Start-up fundraising strategies that EDs need to swipe
When my life partner Sunny embarked on her first fundraising round with her startup, I initially thought my 15 years of nonprofit fundraising experience might give me valuable insights to share with her.
Right? Right?? 😅
And while I do hope I offered some helpful tips, what I didn't anticipate was how much I would learn from having a front row seat to a start-up fundraising round.
In nonprofit terms, a start-up fundraising round is like a “strat plan meets a capital campaign”
The first thing that struck me was that a start-up fundraising round felt like a blend of two traditional nonprofit tactics that have a lot of value but need to evolve. In my opinion:
Traditional nonprofit strategic plans…
are a great opportunity to develop and rally around a long-term vision,
but too often result in a beautifully crafted deliverable that’s too detailed to be useful — and ends up collecting dust on a shelf.
Traditional nonprofit capital campaigns…
are a great way to zoom out from the annual fund and pitch donors on transformational change,
but are still overwhelmingly used only to raise money for buildings.
A start-up fundraising round combines the best of both because they…
are a rallying cry to the team and potential supporters around exciting long-term North Star goals and a broad vision,
and raise the funds to make the investments needed to achieve those goals.
One note that’s important to remember — a fundraising campaign with those elements can’t be created by an organization’s Development Director or team.
The Executive Director is the only role at the organization that could spearhead a fundraising campaign that combines messaging about the long-term vision for growing impact and asking for the investments to make that growth possible.
The Art of the Pitch: balancing aspiration and execution
Startup founders face a challenge many nonprofit leaders will recognize - finding the right balance between soaring vision and practical implementation details in their pitches.
In the start-up sector though, there’s a wealth of data-driven resources that have tested and iterated on the right formula to achieve that balance.
A typical startup pitch deck follows an outline that is usually similar to:
Title slide
Problem definition
Solution overview
"Secret sauce" (unique approach)
Progress/traction to date
Business model
Competitive landscape
Team introduction
Funding requirements
Growth plan and vision
Learning from Tech Giants' Humble Beginnings
Looking through the original pitch decks of some of the biggest tech companies in the world can provide valuable ideas and formats to model after.
It also offers another important benefit — reminding us that these companies were once small teams of passionate individuals with a big idea and a lot of enthusiasm.
Here are some examples of slides that correspond to the outline above, with the links to the full pitch decks for those companies.
Refine your pitch with the Proimpact Project?
Having different types of pitches gives any organization more arrows in your fundraising quiver. If you’re interested in brainstorming and reimagining what you’re pitching and how, then subscribe to the Proimpact Project’s weekly tip for scaling impact or join our free Proimpact leaders community to share insights with other leaders innovating at their organizations!
