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Cultivate your fundraising strength

The board is strong fundraising. That’s good, right? Right.

Well, if it’s so good, we can just sit back and let the good times roll, right? Wrong.

Yes, it’s great having a board with a good track record in fundraising, but it is not time to sit back. In his book “The Nonprofit Fundraising Solution” Laurence A. Pagnoni recommends taking steps to maximize the benefits of fundraising expertise and to make sure they continue. Those steps are:

  • Campaign more. It’s fine to operate multiple campaigns at the same time.
  • Explore comprehensive giving with the organization’s top donors. The annual gift, the stretch gift and the planned gift should be defined and considered as a whole.
  • Review the organization’s development plan and address a longer period of growth over 10 to 25 years. This can be especially helpful in planned giving.
  • Execute more detailed business planning. This is more necessary than ever as work becomes more nuanced and intricate.
  • Go deeper into one dominant source of revenue and a minor source of revenue. This might be more lucrative than diversification.
  • Develop subcommittees that report to the main development committee. Subcommittees help apportion resources.
  • Ensure that strong connections are created between all the organization’s various funding tactics.
  • Make routine use of external consultants to infuse the organization with higher-level talent.