Fundraising Primer for Nonprofit Leaders - Real-Life Guide to Hitting Fundraising Goals
Fundraising is a superpower. The ability to fundraise for a nonprofit organization can transform your confidence and your career.
But very few people love fundraising. The act of asking another person for money feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar. For many, fundraising ranks alongside public speaking as a “least favorite activity.”
Despite this, fundraising is essential for nonprofit leaders. I’ve coached scores of nonprofit leaders on how to turn fundraising from a chore to a joy (yes, I mean actual joy).
In this article, I’m going to share some of the biggest takeaways I teach my clients about how to love fundraising for nonprofits. We’ll cover everything from mindset to fundraising strategy and efficiency to build a fundraising team that sets you up for success.
So let’s dive right in!
Learn to Love Nonprofit Fundraising - and Unlock Your Career, Growth, and Joy
Fundraising is one of the most powerful and transferable skills you can have. Startup businesses, charities, and even private/public partnerships all need to raise money from stakeholders. Generating revenue is a nearly universal asset.
Thus, learning to love, instead of dread, fundraising for your nonprofit isn’t just good for your community or your organization. It’s good for YOU personally.
Fundraising Skills Make YOU More Valuable
Fundraising shares many similarities with sales. Whether you are a realtor, a car salesman, or selling giant contracts to multi-national corporations, the skills you need include persuasion, charisma, collateral materials, and persistence. Whether you are working for a venture capital firm or a nonprofit organization, fundraising involves inspiring people that their funds will have an impact.
Savvy fundraisers think carefully about how powerful their craft really is and how transferable it is to many other careers. Getting a stranger to give you money when they are getting nothing tangible in return is a superpower.
Most people are hired because they can solve a problem for the employer. Nearly every problem in a nonprofit organization can be solved with more revenue.
Want to retain your workers with better benefits and pay? Fundraise.
Want to achieve better results with better technology? Fundraise.
Want to have offices and furniture that you’re not embarrassed by? Fundraise.
The list goes on.
So if you become someone who knows how to bring in money, you solve TONS of problems, and your career will have many more options.
Change Your Mindset About Nonprofit Fundraising with This Simple Trick
Once you get good at nonprofit fundraising, it becomes less of a chore and more of a joy. I love nonprofit fundraising because moving resources to causes I care about is incredibly fulfilling.
In order to change your mindset about fundraising, I challenge you to think of it in an entirely new way.
Fundraising for nonprofit organizations is about “liberating” money. Money sitting in a person’s checking account is doing the world no good. But if I can persuade donors to move the money to my nonprofit organization’s checking account, we can, together, change the world.
I truly believe every job I was offered as an executive director (five in total) happened because I said in the interview, “I love fundraising. Everyone else hates it. If you want to grow, hire me.”
Every organization I have been at since I was 20 years old has grown while I was there, even though I was never hired as a fundraiser.
ATTN Nonprofit Leaders: You MUST Be the Top Fundraisers in Your Organization
As a nonprofit leader, it can be very tempting to delay or delegate fundraising. Don’t do it.
Nonprofit leaders, mainly founders and executive directors, can be and should be the top fundraisers in their organizations.
“But wait,” you might say. “I hired a development director, and they are the top fundraiser.”
Your development staff is a unifying force, making sure all revenue streams are functioning well, have a cohesive strategy, and that the details are implemented correctly. They do prospecting, stewardship, cultivation, renewals, and direct solicitations.
But the person who must be in the room for the big asks, the person whom the big donors want to meet, know, and talk to, should be the top staff leader: the executive director, CEO, or founder.
Your development team should be doing all the legwork and then scheduling calls, asks, house parties, and other events. Then, as executive director or CEO, you are the one who closes the deal and secures the gift.
Even if your nonprofit is structured so that other staff or board members are the top solicitors, the executive director, CEO, or founder should be creating the conditions for fundraising success. This includes setting a powerful vision, shaping the best arguments for donating, and cultivating relationships that open doors.
How to Fundraise Effectively and Efficiently for Your Nonprofit Organization
Fundraising for nonprofit organizations is a huge topic. There are literally thousands of tactics and techniques to learn about and choose from. With modern innovations in technology, data, and devices, fundraising can feel even more confusing and overwhelming.
When it comes to fundraising for nonprofit organizations, I always believe you should focus on the fundamentals, not the fads.
That’s why in this section, we’re covering three key areas that nonprofit leaders should focus on when it comes to nonprofit fundraising:
Prioritizing the most effective strategies (so your attention is not spread too thin)
Hiring a kick-ass fundraising team
Adding one powerful goal to your fundraising program.
Prioritize THESE Elements of Nonprofit Fundraising That Matter Most
Most nonprofit organizations in the US focus their fundraising efforts on a few areas, including individual gifts, grants, events, earned income, and some digital campaigns. In most nonprofits, the work of fundraising in each of these areas is a shared responsibility across staff leaders, board members, development staff, and consultants.
In this article, I’m not going into the mechanics of fundraising methods. Though I do have a huge library of fundraising courses and free resources that you can dive into.
Instead, I want to talk about what nonprofit leaders should focus on when it comes to fundraising. The topline takeaway is that nonprofit leaders should be spending their time on relationships with donors (of all kinds) and strategic decision-making.
