Projects vary in length from 3 to 12 months. Candidates will first submit a project proposal typically due within 30 days of the final seminar. Examples of past projects have included designing a year-round stewardship program, the annual giving/fundraising campaign, a special fundraising initiative, development of a planned giving program, an educational program to foster generosity, a leadership development program for staff and/or governing board, and a pre-campaign planning program.

Conversations about the final project are woven throughout the eight-week online course. You will have an opportunity to talk with your project idea with course faculty and in your peer group.

Your project proposal

Your proposal paper should address the following issues:

1. Briefly describe your project.
2. Describe the organizational need your project is intended to address.
3. Describe the larger vision birthing this proposal and the ways in which this project will enhance the mission and ministry of your institution as you look to the future.
4. Outline the organizational steps you will take to carry out this project.
   • What are the institutional and/or process challenges you anticipate?
   • Who are the key stakeholders – individuals and/or group representatives – you need to invite to bless the project?
   • Who needs to be on your project committee/guiding coalition? What roles might those people play?
   • What are – if any – the new constituencies/audiences you might engage in a deeper way as a part of this project, and what new technologies or methods might you experiment with in reaching them?
   • What is the timeline for your project: beginning conversations, organizational target dates, public launching of the project; conclusion of the project?

Keep your project manageable. As a first-step project in religious fundraising, smaller will be better than larger. In communicating your project to your constituency (your case or mission statement):

1. Be clear and simple—eliminate theological jargon and technobabble.
2. Be aspirational—appeal to peoples hopes, dreams, and values; don’t deluge them with data.

Your project reflection

Upon completion of the project, you will write a reflection paper in which you assess your learning. Your paper should answer the following questions:

1. What happened in the course of your project?
2. What did you do? How did you engage volunteers/lay leaders/staff?
3. How did you navigate and/or impact the institution’s systems or culture in carrying out the project?
4. What did you learn? (Particularly—what worked and what did not work as you expected?)
5. What practices or principles do you anticipate applying in future endeavors?

Lake Institute on Faith & Giving will oversee and approve both the project proposal and the final reflection paper, then in partnership with the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy officially confer the Executive Certificate in Religious Fundraising.

Questions?

Contact lakeinstitute@iu.edu for further questions.