Doing More

For many years, I wrote two blog posts a week plus a monthly newsletter with three articles, and somehow I was never at a loss for words.  Then, a combining of my blog site into my website along with a much busier schedule, made me drop the individual blogs and only focus on my newsletter.  And by writing less, I found that I had less to write! And it is harder now to come up with ideas.  More, it takes longer to write each article

This is true for so many things.  The less you do—well, the less you do.  Fundraising is no different.  Organizations who don’t put fundraising front and center find it is always hiding in the shadows, not only in thought but in the amounts it brings in.

Board development is the same.  If you are not thinking about how to make your board stronger, more diverse, better decision makers, more participatory in fundraising, you will never get around to helping them get there.  And if you don’t have clear plans for how to do these things, well, your board (your fundraising!) will remain where they are.

What to do?  You are, after all, too busy to fundraise and too overwhelmed to get your board where they need to be.  But is that true or are you busying yourself with busywork?  

Some things, no matter how tedious, just need to get done.  Other things, however, often feel urgent, but are not necessarily important.  If they are important, then they should be part of your work plan.

A work plan typically identifies goals, objectives, and the responsibilities of those doing this particular work.  In a small nonprofit, that is probably one person;  in a large one, it may be a team.  If you have a robust fundraising plan—one that has for each way to raise money, the steps you need to take along with the timeline, you may not need this work plan.  If you don’t have a development plan, this workplan is a terrific way to ease into it.  And, of course, for other things—marketing, board development, program review, it can be enormously helpful.

Goals, of course, are the big picture:  for fundraising it may be to acquire  new donors or donors donors  Perhaps you want to bring back  LYBUNTs.  

For board development, it maybe to bring on  more board members.  And set up active committees.  Perhaps your focus is on providing fundraising training for your board (contact me!).  

Whatever big picture items you want to accomplish during your work plan (one year should be the maximum amount of time; though you may want to do quarterly or semi-annual plans) are your goals.

Then you want to consider how you are going to reach your goals.  These are your objectives.  They are specific and measurable.   For example—your goal is to bring on new donors; your objective would be to bring on a specific number of donors or increase your donor pool by a certain percent.  Likewise with board development;  perhaps you want to creat a fundraising and marketing committee.

Next you want to identify what you are responsible for.  For fundraising, this should tie to your written development plan.  If you are responsible for new donors—or bringing back lapsed donors and the annual appeal is your baby, identify that as your responsibility.    

Write down what your timeline is—when do you need to accomplish this by?  And finally, if there will be a cost, what is it?

Fundraising, marketing, outreach often die on the vine because no one is paying attention.  Work plans force you to do the work in a timely fashion.  

And, just like my writing, the more you do—the more fundraising, outreach, marketing—the easier it actually becomes and, critically, the more you get accomplish and the more money you raise!