The number and profile of “people served” is close to the heart of most nonprofit missions, but how are those factors important in choosing the mix of fundraising programs to develop over time? First, envision a human services nonprofit – a shelter for homeless families. Now think about a lecture series on world affairs.

At first consideration, you might assume the homeless shelter gets most of its funding from governmental sources, and the lecture series gets its funding from ticket sales and sponsorships from professional firms. (And that may be the case). But when each of these organizations fundraises, how might they view the people they serve?

You may think the homeless shelter cannot raise funds from those they serve, and in the main, you would be correct. However, to the extent that people served can contribute even a little bit of funding to the operation – perhaps months or years after being served – it’s powerful. (Your volunteers, and family and friends of those served can also be quite generous.) And of course, the number of these families served (and why they are there) is very important to the story the organization leaders can convey to foundations, federated giving campaigns, corporations, and individual donors. This mix of fundraising constituencies makes sense, because of the people served.

On the other hand, it’s easy to conclude that the world affairs lecture series needs to raise its charitable support from those served – the attendees. And again, that’s mostly correct. An annual fund strategy that invites attendees to give at various levels will be effective, if implemented well. And you can move some annual fund donors up to become major donors. However, there may be individuals, foundations and other organizations in the community (or even the region or the nation) who don’t attend the series but may be very interested in helping bring attention to future years’ topics or themes.