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

Chapter 6Setting Performance Targets

Okay, now you've got ways to impose those desirable boundaries or milestones on your pipeline, so it's easy to figure out what to do next with any particular opportunity. If the opportunity is here, then you want to push it to there, the next stage. Both Moves Management and our Donor Moves model can do that for you beautifully. But there's still something missing. Using the moves to manage a particular opportunity (i.e., to remember what to do next) is tactical or situational. It doesn't necessarily impact the health, speed, size, or shape of the pipeline.

The “situational” use of Donor Moves does not help you manage the process for continuous improvement. To gain continuous improvement, breakthroughs, and innovations, you must measure the frequency by which these opportunity stages are achieved and the lapsed time between stages. Measuring the data requires that you establish specific targets stating the results you're seeking.

The strategic use of Donor Moves provides the raw material for continuous improvement, largely by uncoupling Donor Moves data from Donor Moves anecdotes. Once the data has been separated from the anecdote or situation, we can work with the statistics produced by the data. Let me elaborate by drawing another comparison with the classic moves management model.

In Moves Management, every “map” is vertical. In other words, you sit down and create a map describing the moves to take to move Mrs. Moneybags' potential major ...