One of the most important elements of your Funding Plan is parsing out your donors. In this work, there are really two key categories of definitions you need to pay attention to: giving frequency and giving level.

Core Messages are meant to be the backbone that gives all of your communications consistency of language and tone. You likely won’t use the document word-for-word, but key phrases will be used across all of your channels and mediums.

Core Messaging is just what it sounds like: the core, the foundation, of everything you want to and have to say. If you get these right, your communications become easier throughout the year, and you have a better chance of following the old “they need to hear it 7+ times to pay attention” rule. Without core messages, your funding plan falls flat because your donors will lack the clarity of message. And without that funding plan, your core messages would never see the light of day. It’s a hand-in-hand thing. Let’s build some strong messages out of all your hard planning work

This is actually a wonderful time to connect because they are finding themselves with a lot more free time than normal and it can be great to provide some socialization in a time of isolation.

Infographics are incredibly helpful tools to define your success metrics. Use them, for sure. They are better than a bullet-point fact sheet. But if you’re starting there, trying to fill a page, you’re starting at the wrong end.

This simple quadrant exercise can help you assess and plan the operational structure of your missional work, which is critical to ensure that your donor understands it and shares in the impact with you.

This can be an easy step to skip: defining the problem that you’re here to solve. It’s a little ironic, since this is the precise reason you got into this work to begin with and is the reason you get up every day. But it’s one of the four key questions you need to ask to know exactly what you do.

Too often, we just focus on the things we do. A brand new website. A constantly updated Facebook presence. An e-newsletter that is trackable, uses a lot of pictures, and links to your blog. And your phone calls happen at regular intervals. All in all, your audience sees the key highlights of your work and the faces of the people whose lives are changes with your work.

Too often, and it’s easy to see why. We feel the need to demonstrate that our effort is what makes something happen. When this program gets up and running, you’ll see kids’ lives changed. When I am on the field, things will change.

True, fundraising is about the tactics. It’s about the work and the calculations and the emails and the social media and mail pieces. But it’s mostly about the relationship. If you don’t have that, the tactics hardly matter.

All in one room, for a day or more, to take the assessment to the next level. Does it sound daunting? That’s a natural response. And so are the thoughts of, “I’m so excited about this!” Sometimes, the two lie in tension with one another. And that’s the perfect spot for a Strategy Day when it’s time to set concentrated time apart to examine the learning from assessment and begin to formulate a path forward. So gather the reflections, spreadsheets, a whiteboard, and the troops, and dedicate the time it takes to start a plan for a maximized fundraising program.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road on your assessment efforts. There’s a myriad of tools out there, but here are a few of our favorites and why we like to use them.

With the right mindset in place, it’s time to get a plan in place. We’ll look at helpful exercises later, but for now, let’s talk about the kinds of questions you need to ask.

So you’re thinking it’s time to assess what’s working and what’s not when it comes to fundraising. Welcome to step 1: assessment. Getting a good read on your current situation is critical to making sure you can chart the best path forward, and it takes both the right mindset, questions and action steps. Let’s start.

I want to talk to you today about the word "Consider." For the past five years I've been coaching hundreds of missionaries around writing an effective invitation to partner and the word that I hear most often when they're drafting theirs, is consider. Let me give you an example.

I've got a tip for you. This one has to do with software and this software has saved me a lot of time.

If you are an organization that would like to sign up one of your missionary partners for Tailored Fundraising

Been raising funds for a long time and feel like you’ve plateaued? Feeling stuck and discouraged? What is a short term goal that you can set just for the next week or two weeks, that's realistic but it's also faith stretching?