Everyone's a Fundraiser
What is the KEY to fundraising?
A strong pitch
Being fun and desperate
Relationships
All of the above
4. All of the above!
But #1 is relationships!!! People give to people (even when it’s their job as an institution)
____ gave OZ its largest single gift in organization history.
McKenzie Scott
What kinds of things do we “pitch” to donors? (e.g. sites may pitch a donor to fund their fellowship)
-Independent site support
-National funding to supplement local funder money
-Communications
-“Preparing for Growth”
-Funding from a national level so we can find leaders anywhere
According to OZ’s 2024 revenue, what was the ratio of local funders (QBs) to national funders?
20/80
50/50
65/35
75/25
3. In 2024, 65% of our revenue was from local funders (allocated to site-based work).
Name two tools that would help you be a better fundraiser for OZ right now (e.g. help with my elevator speech)
Varies
Before the recent financial modeling was completed, our “new site budget” was based on:
Actual costs that were known from doing this in previous cities
Estimates based on experience and understanding of the work
Random made up numbers
2!
The financial modeling that was completed at the end of 2024 has given us insight into the actual costs it costs us to do our work, per city. This has allowed us to:
submit budgets to funders with more confidence
create new budget models for fundraising pitches
See how we could create economies of scale by shifting our approach to a cohort model
How many donors are we currently cultivating? (in stages: engaging, cultivating, convincing, soliciting) within 3
25
What is our annual operating budget?
$3.4 million
$3.75 million
$4.00 million
$4.2 million
4. Our annual operating budget for 2025 is $4.2 million.
T/F OZ identifies the broken education system as the problem we are trying to solve.
False
Which one of these funders has NOT ever given to OZ?
The Walton Family Foundation
Bloomberg Philanthropies
City Fund
The Rockefeller Foundation
4. The Rockefeller Foundation
(Fun fact: they almost exclusively focus on climate now)
Who recently invited us to apply for funding?
The Bezos Family Foundation
What are the costs for OZ to expand to a new site? (Inclusive of: pre-early stages, early stages, incubation, acceleration, first two years of independent site support. NOT inclusive of the costs for the leader + site)
$1.51 million
$1.67 million
$1.86 million
$1.92 million
2. $1.67 million.
If you include the local leader + site costs, it’s $2.395 million! (And no, we’ve never presented a budget that high to a local funder…we usually remove the pre & early stages and independent site support costs)
Name two people from your personal or professional network that should learn more about OZ bc they have the capacity to either: fund us or connect us to folks who can.
Varies
What type of funder portfolio have we historically targeted? E.g. “environment” (DAILY DOUBLE: can you name 2/4 of the other portfolios we are now also targeting?)
Education
Now:
Movement building;
Racial Justice;
Economic Mobility;
Democracy/Civic Engagement
What is our current gap to goal including all committed and expected funds? (within $100k)
~$2.8 million
How many fundraising meetings will the development team execute in the first quarter? (within 3 of the correct answer)
20
When being introduced to someone new that you believe could be a great funder or connector for our work, what should be your goal for your first conversation with them?
Get their contact information/get another meeting
Who was OZ’s first ever funder and who from the foundation was our first champion?
The Walton Family Foundation | Mark Sternberg
What can YOU DO to help the fundraising team succeed?
Execute the Program of Support with excellence
How many total contacts related to fundraising do you think we have in our CRM (within 10 of the correct answer)?
157