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How to create a Funding Rationale tied to Impact

For Impact Ideas | | Nick Fellers

How to create a funding rationale tied to impact.

Essentially there are three ways to create funding rationale – three P’s. You can ask someone to invest in:

  • A PLAN

    Commonly used with the ‘campaign mindset’, you cast a vision, attach a dollar amount, articulate a funding plan then ask someone to be a piece of the plan.

  • A PROGRAM

    This could include seed funds to launch a program, sponsorship for a program or gap funding for a program. The cost of the program is set against the impact of the program. You’re selling the impact of the program.

  • A PERSON

    It would be more accurate to refer to this final rationale as a ‘unit’ but then I would lose alliteration. You can do the math to figure out the cost to impact one student, one class, one session, one exhibit, one visitor, etc. This could be a total cost or a ‘gap cost’.

You can use one, two or all three. The message is to HAVE a simple funding rationale. Having worked to transition thousands of messages into a funding rationale, they always incorporate these core concepts.

You can expand and mash-up these three core concepts to get to 9 Types of Funding Pitches.