What Are You Doing Today to Raise Money?
What are you doing today to raise money? If you’re a fundraiser, this is a key question. There are lots of people who can plan fundraising or research prospects, but they never quite seem to seal the deal.
Let’s say that you have a budget of $500,000 a year. That probably means that at least six people are counting on you to raise money, more or less. Their paycheck depends on you raising money. (Obviously, you’re also spending part of that money on things like rent, postage, employee benefits, phones, computers, etc., but I presume that you care about your colleagues and want them to stay employed.)
Raising $500,000 a year means raising $10,000 a week. Now, it’s not evenly distributed. A lot comes in during the holidays. Perhaps you have two events each year that raise significant amounts. You might have money in investments that yield some income. Some money might come in as pledges so that you can count on it each year. But whatever way you slice it, you have to be raising money each week.
Let’s talk about what you’re doing to raise money, and how that translates to weekly activities. So, here are three ways you might raise money:
1) You have a big event. Therefore, some of the things you might do in a week to contribute to that event’s bottom line would include: contacting corporations to set up meetings to discuss sponsoring the event; calling volunteers to ask them to be involved in fundraising for the event; and arranging for save-the-date cards to be sent for the event. Only one of these activities might lead to money now, but all must be done at some point.
2) You need to meet with major donors to ask them for their gift. Thus, in a particular week, you might be setting appointments with donors; going out on appointments with donors; asking board members to invite potential donors to a get-acquainted event; and meeting with volunteers to review prospect lists to get information. Again, not every task will lead to immediate money, but all must be done.
3) You need to write your donors to ask for money. In a week, you might write the letter, call the mailhouse and arrange for the mailing; sort through the list of past donors to decide whom to mail; and send the letter. Only the last task leads directly to a donation, but all are necessary.
What concerns me, however, is the number of people who do all the tasks EXCEPT the ones that lead to money. They spend time sorting through prospect lists and holding get-acquainted events without an ask and researching donors, but they never actually ask someone for money. There are all these other attractive things that need to be done — they genuinely do — but then no one asks for the gift.
So ask yourself this: what am I doing today to raise money? How will my tasks today lead to money coming into my agency?
Here’s my suggestion: figure out how much you need to raise this month and what tasks lead to that amount of money being raised. Going back to the agency that needs to raise $10,000 a week, I would divide it down like this:
1) We need to send three grant proposals this month, including preferably two to past donors, with the expectation that one or two will be funded.
2) We need to visit with ten donors this month who have given $1,000 or more, which means calling at least thirty to ask for an appointment.
3) We need to send out an appeal letter.
4) We need to hold one home-based event for donors and potential donors.
If those are my tasks (and that’s a lot), then I need to be rigorous about pairing down any activites that don’t lead to those results. That means that I can’t spend an hour discussing what new computer to buy for the office, or fixing the copier, or gossiping about the pregnant woman next door. My time has to focus on the fundraising tasks, because I work with people whom I care about who need to stay employed. Every task I do has to contribute to one of those results.
Here’s my suggestion: each day in your schedule book, before the first appointment, write these words, “What will I do today to raise $X,XXX” with $X,XXX being the amount you need to raise each day. In the case of $500,000 a year or $10,000 a week, the amount would be $2,000. At the end of the day, write down at least two things you did to raise the amount you need. If you this for a couple of weeks, you’ll find that you’re much more focused on tasks that lead to the results you want and much less distracted by attractive tasks that don’t result in money being raised.
I’m available to explain this to your board and staff, as I train people to fundraise. If you have questions about fundraising, please contact me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com.