Main Street Conference Presentation: Fundraising in Unsettled Times
National Main Street Center
On April 15, 2021, we provided a Zoom seminar called “Fundraising in Unsettled Times” for the National Main Street Center virtual conference. This presentation focused on raising operating funds given cash flow concerns for Main Street organizations beginning to recover from the COVID 19 pandemic. We talked about the need to diversify revenue sources and gave an overview of the seven traditional revenue sources. We encouraged attendees to add one new revenue source to their mix if they only had three. Revenue diversification makes sense, especially in these challenging times. Please consider asking individuals and residents to support your organization. They give in many different ways, through fundraising events, ticket sales, raffles, donations for projects, membership, or donors of organizations that you may have. Finally, we talked about contingency planning if the organization was indeed facing cash flow problems. We focused on how to involve more partners in the organization’s work, all while following the CDC guidelines and creating contingencies for events.