The fundraising plan is a system
The fundraising plan is one of those tasks that lives permanently on the to-do list, getting bumped every week by something more urgent. I'd like to make the case that the fundraising plan is always a “front burner” kind of task.
Fundraising plans can feel like an overwhelming job, and I’ve seen plans of all shapes and sizes: from 20-page chart-filled documents, complete with environmental scans and a dozen tracked KPIs, to a 10-row spreadsheet with some high-level revenue targets. Often the plan isn’t even on paper, and small teams are operating straight from the org budget. In this case I understand the constraints of the situation. Usually it’s presented as a capacity issue although I’ve come to believe that in many cases it’s that the team is intimidated by the idea of a 20-page everything plan.
When the plan feels too big, we avoid it
Hold my plan while I share a quick story.
Recently in my Grade 1 kid’s parents group chat, one of the parents came to the chat, exasperated, reaching out for some advice:
“Is anyone else dealing with a kid who just isn’t eating their lunch? Getting pretty tired of untouched lunch boxes returning home…”
Class parents responded with a lot of empathy; many of their kids had gone through the same phase and had some great advice: pack only favourites, nothing unfamiliar; make sure portions are manageable; and bento boxes work wonders.
We also realized what many of our no-lunch kiddos had in common. When asked why they didn’t eat their food, they would often say: “I didn’t have time.”
Now, if you have ever had a 5–7 year old in your life, you know that much of what they say needs to be translated. Kids explain things the best way they can, and to adult ears their explanations can be baffling.
“What do you mean you didn’t have time? What else are you doing?”
Lunch time can be distracting: a game of cafeteria tag can be much more appealing than eating the vegetable soup your mother packed.
Still, when my kid tells me he “didn’t have time” to eat his lunch, I try to investigate a little.
And sometimes, “I didn’t have time” decoded actually means: “I encountered a problem, and couldn’t solve it on my own. So I just didn’t eat.”
Fork missing? Skip the pasta.
Can’t open the thermos? No chili today.
Sandwich isn’t cut? Not eating it.
It’s not that they can’t solve the problem. It’s just that, at the moment, finding the solution feels harder than simply pushing their lunchbox aside and doing something else.
Getting a fundraising plan on paper feels intimidating. And there are always so many other things to attend to, so we push it aside or say we can function fine without one. But man, by the end of the day are we hungry.
A simple plan answers three things
Fundraising plans don’t have to be complicated.
I don’t always practice what I preach here, because I love a good hefty plan. But I know it’s not always practical.
Boiled down, a fundraising plan simply has to answer three questions:
What do you need?
How are you going to get it?
Who is going to do the work and when?
When I build plans, the leaders and boards I work with are often fixated on the second question.
Should we host a gala? How many appeals should we run this year? What about a social enterprise?
The tactics-only focus is understandable. They work from the org budget and see the consistent need, the rising costs and funding gaps. It’s a heavy burden.
But we can’t start in the middle. We can’t plan strategies without knowing what we’re working towards.
How much do we need to raise? What’s it for? Why this program?
There is nothing more unmotivating for a fundraiser than to build relationships and ask for support when there is a vague goal or the purpose of what we’re doing is unclear.
Yes, I know we need money (of course we do), but what happens if I raise $1,000 vs. $100,000? How does this impact what we are trying to do as an organization? What will my work do to address our core problem?
So many questions. My point is, a purpose-centred plan is stronger, more coherent, motivating and helps to organically build out the strategies we need to meet our goals.
Start with purpose
“What do we need” is step one for a plan, and before we copy/paste our expenses from the org budget, let’s take a step back and pull from purpose.
The reason we exist as an organization is to…..
To achieve this, we deliver Program A, B and C to the community.
To achieve the stated outcomes of Program A/B/C, the following resources are required:
Resource
Resource
Resource
The cost of these resources is this:
Holy simplification Batman, but there it is, that’s the need. You still get to list your expenses, the difference is now they are grounded in the purpose of the organization. And the fundraisers rejoiced.
From there we can get into the weeds of strategy and delegation. And that’s where we’ll go next month when I'll be starting a series of monthly articles focusing on different fundraising strategies through a systems-first lens.
I’m curious what you’d like me to cover first?
Major Gifts, grant writing, monthly giving or something else?
Thanks for reading…
My name is Kim Peterson and I am a fundraising consultant. I help non-profits establish and scale-up individual giving programs, by building fundraising strategies and systems for growth and long-term stability.
I write about topics like this in my newsletter, “Fundraising from the Ground Up” so if you like what’s here ☝️, subscribe here
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