Fundraising Strategy

Fundraising concentrates its efforts in two areas: Grant Writing

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and Donor Seeking

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Our goal is to build 4-6 plants in the next year to provide clean water for 15,000 people. This will cost approximately $300,000

. Through our efforts we are able to finance the everyday operations of AguaClara. More recently we have been investigating Microfinance as a new area of concentration for Fundraising, however we have yet to reach a conclusion as to the viability of Microfinance in our organization.

Below you will find a summary of our fundraising efforts in each of the areas of concentration. You will also find an explanation of Microfinance as well as the benefits it can hold for AguaClara.

Grants

As members of such a unique organization, we must look at a wider gamut of grants than a traditional Outreach team. Due to the uniqueness of AguaClara, we look for grants that satisfy individual parts of AguaClara. We are also able to adapt out grants accordingly by virtue of being so unique. For our current efforts in please look at the Grant Text Modules under the Grants webpage.

We search for potential grants using a variety of websites such as:

• The Foundation Directory and http://www.grants.gov/applicants/get_registered.jsp.
  A Grant Short List of grants that we think AguaClara has a good chance of obtaining right now has been created.

We will look for grants with applications that may be appropriate for AguaClara especially focusing on grants that may be similar to each other so that we can write one grant application and use it multiple times.  

We will explore grants from the Global Development Alliance through USAID for potential sources of advice and funding. 

For insite into how to write a grant a Grant Writing Guidelines page has been createdWe will divide our fundraising efforts into three categories. Outreach as it relates to fundraising includes placing information about AguaClara in places where potential donors can see it such as with the Cornell Annual Fund. Contacts means actively exploring personal and professional relationships to help us find potential donors. Grant applications and direct solicitations includes the actual requests for money. This step epitomizes the phrase "one who does not cry gets no milk." We need to raise money for construction of plants in Honduras, research and design work at Cornell and to send AguaClara engineers to Honduras to help train and educate Hondurans on water treatment process.

Microfinance

What is Microcredit?

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We will explore ways to find MBA students to work on the projects. One possibility might be Park fellows who are MBA students who do a project with a focus on sustainability. They get to choose a project to work on so we could present to them and hopefully we can get one to help us out.Clint Sydel is the director of the Park fellowship and may be a helpful contact

Grants

We have assembled a database of potential grants using the foundation directory which can be found at http://fconline.fdncenter.org/ and http://www.grants.gov/applicants/get_registered.jsp.
A Grant Short List of grants that we think AguaClara has a good chance of obtaining right now has been created.

We will look for grants with applications that may be appropriate for AguaClara especially focusing on grants that may be similar to each other so that we can write one grant application and use it multiple times.  

We will explore grants from the Global Development Alliance through USAID for potential sources of advice and funding. 

For insite into how to write a grant a Grant Writing Guidelines page has been created.