This document provides guidance on creating an effective fundraising plan. It recommends including: an assessment of the current program; specific fundraising goals; tactics to achieve each goal; a timeline that breaks the plan into quarterly periods with 1-3 mini goals per quarter; and metrics to measure success. Key elements are setting "big rock" goals, evaluating tactics, implementing a 12-week action plan with daily and weekly tasks, and using a dashboard to track metrics and measure progress toward goals quarterly. The overall advice is to be strategic by focusing on the most important goals and tasks, and to make the plan actionable through concrete steps and accountability.

1. How to Create a Fundraising Plan
You'll Actually Use
Alice Ferris, MBA, CFRE, ACFRE
GoalBusters Consulting
@aliceferris

2. Why plan?
Hope is not a
strategy

3. Topics
Elements of a fundraising plan
How to make it actionable

4. Elements of a Development Plan

5. Elements of your plan
• Where are you now?
• Where do you want to go?
• What tools will you use to get there?
• When will you do each thing?
• How will you know when you’re there?

6. Where are you now?
Assess your current
program

7. Things to measure and understand
• Money
• Number of contributors
• Retention rate
• Acquisition rate
• Donor distribution
• Donor personas

8. Donor distribution
How many donors do you have at different contribution
levels?

9. Donor personas
Characteristics of your
donors
• Age
• Giving levels
• Interests
• Motivations

10. Short exercise
Create a profile for one of your donor types and share
• Their “name”
• Age
• Income level
• Programs they like to support
• The ways they tend to respond to you
• Target gift

11. Where do you want to go?
Goal setting

12. What Does Success Look Like?
• How much money?
• How many people will contribute?
• How many people will be engaged?
• Percentage change from last period?
• How many donors will you keep?
• How many donors will you acquire?
• What projects will be funded?

13. What’s most important?
Pick your “big rocks”
Choose no more than three
“big rock” goals
These are the things that
will make you feel like a
success at the end of the
plan

14. What tools will you use to get there?
Pick your tactics to
achieve each goal

15. Evaluating tactics
Fundraising ideas evaluation matrix
• How much money will it raise?
• How easy is it?
• How unique is it?
• What is our likelihood of success?
• Is there a mission match?

16. When will you do these things?
If you don’t write it down,
it won’t happen!

17. Plan for no more than 1 year
Break up your plan into quarterly
mini-plans
Pick 1-3 mini goals for each
quarter
Strategic imbalance

18. 12 Week Year Tactics
Each week
• Review your 12 week plan
• Determine the three highest priority things for this week
• Break down the tasks for each thing that you can do this
week

19. 12 Week Year Tactics
Each day
• Pick three Most Important Tasks (MIT’s)
• “Eat your frog”
• Develop a daily ritual

20. 12 Week Year Tactics
Each month
• Block out one day that is solely for project administration
• “The day of pain and suffering”

21. 12 Week Year Tactics
At the end of the 12 weeks
• Complete your metrics
• Reassess goals and rebalance
• Establish your next 12 week plan

22. How do you know when you’re there?
Choose your metrics
Use a dashboard
Measure quarterly

23. “Wheel of Life” for your program
Change the pie slices to your
goals
• Overall budget
• Number of donors
• Programmatic funding
• Success measures for each
tactic
• Others….

24. In Summary
• Your plan includes
• Assessment
• Goals
• Tactics
• Action steps
• Metrics
• Daily Most Important Tasks will help get it done
• Focus on the big rocks

26. Please don’t forget to complete the short
evaluation form in the mobile app
THANK YOU