“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.”   
- Jim Collins

April does seem like an odd time to start creating your fundraising plan. However, planning is a critical process for your organization and if you haven’t got a plan for this year, there is no better time than the present. The fundraising plan is often created after the strategic plan. Unfortunately, many organizations save the annual development or fundraising plan to do “later” or in other words, not at all. 

If the plan does get done, it is then parsed out amongst the organizational “silos”.  Communications is responsible for online, the major gift team builds relationships; the grant writer is driven by the funder schedule and so on.

I understand that it is easy to get too busy delivering and doing the work of a busy fundraising office. But do not skip the planning step. Make the choice today to build your email distribution list a.k.a. housefile. You can begin a monthly communication to donors or plan on an amazing end of year campaign.  Take a few hours, sit down at your computer and get some kind of plan into PowerPoint or excel to help you stay focused for the remainder of the year.

What is a fundraising plan?

Like a business plan, the fundraising plan is forward thinking and action oriented. It clearly communicates what needs to be done to accomplish your fundraising goals. A fundraising plan is a living document, so once you have a final draft, this is not something to store away until next year. Rather, it’s something you will want to consistently update and refine with each task completed or milestone reached to track your progress. If a particular campaign is not successful, revise your strategy to make up for your missed goals and update your fundraising plan as the needs of your organization evolve.

Strive for integration

When crafting your plan, use this as an opportunity to get everyone’s buy-in: including non-fundraising staff and board members too.

Now is the time to get out of your silos and work together to set goals, priorities, key dates, and most importantly decide who is responsible for various actions. Your fundraising plan should be created with your organization’s bottom line in mind. Identify the revenue you need to generate in order to fund your organization’s mission and goals. Make sure you provide enough time to share the plan and give stakeholders an opportunity to give you comments and feedback. Your fundraising plan should be integrated and reflect a multichannel approach to fundraising.

Remember your donors

Always keep your donors in mind as you craft your plan. Be conscious of the channels your different donor types respond to and what channels they prefer to use to make their gifts. Use this time to take a step back and determine how to tie all your campaign ideas into one cohesive strategy. A great fundraising program is one that connects online and offline efforts. No matter the type of donor you are engaging, you want to give them every opportunity to hear about your event or campaign through multiple channels and touches.

Just as a journalist writes the key elements of their news copy, your fundraising plan is complete when you can answer the following:

Who? Identify the target audience; the donor persona you will engage with; responsible staff members, board members, and volunteers; name the primary driver of your fundraising activity

What? Describe the fundraising activity

Why? State your purpose as succinctly as you can

When? Include timeframes for planning through completion and map your plan to a yearly calendar so you can take advantage of key dates and giving cycles, including end-of-year, #GivingTuesday, and other relevant holidays and events

Where? Name the physical location if it’s an in-person event or the channels you will use

How Much? Estimate the costs for making your plan happen

A wonderful resource to reference is the Fundraising Planning Worksheet from GrassRootsFundraising.org by Stephanie Roth, Mimi Ho and Priscilla Hung. 

Patricia Tynan is a Senior Channel Marketing Manager at Blackbaud.