Capacity Building for Fundraising: It’s Never Too Soon
Why and what is involved in building your development office/department to increase organizational efficiency.
I’ve heard it said that fund raising is both an art and a science. I’d like to discuss the science side of fund raising with you, or, more appropriately, Capacity Building for Fundraising…It’s Never Too Soon.
Why capacity building? It’s simple. Would you build a house without a foundation? Probably not, since you wouldn’t have anything to build upon. The same holds true for your fundraising program. If you don’t have the basics in place, you have nothing to build your program on, and chances are you won’t be raising the funds you need.
Step I – Why Do We Need Fundraising Software?
In 2007, 82% of all donations (or more than $252 billion dollars) came from INDIVIDUALS! If 1 to 2% of your total giving came from individuals, you are missing the boat! People give to people. If you don’t have the relationships with your donors and know how to cultivate them or what their hot buttons are, your fundraising program will stagnate. If you continue to do what you have always done, you will continue to get what you’ve always gotten.
By investing in a fundraising software program that provides your organization with the ability to track donors and their gifts, provide a mechanism to generate acknowledgement letters for their gifts, and compile reports you need to show where your program is going, you have won half the battle.
What kind of software do you need? I can’t answer that. Only you can decide what type of software will meet your needs. Programs that range from Cadillac to Ford and everything in between are available. The research on what type will work best is up to you…I’m just here to tell you that you need it.
One aside: no matter what program you choose, you need to budget for training and annual maintenance fees. The training is a given and the maintenance fees will buy you any needed tech support and any upgrades that come out during the year. Once you are trained, I HIGHLY recommend that you write policies and procedures for data entry and information access and retrieval. This prevents the old adage “garbage in-garbage out” from applying to your database.
When I started at my current organization, we had approx 5,000 names in the database. We’re now up to approx. 9,000 and donations from our annual spring appeal have increased by at least $10 k each year over the previous year.
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