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Fundraising Channel Yield Comparison

Run the Fundraising Channel Yield Comparison MicroSim fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Every fundraising guide ranks channels by how much they raise. That ranking is useless to a club with four volunteer hours a month.

The two bars here have to be read together. In-kind donation is the standout: 750 dollars of value for roughly 2 hours, because it is one conversation and a collection. Corporate sponsorship is close behind -- 500 dollars a year for about 3 hours, mostly one relationship-building conversation.

Fundraising events are the trap. They raise a respectable 420 dollars, which looks fine in isolation, and cost 15 hours -- more than the other four channels combined. An event can still be the right call when the club wants the community visibility, or when volunteers actively want to run one. It is the wrong call when someone picked it because it felt like what fundraising means.

Note the crowdfunding figure is net: 128 dollars on a 150 dollar goal, after platform fees.

How to Use

  • Hover any bar for the exact figure.
  • The left axis is dollars and the right axis is hours -- the two bars in each group are measured on different scales, so compare shapes within a channel rather than heights across the two colours.

Lesson Plan

Bloom level: Analyze (L4) -- compare

Learning objective: Given typical yield and effort figures for five fundraising channels, the learner compares them to select an appropriate channel for a specific funding need and time budget.

Before the sim (5 min). Ask the group how they would raise 500 dollars. Almost everyone proposes an event. Note it.

With the sim (10 min). Read the yield bars alone and rank the channels. Then add the hours bars and re-rank. The ranking changes, which is the lesson.

After the sim (15 min). Establish the club's real volunteer-hours budget for a term, then pick the channel or channels that fit inside it.

Check for understanding. Ask: "You need 400 dollars and have 5 volunteer hours. What do you do?" Sponsorship or an in-kind ask -- and explaining why the event is excluded despite raising enough is the comparison this objective wants.

Embedding This MicroSim

Paste this into any page of the book, adjusting the relative path to docs/sims/ for the page's depth:

<iframe src="../../sims/fundraising-channel-yield-comparison/main.html" width="100%" height="542" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Specification

The full specification below is extracted from Chapter 30: Budgeting, Fundraising, and Grant Writing.

Type: chart
**sim-id:** fundraising-channel-yield-comparison<br/>
**Library:** Chart.js<br/>
**Status:** Specified

Purpose: Let a leader compare typical net dollar yield against volunteer hours required across five fundraising channels, to help choose a channel that fits both a funding need and the time a club actually has available.

Bloom Taxonomy: Analyze (L4)
Bloom Taxonomy Verb: compare

Learning objective: Given typical yield and effort figures for five fundraising channels, the learner compares them to select an appropriate channel for a specific funding need and time budget.

Chart type: Grouped bar chart (two series per channel)

X-axis: Fundraising channel (Community Support Drive, Crowdfunding Campaign, Corporate Sponsorship, In-Kind Donation, Fundraising Event)

Y-axis (left): Typical net dollar yield for a small club
Y-axis (right, or second bar color): Approximate volunteer hours to plan and run it

Data series:
1. Net Yield (blue bars): Community Support Drive $340; Crowdfunding Campaign $128 (after fee, on a $150 goal); Corporate Sponsorship $500/year; In-Kind Donation $750 (one-time value); Fundraising Event $420

2. Volunteer Hours (gold bars): Community Support Drive 4; Crowdfunding Campaign 6; Corporate Sponsorship 3 (mostly one relationship-building conversation); In-Kind Donation 2; Fundraising Event 15

Title: "Typical Yield vs. Volunteer Hours by Fundraising Channel"
Legend: Position top-right, labeling "Net Yield ($)" and "Volunteer Hours"

Interactive features:
- Hover any bar to see its exact value and a one-sentence description of that channel pulled from this chapter
- Toggle buttons above the chart to show/hide each series independently
- Click a channel's label on the x-axis to highlight both of its bars and dim the rest

Annotations:
- Small callout near the Fundraising Event bars: "Highest yield, but also the highest time cost -- plan this one only once you have volunteer hours to spare."
- Small callout near In-Kind Donation: "Highest yield per volunteer hour, but depends on finding a willing donor, not just effort."

Implementation: Chart.js grouped bar chart with a dataset array holding both series; hover tooltips configured via Chart.js's built-in tooltip callback to include the one-sentence channel description.

References