Raising money

Press, 2 November 1985, Page 20

Raising money

The Fundraising Ideas Book. By Michael Arnett. Shepp Books, 1985. 124 pp. $16.95.

Michael Arnett dedicates this book “to the thousands of volunteers who give unstintingly of their time, money, energy, and enthusiasm to help our non-profit organisations”; and I dedicate this review to the memories I, and thousands of other New Zealanders, must have of thousands of hours spent gazing despairingly at budgets and searching desperately for new ways of balancing them.

“The Fundraising Ideas Book” is not an instant solution to such problems, but it does contain much practical help (along with rather too many passages of “power of positive thinking” type philosophising). It has, moreover, been written specifically for Australia and New Zealand. Part One has step-by-step instructions for organising a fund-raising event, from planning its budget to saying the thank-yous. Part Two suggests dozens of ideas for original events and products, as well as a brief chapter of advice on the employment of professional fundraisers.

Michael Arnett’s book is not a magic wand to remove all the work and worry from fund-raising, but it is a good reference manual which for many groups should reduce considerably the desperate hours round a committee table. — Margaret Quigley.