Fundraising the SMART Way: Predictable, Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity, + Website

Fundraising the SMART Way: Predictable, Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity, + Website

by Ellen Bristol
Released March 2014
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118640180

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Book description

Strategic planning and tactical fundraising can maximize income and minimize costs

Fundraising is the lifeblood of the nonprofit, and, successful or otherwise, determines the organization's ability to provide for the group it serves. Every organization attempts to lower overhead while increasing donations, but this often proves to be impossible within existing frameworks. Effective fundraising - increasing donations while engaging more donors and lowering costs - requires a sound strategy that turns major roadblocks into minor hurdles that are easily overcome. It's not about trying harder, it's about working smarter.

Fundraising the SMART Way provides the groundwork for a complete revamp of organizational fundraising systems. Author Ellen Bristol applies twenty years of corporate sales experience and eighteen years in fund development consultation to the problem of inefficient fundraising. Bristol turns her extensive sales expertise toward the perspective of "selling" an organization to potential donors, increasing the donor pool, and lowering the cost of fundraising. The book details the questions every nonprofit should be asking to maximize the effectiveness of fundraising efforts, and encourages systematic strategy development by zeroing in on key factors such as:

  • Organizational goals, strengths, and weaknesses

  • Donor actions and motivations

  • Workload management and results QA

  • Opportunity evaluation and organizational action

    • The book outlines clear, concrete, actionable steps that can be immediately implemented to escalate income growth. Effective fundraising is sustainable, consistent, and on-target. It must exceed current need and expand to fill future need. Fundraising the SMART Way represents a true breakthrough in that it lays a foundation for true systemic overhaul, and can be the catalyst for the growth of any nonprofit.

    Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Series Page
    3. Title Page
    4. Copyright
    5. Dedication
    6. Preface
    7. Acknowledgments
    8. Introduction: Why We Need a Fundraising Revolution
    9. Part I: Which Funders Are “Right” for You?
      1. Chapter 1: The Context for Fund Development
        1. What Should It Cost to Achieve Your Mission?
        2. Analyzing the True Cost of Your Mission
        3. Your Opportunity Risk Factor: The Real Value of Your Time
        4. What Makes Your Best Funders “Best”?
        5. Your Unique Value Proposition: The Value in Value-Added
        6. What We Covered
        7. What You Can Do
      2. Chapter 2: Funder Selection Strategies
        1. Why Your Best Funders Support You
        2. The Exchange of Value
        3. Applying the Exchange of Value
        4. What We Covered
        5. What You Can Do
      3. Chapter 3: Building Your SMART Way Prospect Scorecard
        1. Nine Scorecard Principles
        2. Crafting Scorecard Statements
        3. Scoring the Prospect
        4. Scorecard as Management Control
        5. What We Covered
        6. What You Can Do
      4. Chapter 4: The Scorecard as a Management Control Device
        1. Using the Scorecard to Manage the Fundraising Process
        2. Validating the Scorecard
        3. The Suggested Probing Questions
        4. Developing Your Questions
        5. Field-Test the Scorecard
        6. The Control Part
        7. What We Covered
        8. What You Can Do
    10. Part II: Defining the Fund Development Process
      1. Chapter 5: The Fund Development Pipeline
        1. Pipeline Basics
        2. The SMART Way Pipeline Revolution
        3. Process Management for Nonprofits: A Primer
        4. Moves Management versus the SMART Way
        5. Eliminate Process Boundaries or Add Them?
        6. Development Drivers
        7. What We Covered
        8. What You Can Do
      2. Chapter 6: Setting Performance Targets
        1. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Continuous Improvement
        2. Assigning Targets
        3. Good Targets, Bad Targets
        4. Move Zero Targets
        5. Performance Targets and the SMART Way Scorecard
        6. Targets for Development Drivers
        7. What We Covered
        8. What You Can Do
    11. Part III: Implementing Fundraising the Smart Way
      1. Chapter 7: Reporting and Leading for Better Results
        1. Leadership 101
        2. First, There is a Mountain…
        3. “Vertical” versus “Horizontal” Reporting
        4. SMART Way Reports
        5. Enlightened Leadership Practices
        6. Tracking Donor Move Targets
        7. Reading the Story the Numbers Tell You
        8. What We Covered
        9. What You Can Do
      2. Chapter 8: The Breakthrough: Continuous Improvement
        1. The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle
        2. Root-Cause Analysis Done Right
        3. What We Covered
        4. What You Can Do
      3. Chapter 9: Applying SMART Way Methods to Mass-Market Fundraising
        1. Selling to Major Accounts versus Transactional Selling
        2. The Majors versus the Minors
        3. To Find Donors, Stop Looking
        4. Mass-Market and Target-Market Fundraising
        5. SMART Way Management Controls
        6. What We Covered
        7. What You Can Do
      4. Chapter 10: Radical Thinking about the Fundraising Revolution
        1. Fundraising and the Russian Revolution
        2. Adopting the Mind-set of Potential
        3. Revolutionizing the Way We Manage Performance
        4. Implications for Information Technology
        5. Implications for the Governing Board
        6. Parting Remarks
    12. About the Author
    13. About the Companion Website
    14. Index
    15. End User License Agreement

    Product information

    • Title: Fundraising the SMART Way: Predictable, Consistent Income Growth for Your Charity, + Website
    • Author(s): Ellen Bristol
    • Release date: March 2014
    • Publisher(s): Wiley
    • ISBN: 9781118640180