Since October 2003 I’ve been connecting schools and non profit groups with effective fundraising strategies through my website Step by Step Fundraising.
For I long time I ran the site as a part-time project, and then in May 2004 devoted myself full-time to this endeavor.
The Step by Step site was created out of my experience fundraising for charities as part of walk-a-thon and other events. I’ve completed a marathon, half marathon and several 5Ks for a variety of charities. So the site was originally to help people who were also charity run/walk event enthusiasts. There’s still a section of the website devoted to charity walkers & runners and alot of people find the site because of this focus.
It didn’t take long after I started the website before I started getting emails from people who were fundraising for all kinds of groups. Many of the fundraising ideas that I posted for charity walkers/runners like raffles, events, sales etc. applied to all kinds of groups. So eventually I began to address a wider audience.
Of course then I realized how hard it can be to address such a wide audience. Information that’s useful to school PTA volunteers is not that same information that would help fund a food pantry. So then I started going niche again… (grin) Creating mini sites that address specific topics has been worthwhile but time consuming too.
These websites are in varying stages of completion. I believe that I could get a lot more quality information out there if each site has a FOCUS. For example, I may create a blog just for run/walk charity events. Then I could really focus on that topic more in depth. After all, that is where I began in this field so I could be going back to my roots!