The FIRST step -

Identify areas to review:

Review each category below, and its sub-categories, to identify the areas in your organization that need attention.

  • A look at how leadership and staff think about fundraising and what to do about it. Is fundraising more about getting money or servicing the donor's passions and interests?

  • Revenue: Is it growing year to year?

    Donor acquisition.: Are you keeping up with your donor losses?

    Messaging: are your core messages to the public and donors differentiating you from your “competitors”?

    The following key best practice metrics are in place: cultivation ROI 1:4, donor retention above 80%, value retention for donors giving more than $1000 above 85%.

    Effective mid-level & major gift programs are in place that are contributing more than 60% of your total revenue.

    Effective planned giving program in place?

    Upgrading of donors is happening. From general to midlevel and from midlevel to major gifts at best practice levels.

    Program impact and outcomes reporting to ACTIVE donors. Is it happening at least once a month?

    Donor asks: Are you bold and frequent in your asking? Are the asks relational or transactional?

  • Is someone, at a high management level, terminally responsible for each of the donor pipeline categories: acquisition, general cultivation, mid-level, major gifts, planned gifts?

    Is fundraising, marketing and communications managed by the same person?

    Is your donor services function managed by fundraising or is it outside of fundraising?

    Is the donor journey integrated into all your annual fundraising planning?

  • Do you have a donor offer for every category of your program?

    Do you have different donation amounts for every donor offer?

    Is overhead included in every donor offer?

    What is the quality of reporting back to the donor on every donor offer?

  • Are you investing enough into donor acquisition to stay ahead of the level of donors you are losing?

    Are you investing enough into mid-level programs so that you are successfully upgrading donors to major gifts?

    Are you investing enough into major gift programs so that you have front line fundraisers managing every qualified donor in your file - by qualified we mean they meet your major gift criteria and want to relate personally to you.

    Are you investing enough in your donor service functions so that donors know their giving is making a difference?

  • Do you have a vision and plan for the future growth of your organization that triples its contributed revenue in five years?

The SECOND step -

Fill out the form below to get started:

Select Areas For Review

Select the areas (above) your organization needs to work on

The acquisiton of donor money is a result not an objective. The true objective is to aggressively implement the mission of your organization and fulfill the passions and interests of donors. This requires a careful alignment of your organization to your donor’s journey.