Whether you’re a fundraising professional, a PTA president, or a church pastor, you know that fundraising involves a lot of moving parts. From choosing the right fundraising idea to securing the best fundraising tools and preparing attention-grabbing marketing collateral, it can be challenging to manage it all.
In order to plan and execute effective fundraising campaigns, you need to develop a rock-solid fundraising strategy. A complete fundraising strategy will lay out a roadmap for you and your team to follow at every stage of the fundraising process, helping you avoid stress and stay organized and productive. As a result, you’ll raise more money and deepen relationships with your supporters!
A thorough and thoughtful strategy can make all the difference in the success of your campaigns—whether big or small. To help you start off on the right foot, we’ve put together this guide to designing a fundraising strategy. In it, we’ll cover these twelve steps:
- Review your present fundraising processes and past campaign performance.
- Determine guidelines and goals for your new campaign.
- Assess your strengths and resources.
- Conduct prospect research.
- Nail down your campaign’s strategic essentials.
- Choose and optimize your giving tools.
- Tell your organization’s story.
- Create targeted marketing materials.
- Make a plan for thanking and stewarding donors.
- Streamline your fundraising strategy into a campaign roadmap.
- Choose and track specific fundraising campaign KPIs.
- Determine future improvements for your fundraising strategy.
