• No Staff? No c3 Status? No Problem! (credit: Kaytee Riek, Grassroots Fundraising Journal)