Dear Fundraiser

No matter your area of focus as an organization, your FY20 operating budget is officially out-of-date. Whether your expenses are increased because you are currently providing essential services to a rapidly growing population of people in need, or your operations and attendant revenue are shrinking with closed buildings, cancelled programs, and layoffs, it is time to reorient yourself for the rest of the fiscal year (and beyond). With earned revenue getting tougher and tougher to come by, your role as a fundraiser is becoming ever more important and you need to make sure that you are up to date on operational conversations at your organization about how your finances are changing.

Here are three considerations to think about as you dive into these important conversations with your Executive Director, General Manager, and/or Accountant.

Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are in a unique position to be helpful as we navigate fundraising during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are three important steps that we recommend as you move forward considering how to include DAFs in your emergency fundraising plans.

We’ve all been working from home for three weeks now, and if your team is anything like ours, then you’re probably settling into what feels like a new normal—even if that new normal is filled with a new set of challenges and very difficult decisions.

As events across the country continue to be cancelled, all of us in the nonprofit space look forward to the time when we can start to gather again in celebration and support of the incredible causes that unite our communities.

But in the meantime, how can we recreate that togetherness without actually being, well, together?

We get it, the world is a scary and unstable place right now, and we’re so deep into uncharted territory that sometimes it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. But if there’s one piece of advice we feel confident in giving, it’s this: Don’t stop fundraising.

As we discussed in an earlier post, now is the time to start communicating proactively with your donors. Don’t back off and give them space (unless they have specifically asked for it, of course). In times of crisis, people want to come together, and they want to help. It’s your job to give them the pathway to do just that.

There’s no way around it. Whether or not you have had to cancel programming and events, your organization is being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn that has accompanied it. For nonprofits across the spectrum, this is no longer business as usual, and it is certainly no longer fundraising as usual. In addition to the stories you are telling your donors about your mission, vision, and the work that you are doing to serve your community, the time is now to incorporate the current climate into that story.

Building community among your donors is absolutely essential to a healthy and stable fundraising process, but the last few days have presented significant challenges to that work for development professionals around the country. Much attention has been given to the fundraising events that have been cancelled, and that will likely be cancelled in the coming days, but let’s not forget that we now must rethink our approach to cultivation events and even smaller donor meetings as well.

Amid the rash of event cancellations and venue closings taking place over the last 48 hours, many nonprofits of all sizes are evaluating whether to move forward with their calendars as planned. Between the health risks involved in convening large groups of people, and the financial impact of ticket cancellations from those in your community who do not want to take the risk of attending events, there are lots of factors to weigh as you make your decision. Luckily, there are steps you can take to mitigate the potential damage of an event cancellation or postponement.

Appropriately acknowledging your donor’s gift is one of the most important parts of the fundraising process, and can go a long way toward cultivating a repeat gift (especially from a first-time donor). It is often too easy, however, to let the processes around thanking and acknowledging donations be haphazard.

Whether you’re feeling scattered and looking to set a process, or you just want to tighten up an existing protocol, we’ve got three recommendations to get you started.

We all know that fundraising is a nuanced blend of art and science, but what we might not realize is how much of our art as fundraisers is informed by our own personal experiences and perspectives. Luckily, with some foresight and planning, you can check your gut decisions and run an A/B test to solve for the areas where you’re not actually sure how to get the best result.

You know as well as we do that “you have to spend money to make money,” is just as true in nonprofit fundraising as it is in a corporate environment. The dollars that you spend in executing your annual fundraising strategy are essential to your ability to generate revenue, and it’s important to be able to advocate for them.

When putting together a proposal for funding, you’re thinking about all the elements that work together to tell the story of your organization or program and the impact that it makes on your community. You’re crafting the right language to describe your goals, finding illuminating quotes, organizing descriptive photos and videos—but are you thinking about how best to format your budget?