As we approach the start of a new year, it is time to set goals for 2010. Does the board understand how important their goal setting is to the success of next year’s fundraising? Is the board setting goals that will energize the donor base, referral sources, and staff and volunteers?
Is the board giving you all of the tools you need to raise funds? Is the board’s emphasis on growth just numbers or are the numbers meaningful to non-board members? Are the numbers and goals meaningful to the donors?
Think about an addiction treatment center. If their client success rate grows from 50% to 60% over the next 5 years, their reputation for success will grow. Client referrals will grow. The proven success will improve their grant competitiveness and funding will grow. For them client success is the critical growth factor. Growth in the other areas is a collateral benefit.
Client success is growth with a purpose. Increasing the number of clients served is just numbers. Client success inspires the staff and volunteers, provides donors with gratification, and meets a critical need in the community.
As you know, providing donors with a sense of gratification is important. The more good a donor does the more they want to do.
Each donor has a finite capacity to give. If they feel sufficient gratification from their gifts, they become passionate fundraisers. However, most donors are well below their capacity to give. Their have reached the willingness to give threshold and are below their capacity threshold. Raising their sense of gratification moves them beyond willingness toward capacity. When they start recruiting other donors you know they are at capacity. The gratification they experience gives them the passion to recruit others.
If the emphasis is on numbers of clients, the fundraising emphasis focuses on the number of people served by a gift. If the emphasis focuses on the success of a client, the fundraising emphasis focuses on the change in people’s lives. Knowing that a gift made a permanent change in someone’s life is gratifying.
As we approach the start of a new year, it is time to set goals for 2010. Is the board setting goals that will energize the donor base, referral sources, and staff and volunteers?
Does the board understand how important their goal setting is to the success of next year’s fundraising?
As always, if you want help contact us.
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