3 Must-Have Ingredients for your Fundraising Plan

I wanted to start this message off with some inspirational quotes about the importance of a plan - but most of the quotes I found were about battle plans. And while I am a sucker for a good metaphor, I'm trying to avoid tying fundraising concepts to concepts of war: especially when the inspirational quotes equate donors with "the enemy."

So instead, I want to talk about cooking shows.

I love a good cooking competition show (Tournament of Champions and Chopped, especially). I like the craft and imagination - to say nothing of the fundamental skills -- that have to be brought to bear to compete and win at that level. As a cook that is very reliant on recipes, I'm also amazed by competitors who can make changes on the fly due to a lack of ingredients, a new wrinkle in the competition, or a sudden equipment failure.

Chefs that win these competitions bring focus, flexibility, and a specific point of view to the kitchen. 

And those are the key ingredients for a fundraising plan:

Focus: your fundraising plan should provide focus and prioritization, helping your fundraising team find the activities and tactics that will lead to donor engagement and support. Your plan can help you tell the difference between a new fundraising opportunity and the next flash-in-the-pan fundraising trend. 

Flexibility: I've talked about this before - but I had a great fundraising plan that I threw out back in March of 2020. Our fundraising environment is going to change - so your plan needs to be flexible. Are you building a plan that creates opportunities to review and revise your tactics?

Specific Point of View: your fundraising plan should reflect the mission and culture of your organization. It sounds pretty simple, but a lot of organizations build plans that are generic - plans that could fit any number of nonprofits. A fundraising plan for a community health organization probably won’t look like a plan for a university.

And just like a good dish starts with good ingredients, a good plan starts with a good process.  A process that involves staff and decision-makers, that is driven by data, and one that builds off of past fundraising success.

Keep up the great work!

Ready for more? I can help you build a better fundraising plan - and we can get started with a free fundraising plan review. Interested?  Click below to set up your meeting: