Case Statements (and Proposals and Campaign Brochures)
You don't need a writer to create your case statement (or proposal). What you need is a creative, experienced, organized thinker who also writes well.
Contents this page:
- A case statement is what, exactly?
- I stopped counting after my 200th case statement.
- Case statements come in all shapes and sizes.
- Ask yourself these questions.
- Action steps to a winning case statement.
- A few examples.
- Contact me (Gail Terry Grimes),
A case statement is what, exactly?
I stopped counting after my 200th case statement.
Professional and volunteer fund raisers have secured more than a billion dollars in charitable gifts using case statements and proposals I created for them. I'm extremely proud of their accomplishments, and happy to have played a small part in their success.
Case statements come in all shapes and sizes.
Successful fund raisers will tell you, it doesn't really matter how many or how few pages there are in your case statement. What matters is whether the document does the job.
Some of the case statements in my portfolio are only a page or two long, others are 100 pages, most fall somewhere in between. They seek charitable gifts ranging from five figures to nine. Some focus on a single need at an organization, such as a major piece of equipment or an endowed chair; others cover all of the organization's funding priorities. Together, these documents cover the full range of non-profit causes: from small community hospitals to major medical centers, from liberal arts colleges to engineering schools, from ballet companies to homeless shelters, from AIDS initiatives to the San Francisco Zoo.
Ask yourself these questions about your case statement:
- Will the case capture and hold the reader's attention?
- Will the case inspire and prepare fund raisers to ask for gifts?
- Will the case inspire donors to give?
- Will their gifts do good in the world?
Action steps to a winning case statement:
- Listen—via interviews and surveys.
- Study—everything about the organization and the initiative(s) at hand.
- Analyze—all the data for patterns and highlights.
- Organize—information, ideas, opinion, so they make sense and inspire action.
- Motivate—everyone from your top leader to your smallest donor to feel a sense of urgency around the project or cause.
- Draw people in—so they want to read your case statement. Even a loyal friend will tune out your story if it's full of jargon, cliches, puffery or muddled thinking. How you make your case is as important as what you say.
A few examples:
Read these case statements (Yes, some are now campaign brochures.) from my portfolio:
Chinese Hospital of San Francisco - Acute Care Facility (168KB)
Saint Mary's College of California (59MB)
Robotic Surgery at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center (168KB)
InnVision (Homeless Services) (62KB)
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital - Case for House Calls (11KB)
Go here if you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Contact me (Gail Terry Grimes) to talk about the case for support of your worthy cause.