Learning Skills for Today’s Nonprofit Workplace
Students in UW-W’s Fundraising for Charities course (Management 371), offered for the first time this spring, had planned to learn the theories of fundraising and philanthropists’ motivations, as well as a practical toolkit for ethical fundraising. The course gives students experience working with basic fundraising tools, such as writing appeal letters and creating event plans.
The unscheduled pandemic offered one more learning opportunity: applying good fundraising technique to unanticipated disruptions.
As part of a portfolio of written sample fundraising pieces, each student imagined how investing in technology could help a chosen charity navigate the service challenges presented by COVID-19, and prepared a letter proposal seeking funding for the project. Projects needed to tie into the organization’s mission, describe the anticipated outcomes, timeline, and budget, and explain how the project not only met current urgent needs, but was also a good investment for the organization in the long term.
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