Fundraising the SMART Way + Website: Predictable,Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity
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More About This Title Fundraising the SMART Way + Website: Predictable,Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity

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Strategic planning and tactical fundraising can maximize income and minimize costs

Fundraising is the lifeblood of the nonprofit, and, successful or otherwise, determines the organization's ability to provide for the group it serves. Every organization attempts to lower overhead while increasing donations, but this often proves to be impossible within existing frameworks. Effective fundraising - increasing donations while engaging more donors and lowering costs - requires a sound strategy that turns major roadblocks into minor hurdles that are easily overcome. It's not about trying harder, it's about working smarter.

Fundraising the SMART Way provides the groundwork for a complete revamp of organizational fundraising systems. Author Ellen Bristol applies twenty years of corporate sales experience and eighteen years in fund development consultation to the problem of inefficient fundraising. Bristol turns her extensive sales expertise toward the perspective of "selling" an organization to potential donors, increasing the donor pool, and lowering the cost of fundraising. The book details the questions every nonprofit should be asking to maximize the effectiveness of fundraising efforts, and encourages systematic strategy development by zeroing in on key factors such as:

  • Organizational goals, strengths, and weaknesses
  • Donor actions and motivations
  • Workload management and results QA
  • Opportunity evaluation and organizational action

The book outlines clear, concrete, actionable steps that can be immediately implemented to escalate income growth. Effective fundraising is sustainable, consistent, and on-target. It must exceed current need and expand to fill future need. Fundraising the SMART Way represents a true breakthrough in that it lays a foundation for true systemic overhaul, and can be the catalyst for the growth of any nonprofit.

English

ELLEN BRISTOL came into the nonprofit sector after more than twenty years of experience in the corporate world where she specialized in major-account sales of information technology equipment. Since 1995, the year she launched Bristol Strategy Group, she has developed a solid track record as a consultant and author in the fund development arena.

English

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction Why We Need a Fundraising Revolution 1

Fundraising the SMART WayTM 4

How It Works 5

Results from the Leaky Bucket Study 6

Statistics from the Leaky Bucket Assessment 8

The Four Laws of Performance Management 11

Target: Consistent, Predictable Income Growth 14

Effective Fundraising as Competitive Advantage 16

Adopting the SMART Way Model 19

PART ONE Which Funders Are “Right” for You? 21

CHAPTER 1 The Context for Fund Development 25

What Should It Cost to Achieve Your Mission? 26

Analyzing the True Cost of Your Mission 30

Your Opportunity Risk Factor: The Real Value of Your Time 31

What Makes Your Best Funders “Best”? 34

Your Unique Value Proposition: The Value in Value-Added 36

What We Covered 42

What You Can Do 42

CHAPTER 2 Funder Selection Strategies 45

Why Your Best Funders Support You 47

The Exchange of Value 55

Applying the Exchange of Value 59

What We Covered 60

What You Can Do 61

CHAPTER 3 Building Your SMART Way Prospect Scorecard 63

Nine Scorecard Principles 66

Crafting Scorecard Statements 72

Scoring the Prospect 80

Scorecard as Management Control 82

What We Covered 84

What You Can Do 85

CHAPTER 4 The Scorecard as a Management Control Device 87

Using the Scorecard to Manage the Fundraising Process 88

Validating the Scorecard 89

The Suggested Probing Questions 92

Developing Your Questions 96

Field-Test the Scorecard 101

The Control Part 105

What We Covered 106

What You Can Do 106

PART TWO Defining the Fund Development Process 109

CHAPTER 5 The Fund Development Pipeline 113

Pipeline Basics 114

The SMART Way Pipeline Revolution 116

Process Management for Nonprofits: A Primer 117

Moves Management versus the SMART Way 118

Eliminate Process Boundaries or Add Them? 120

Development Drivers 127

What We Covered 129

What You Can Do 129

CHAPTER 6 Setting Performance Targets 131

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Continuous Improvement 132

Assigning Targets 135

Good Targets, Bad Targets 139

Move Zero Targets 141

Performance Targets and the SMART Way Scorecard 145

Targets for Development Drivers 149

What We Covered 150

What You Can Do 151

PART THREE Implementing Fundraising the SMART Way 153

CHAPTER 7 Reporting and Leading for Better Results 157

Leadership 101 158

First, There is a Mountain . . . 159

“Vertical” versus “Horizontal” Reporting 159

SMART Way Reports 163

Enlightened Leadership Practices 166

Tracking Donor Move Targets 171

Reading the Story the Numbers Tell You 173

What We Covered 174

What You Can Do 174

CHAPTER 8 The Breakthrough: Continuous Improvement 177

The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle 178

Root-Cause Analysis Done Right 179

What We Covered 200

What You Can Do 201

CHAPTER 9 Applying SMART Way Methods to Mass-Market Fundraising 203

Selling to Major Accounts versus Transactional Selling 204

The Majors versus the Minors 206

To Find Donors, Stop Looking 208

Mass-Market and Target-Market Fundraising 214

SMART Way Management Controls 216

What We Covered 218

What You Can Do 218

CHAPTER 10 Radical Thinking about the Fundraising Revolution 221

Fundraising and the Russian Revolution 225

Adopting the Mind-set of Potential 228

Revolutionizing the Way We Manage Performance 229

Implications for Information Technology 235

Implications for the Governing Board 237

Parting Remarks 241

About the Author 243

About the Companion website 245

Index 247

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