Happy October! Welcome to a month filled with beautiful fall foliage, pumpkin flavored everything, and building your 2015 budget. While I’d love to share pictures of pretty little Indiana leaves with you while sipping a pumpkin spice latte, let’s be real:
This is a blog for nonprofit pros.
We’re going to talk budget.
In fact, we’re going to dedicate most of the next month to talking about how fundraising and finance work hand-in-hand. We will be pairing some best practices blogs (like this one) with some technical blogs to help you fully utilize your eTapestry database for goal-setting, budgeting, and general financial awesomeness.
First up: Setting your fundraising goals
Why did we decide to write about goal-setting first?
Simple. If you allow your budget to drive your goals instead of your goals to drive your budget, you’re going to end up feeling like you’re chasing your tail. Setting smart goals for fundraising is a great way to help your organization understand what its service capacity is for next year but the process can be rough.
Here are three tips to help you set strong (and realistic) fundraising goals:
- Embrace queries and reports
The first step to setting strong fundraising goals is to know what you’ve done in the past. When I first started in fundraising I managed two specific revenue streams. The first had demonstrated huge growth potential. The second had been annually decreasing by about 10 percent for many years. However, when goals were set, the historical trends for each of these streams were completely ignored, which led to unachievable goals.
Run reports on each of your revenue streams: grants, major gifts, individual giving, events, etc. I like to look back at least three years, but five is ideal. Identify what years might be outliers (like this year for the ALS Foundation) and think about what next year could bring.
- Dream big, but not too big
No one dreams quite as big as the nonprofit pro. I can’t tell you how many times I had coworkers from our operations team come tell me about this amazing new project they could do, if only I could raise an extra [insert some amount of money here]. Sure, dreaming is a huge part of growing your organization and achieving your mission. But when dreams lead to unreachable fundraising goals, they leave you struggling to pay your electric bill in the fourth quarter.
Don’t let the expense lines in your budget drive your goals. Income needs to be considered before expenses. Otherwise, you end up with a fundraising goal that is way out of reach and an operations team that doesn’t trust you. Be ambitious, but be realistic.
- Know your team
Understanding what your fundraising team’s capacity for success is critical. I always loved trying new ideas, implementing new campaigns, and pushing limits for my organization’s fundraising. But, while trying new things is great, understanding what your team is already doing is critical to making goals. Is your annual giving manager already responsible for both your Thanksgiving and year-end campaign? Maybe don’t also ask her to manage a brand new Giving Tuesday program.
Understanding your team’s capacity and working right at the edge of that capacity can help you push boundaries, grow programs, and avoid fundraiser burnout.
Good luck as you work on your 2015 fundraising goals and budgets. And when you start feeling stressed, grab a pumpkin spice latte, your four-legged furry friend, and go for a walk in the crunchy October leaves.
