When crafting your nonprofit’s fundraising plan, identify specific, tangible goals that will help your organization succeed in its mission. These goals should be achievable and align with your strategic priorities and goals for the future.

Use a goal chart as a visual aid during this process. By recording your objectives using this tool, you can revisit them later when building your fundraising plan.

Avoid focusing on fundraising benchmarks alone. In addition to fundraising aspirations, set goals to help you grow your community, improve donor retention, increase the number of major gifts you acquire and more. The more varied your goals are, the better. You might set a goal to increase your nonprofit’s:

• Major gifts: Major gifts are the largest contributions your organization receives. How many major gifts are you aiming to receive, and what amount would you like each gift to be?
• Donor acquisition: Donor acquisition refers to the number of new donors you secure over a given period. How many new donors would you like to engage throughout your fundraising initiative?
• Donor retention: Donor retention measures how many donors continue to give to your nonprofit year to year and campaign to campaign. What donor retention rate are you aiming for throughout your upcoming fundraising drive?

For each goal, identify any obstacles that may stand in your way of achieving it. These might be time constraints, budget, the nature of your organization or any number of potential roadblocks.

When you identify the potential obstacles, you can incorporate a strategy for tackling them into your overall fundraising plan.

If you are conducting a major campaign, this is the right time to conduct a feasibility study. Work with a third-party consultant like Aly Sterling Philanthropy who can help determine if your organization is ready to take on a large campaign, how to prepare and how much you can expect to raise. The feasibility study will survey your stakeholders to answer these questions:

• Is your cause compelling?
• Does the project or campaign make sense and solve an existing problem?
• Does the campaign have support from volunteer leadership and board members?
• Who are the potential campaign leaders?
• Are there any external concerns?
• Is now the right time for a campaign?
• How much should your organization expect to raise?

A feasibility study prepares you for your campaign by helping you develop realistic goals and proactively address obstacles. This process helps your organization build a stronger case for support and generate excitement for the campaign among donors, board members and volunteers.

Outlining a fundraising calendar is essential when developing your nonprofit’s fundraising plan.

Mark the start and end dates of your fundraising push, budget meetings, board meetings and more in this fundraising calendar.

Share this calendar across the different departments of your organization to keep everyone on the same page as you work through the tasks in your fundraising plan.

Having a detailed plan laid out in a calendar is especially important for large undertakings such as capital campaigns since these fundraising initiatives are split up into a series of phases, including the:

• Planning Phase
• Quiet Phase
• Kickoff Phase
• Public Phase
• Conclusion and Follow-Up Phase

Because each phase has a different timeline, noting them in your shared calendar makes your entire team aware of where you are in the process.

Remain flexible when necessary, but use the calendar to track the progress of your fundraising efforts.

When developing your fundraising plan, your nonprofit should create a gift range chart to identify the donations needed to achieve your fundraising goals. Gift range charts help nonprofits plan their efforts by breaking fundraising goals into smaller, more manageable benchmarks.

So, how do you make a gift range chart? Here’s what to do:

1. Separate your gift sizes. Specify different tiers of gifts and how many donations you’ll need to secure within each tier. The largest gift should make up 10-20% of your goal.
2. Add the number of prospects you should contact for each tier. Include more than you think you need to maximize your results. For example, if you need two donors to make the highest gift, reach out to four prospects.
3. Note the cumulative totals for each gift amount. This should be the final column of your chart.

With a gift range chart, your team can see:

• The size and number of gifts necessary to meet your goal.
• The number of prospects needed to supply these gifts.
• The total proportion of your fundraising goal accounted for in each gift level.
• The need for additional fundraising pushes to meet your overall goal, like partnering with a product fundraising company to sell different items to your supporters or launching a peer-to-peer initiative on social media.

The major gifts at the top of your chart will take longer to cultivate, so it’s extremely helpful to know how many prospects you’ll need to connect with upfront.

Remember, when you’re conducting a major fundraising push like a capital campaign, you’ll know you’ve reached the end of the quiet phase when you’ve obtained 50 to 70% of the gifts outlined on your gift range chart.

Armed with this information, your team can be strategic when choosing which prospects to engage with during your fundraising efforts. You can spend less time reaching out to supporters who aren’t needed to reach your fundraising total and ensure you get in touch with the high-value supporters necessary to help achieve your goals.

Prospects need to have a compelling reason to give to your organization. There is no better way to grab their attention than by creating a dynamic case for support.

Your case for support needs to be specific and actionable to reassure donors that your organization has a clear direction for using the requested funds.

Your case for support should include:

• A brief overview of your nonprofit, including purpose and impacts.
• Your specific need for private dollars and how they will be used.
• A call to action and options for giving and learning more—for example, link to an online giving page, provide a giving envelope, etc.
• Name and contact for more information.

This should be one of the first tasks your team works on so you can prepare all your marketing materials and donor information packages before the fundraising initiative kickoff. Create a branded case brochure that delivers prospective donors everything they need to know about the initiative in a professional, detailed package.

Also, community-specific appeals can highlight how a nonprofit impacts its community and how its local support network is integral to the organization’s success. Check out how Aly Sterling Philanthropy serves the Cleveland, Ohio area to get an idea of how a local consultant can impact your team’s fundraising approach. A consultant can help you articulate your needs and craft a donor-centric fundraising appeal that’s informed by the fundraising landscape of your local area.

Your team should ensure that there are no surprises throughout your fundraising efforts. The best way to be prepared? Diligently breaking down the logistics of your upcoming fundraising projects.

Using a planning chart, identify as much relevant information as you can relating to your projects, such as:

• Date, time, location and attendance.
• The cost of the project (payroll expenses, marketing budget, cost of the venue, etc.).
• Goals associated with your projects.

By taking the time to lay out this information, you can marry your budget with your calendar to ensure you stay on track financially throughout the entire process.

Plus, your team can more effectively delegate tasks among departments, set aside money in your budget for these projects and overcome potential roadblocks before they pose a real issue.

To successfully achieve your fundraising goals, your nonprofit should delegate fundraising activities across your organization. One way to optimize role delegation is to use a calendar matrix.

A calendar matrix helps team members in varying roles stay on top of their work by outlining fundraising activities by department.

In your calendar matrix, include logistical details to improve your team’s understanding of the big picture of your fundraising initiative. These details may include:

• Costs associated with events or projects.
• Anticipated fundraising income from each activity.
• Personnel required to carry out activities.
• Deadlines and benchmarks associated with each task.

Every team member should contribute to achieving your nonprofit’s fundraising goals. By using a calendar matrix, you help those in different departments see how their work fits into the big picture of your organization.