One thing not to forget in your fundraising plan
Fundraising plans are the tools employed by nonprofit leaders to set up proactive development strategies throughout the year. These excel sheets (or word docs, google docs – the format doesn’t matter) help us think through the activities we will use to reach our fundraising goals.
If you’re reading this and you’ve never developed a fundraising plan before, then here is the process:
Identify the total amount you need to raise throughout the upcoming year
Formulate the strategies you will use to achieve that goal (campaigns, appeals, events, earned revenue, grants)
List out the activities necessary to implement your strategies
Coordinate your calendar of activities
Regarding the process, at Spark Group, we work with clients to follow a four-phase approach. In fact, we use it in most of our work: Explore, Design, Implement and Evaluate.
What that means for you is that you would start your fundraising plan process by exploring what strategies you’ve used in the past – what’s worked well and what flopped. Then, use that data to design your plan for the following year. Next, take the time to carefully consider how you will implement the plan, and lastly, articulate what metrics you will use to measure success moving forward.
However, if you’ve gotten this far and you’re still wondering, What is the one thing I shouldn’t forget? It’s simple.
Don’t forget to have a plan.
We often work with nonprofit organizations that do not have a plan for raising funds throughout the year. We see this with large, well-established organizations, tiny start-ups, and excellent nonprofit leaders. So if you fall into the “no plan” club, don’t worry.
However, thinking strategically about your fundraising strategies allows you to prepare, reduce costs, and try out new initiatives. It’s the difference between saying, Yeah, we do an auction, and an appeal. It seems to work, and having the confidence to know which efforts are working well and helping you achieve goals.
So it doesn't matter whether you create your plan in Google Sheets or handwrite it on larger poster paper with bright colors. What matters is gifting yourself the confidence to know that you have a well-thought-out plan for the upcoming year.
If you’re looking for support designing your upcoming fundraising plan, contact Spark Group Consulting today! We’re here to help!
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