Taking Stock

Folks:

This new Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) can be a real boon to you and your organization.  Finally, you will have at your fingertips objective data against which you can measure your results, factoring in staff size, longevity of development program, budget size, amount raised, etc.  The FEP leadership plans additional refinements that promise even more illumination in the years ahead.

But this raises the big question:  How formal is your fundraising planning?  Does your organization wobble from year to year, tweakling this and that in response to anecdotal "feelings" about how well it went?  Is your planning done in effort silos, i.e. you look only at the comparative outcomes of activites against like activities, year on year?  Are you factoring in effort, time, staff and non-staff resources, along with the hard costs of each solicitation effort?  Is the mix of fundraising and friend-raising efforts you make each year measured against a strategic advantage scale?

With FEP and some thoughtful evaluation, you should be able to construct an Annual Fundraising Plan that sets forth your plans and goals for the coming year, addressing what needs attention, what needs investment (however you define that), what needs critical assessment, all viewed through the strategic lens.  This is your great opportunity to be deliberate and demonstrate to your colleagues and your Board just what will be required to move your organization to the next level.

Its clear that an Annual Plan must to be rooted in outcomes recorded to give substance to outcomes desired.  With FEP and your own reporting, you will have a good start at building a Plan that makes real sense and serves as a compelling Action Case Statement for you and your leadership.

Achievement starts with a good plan....