Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

You should include all the elements of a good proposal. Try these:

Background/Situation Analysis
Summary of Proposal
Detailed Work Plan
Metrics/Milestones
Overall Marketing Strategy
Budget/Cost and Anticipated Benefit
Next Steps

This may be overkill for your proposal, but then I've never heard of writing a proposal for a school fundraiser before. Most of the time people just "wing it." Congratulations on being part of a very enlightened minority.

Pat,
Michael's outline is very thorough and right on the money. I'll add definitions to help you understand what the sections are:

Background/Situational Analysis - for what are you raising funds? for what will the funds be used? What's your goal/need in dollars? What was done last year? What was achieved in dollars?

Summary of proposal - what are you planning to do to raise the money? Who are the target donors (break them into groups and say what percentage you think you can achieve by group given your fund raising activity)? What are the major roles and responsibilities in the fund raiser and who do you recommend for those positions (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Activity coordinators, etc)

Detailed work plan - this is a projet plan with the three W's - What tasks need to be performed, by Who, and When do they need to be finished?

Metrics/Milestones - this is key to how you know you are on track with the work plan. You have your work plan, but if you are sitting with school administration reviewing, how are you going to convince them you are on track? For instance, if your fund raiser is going to be a walk-a-thon, major milestones might be, 1) Permission for route gained from town officials, 2) Police support procured to block traffic, 3) Participants package complete, 4) Posters made...you get the idea. Metrics might be budget spent, number of volunteer participants enlisted, etc. Each of these will have a target identified ahead of time.

Overall marketing strategy - for this, identify who you target audience for categories such as volunteer participants, donors, etc. Define what methods you will use to promote the fundraiser to these targets - posters, radio, TV, newsletters, direct mail. Also identify the cost of each and the expected return - how many donors do you believe will respond to direct mail, to radio, to TV, etc.

Budget/Cost and Anticipated Benefit - itemize how much you will spend on what and itemize where your funds will come from in the fund raiser (especially if you have more than one fundraising activity).

Next steps - end the proposal with what you are expecting to do next - if you are mailing the proposal, when will you call to follow up? When do you expect to have detailed review with administration, etc.

Hope this helps you in your efforts.

Wayde