Being Intentional
I hate to drive. No, I hate the other people who drive. The ones who think that they can turn left from the right most lane (or right from the left most). Who think that stopping at stop signs is for fools. And especially for those who don’t use their turn signals!
Turn signals help other drivers understand your intentions.
Knowing intentions allows you to react accordingly. If I know that the fool on my left is going to swing in front of me to turn right, I can wait until they complete their maneuver! That way, I don’t crash into them or they into me, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that we won’t have to get our cars fixed.
Being intentional is a big part of fundraising success. Following a plan that fits your resources and your organization’s culture will allow you to raise the funds necessary to survive and thrive.
But too often, we just aren’t intentional about fundraising. We spend all our time setting up appointments or going to networking events without spending the time to plan for how we want these activities to turn out. We go to a mixer and know that we want to get people excited about our organization, but we have not clarity about what we will do next. Or we go out with a prospect and know that our eventual goal is to get a gift but we haven’t gotten clarity about what we want to happen for this meeting.
Oftentimes, we send out newsletters, appeals, impact reports and don’t consider why these might matter to the recipient. In other words we aren’t intentional about our fundraising.
So what is intentional fundraising?
iI is being thoughtful in your approach and considering not just the move you want to make, but what you want to make out of that move.
For each action you plan on taking, you need to have clarity of why you are taking this action. And you very much need to do this at two levels.—the big view and then the really granular one. Kind of like your strategic plan and then the work plan to meet your strategic goals
The first question, then, is where do you want this to ultimately end up?
For example, if you are getting together with an existing major donor who has recently made a pledge of $100,000 that she will complete over the next 5 years, what is your fundamental purpose
To finalize recognition for the gift
To ensure that that the pledge is honored over the five years
To move toward increasing the pledge in year 3 from $100,000 to $150,000 over the same period of time?
To get this donor on the board
Or you are sending out an appeal—who are you sending it to? Have your segmented your list so your ask resonates? Whatever type of fundraising you are doing, you must have clarity about your expectations and hopes.
Once you know what you long-range goal or goals is or are, you’re next step is to begin planning the steps you need to take to get there. At this point, you don’t need to have a complete map, but you should have a starting point, an ending point, and some planned moves in between. For major donors, that means a cultivation plan. For annual donors you want to have ways to reach out to those who didn’t respond to your first ask.
Once you’ve begun figuring out your journey, you need to think carefully and completely about each interaction as it is coming up
Intentional fundraising recognizes that fundraising is a process. Knowing you want to move Jim from point A to Point B is critical, but knowing how you will do that and what each step looks like is equally important. Jim's attended our gala and told one of our board members how much he enjoyed himself is a good thing, but jumping from that to asking for a gift may not be successful. So you develop a cultivation plan for Jim and know that the next step is to invite him to take a tour. You will be far more successful if you first plan how you will invite him, and then get very clear on what that tour will entail.
Knowing where you hope to ultimately end up (and yes, this will work if this is that “ultimate” meeting), get very specific about what will make you say “YES!” at the end of the meeting.