You really need to have a fundraising plan. You can’t just fly by the seat of your pants and take advantage of opportunities as they come along. A structured plan is really the key to success. A written fundraising plan has actually been proven to be the number one indicator of fundraising success. Organizations that simply have a plan, regardless of what is in it, perform a lot better than organizations that don’t have a plan. It goes back to the old Ben Franklin quote, “if you fail to plan, then you’re planning to fail.”
So you need to invest the time to put together a fundraising plan for your organization. But it doesn’t have to be some giant 30-page document. It can be a very simple document that outlines what you did last year, what you’re going to do this year, and the resources needed to accomplish those goals. That’s it, end of story. You don’t need paragraph after paragraph of detail. Details tend to change as the year goes along anyway.
At Productive Fundraising, we have a simple fundraising plan template that we use with our clients that you can download free of charge. So give it a download today and make sure your organization has a written fundraising plan in place. It truly is the first indicator of fundraising success.
Chad Barger 2017. All Rights Reserved.
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