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

Chapter 4The Scorecard as a Management Control Device

When I began to develop Fundraising the SMART Way™, the first element of management control that came into focus was the opportunity pipeline. The critical importance of funder selection and ideal-funder profiles emerged only later, as we worked with more and more nonprofits. Without being consciously aware of it, I was using the proverbial LAI approach as a qualifying technique—you know, finding out if the prospect has the right Linkage (connection to the agency's staff or board), Ability (money), and Interest (in the mission and programs). It sounded an awful lot like the simplistic qualifying tactics I had learned in corporate sales where they called it MAN—does the prospect have the Money, Authority to spend the money, and the Need that justifies spending the money.

But over the years, I've become convinced that neither LAI nor MAN has the power to drive prospect/funder selection in any beneficial manner. LAI tells us only if the prospect has a connection to the agency and so on; it doesn't tell us if time invested in cultivating that prospect will produce a desirable return on effort (ROE). It also doesn't tell us what motivates the donor to take action, what kinds and frequency of recognition the donor prefers, or how likely it is that the donor will become and remain deeply engaged with our mission or programs. In fact, there's a risk in the LAI model that usually goes unspoken: if the donor is “linked” to the agency ...