Why should your busy organization take the time to establish a fundraising process?
Because doing so will result in more efficient planning, and more success in reaching your fundraising goals.
A dependable process will add structure to your efforts, allowing you to better budget time and resources, plan your activities accordingly, and get everything done!
Better understanding your process will also allow you to create your fundraising pipeline (a topic we’ll explore later), a crucial tool to help you keep your multiple fundraising efforts organised.
Here are some of the benefits of implementing a good fundraising process:
1. More Effective Time Management
Fundraising can be a time-consuming process, and securing a single donation can take years.
Establishing a fundraising process provides you with better perspective on the time required for each step, from prospect research to securing funding, helping you allocate sufficient time to meet your objectives.
An organised process lets you understand and chart the progress you’re making—you’ll know all the things you need to secure a gift, and give yourself the time to do them.
2. Better Visibility into your Performance
With a dependable process in place, you can map out all the steps you need to take and gain visibility into what you’re doing, and how well you’re doing.
You can better identify pain points where your efforts are stalling, identify patterns, and take steps to address any specific issues that may be hindering your success.
A good process is a yardstick for assessing your performance and progress, and where extra resources or a new approach may be required.
3. Better Resource Allocation
Your organisation may have many individuals working on different aspects of your fundraising--prospect research, initial donor approaches, preparing grant proposals, and so on. Beyond your team, you might also be lucky to have some dedicated board members at your disposal.
Once you have an established process, you will gain a better insight on how to manage a fundraising team and allocate their time efficiently and effectively.
Establishing a good fundraising process allows teams to be more organized and provides structure to the team’s efforts, using team members’ strengths in a more effective way.
4. More Consistent Application of your Best Practices
Once you have a process in place, it also helps ensure that the best tactics are being consistently applied across your entire team.
Strategies such as a timely presentation of an impact story, media coverage, or even sending out thank-you cards can be applied at the right time to be most effective.
The process help ensure these practices are applied smoothly and almost automatically. Making the right move at the right time will be ingrained in the process, rather than just one individual.
Looking to develop or improve your own fundraising process?
Here at Ajah, our fundraising experts have the knowledge and insights on how to establish and maintain a successful fundraising process, and we’d be more than happy to share them with you.
Get in touch with us to book a consultation—we’ll discuss your fundraising objectives, and provide advice on developing a process that will help you reach those goals.
The best part? We offer these consultations completely free of charge, no strings attached.
As ever, happy fundraising!
Best,
Raena Marder
Customer Success Lead @ Ajah