Fundraising Strategy: Nonprofit Leaders’ Roles
Nonprofit leaders are hired for their ability to strategize and make smart decisions. For fundraising, that means nonprofit leaders should be assessing their organization's strengths, deciding when to say no, and ensuring that organizational assets and people are deployed in the most high-impact way.
There are many different ways to get started with a fundraising strategy for your nonprofit. For example, you could start by creating a fundraising plan with all the key elements included, like a case for support, a fundraising calendar, and clear owners for each activity required to carry out the full plan. Some leaders prefer to bring in fundraising consultants to help with this part of the strategy process.
If you work with me as a client, I’ve created a fundraising asset inventory that we’ll complete together. This tool helps me understand where you should prioritize your limited time and resources. If you’re interested in finding out more about how I could help your organization, grab a spot on my calendar for a free discovery call.
Foundation Fundraising: Nonprofit Leaders’ Roles
You or other key leaders at your nonprofit organization should build direct relationships with top program officers and leaders at your foundation funders. If you only have a relationship with one person at the Ford Foundation (just an example) and they leave the funder, you will be back at square one. Always be on the lookout for relationship-building opportunities with your biggest foundation supporters.
Corporate Partnerships: Nonprofit Leaders’ Roles
Just like foundations, nonprofit leaders should be building relationships with professionals in the marketing, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropic arms of corporate partners.
Major Donors: Nonprofit Leaders’ Roles
For many charities, the majority of money comes in from individual major gifts. Some of these individuals give through their foundation or company, but it always starts with people.
People give to people. Procter and Gamble doesn’t give to your charity. “Jane” at P&G is making the call. All giving is about relationships with people.
Hire a High-Performing Fundraising Team Designed for Your Nonprofit
One of the first hires for most nonprofits is either a fundraising professional or an executive director. This tells us a lot about how important it is to have dedicated professionals keeping the organization running and solvent.
But how do you know how to best use limited resources when hiring fundraising support?
In general, nonprofit leaders should prioritize hiring staff who can help grow the organization’s priority revenue streams. For example, if you are a nonprofit organization that wants to prioritize grant fundraising, you may only need a grant writer who can do research, prospecting, writing, and submission of proposals.
If you have at least three forms of revenue coming in, like events, grants, and a donor program, you may want to consider getting a development manager or even a development director. The bigger the title, the more you can expect to pay. You could also hire a fractional fundraiser, which is like hiring 30% of a development professional as a contractor rather than an employee.
As a nonprofit leader, you must decide the most strategic use of your dollars to hit your fundraising goals.
If you only need a low-level person for data entry and managing your CRM, don’t hire a development director. If you need someone who can connect all the dots in your overall organizational strategy and help all the development tactics be seamless, you will want a development director.
Remember, you get what you pay for. Consider paying for quality, and you’ll get more than you would with less experienced people. If you’re looking for specific guidance on hiring a development director or other senior fundraising role, we’ve got a great interview with a top search firm about the hiring process.
Tips for Evaluating and Hiring Nonprofit Fundraising Professionals
When it comes to building a fundraising team, the hiring process can be time-consuming, complex, and rife with bias. In fact, the interview process can be the most bias-prone phase. Many people interview well, but are not great workers. And many excellent workers may not have charisma or be quick on their feet during interviews.
Knowing how to assess talent is one of the most important skills a leader and hiring professional can have.
As a nonprofit leader, you must get crystal clear about what skills, experience, and temperament are needed to succeed as a fundraiser in your organization.
When you create the job posting, be clear about the “must-have” skills and experience, and the “would like to have” skills. Use a matrix to reduce bias in hiring. When I say “bias,” I am talking about all the unconscious preferences and pet peeves we carry. If you do hire a development director, use my development director hiring matrix.
Here are some fundamental questions to ask a development professional before hiring:
Can you describe your experience working with donor databases and CRMs? We need someone who can easily create tags, segments, lists, reports, and cull data for campaigns and grant reporting. Please explain your level of fluency in these tools.
Tell me about your experience doing research and prospecting for potential funders and donors. What exact steps do you take? What is your style/point of view/approach? How would you go about creating a list of likely targets for our organization?
How comfortable are you in directly asking for money face-to-face, by phone, or on video conferencing? Is it easy for you or stressful? Do you have a strong record of closing those gifts?
Tell me about fundraising materials and your own specific role in creating grant reports, flyers, annual reports, one-pagers, invites, case statements, or other materials that should succinctly and powerfully blend our brand with our goals?
How do you stay on top of details so you are meeting or beating deadlines, not missing any details required in grant submissions, designing fundraising events, or developing workflows so that you don’t end up with mistakes or last-minute work that could have been predicted?
These are just some of the questions to help you find your fundraising rockstar in the rough.
Add This ONE Groundbreaking Goal to Your Fundraising Strategy
We must end the poverty mindset that keeps nonprofits broke and burned out.
Even though nonprofit organizations may not pay the same as private sector equivalents, it is not a given that we have to pay poorly. The nonprofit sector can sometimes be more flexible with work-from-home options, a 4-day workweek, and giving executives employment contracts.
But the taboo topic of pay is something we must confront. We can raise more money with the express purpose of compensating nonprofit staff members well.
Fundraising to support ourselves and our teams with fair pay helps with recruiting and retaining top talent. It also creates a less stressful environment when organizations have reserves and when people can count on annual raises.
There is nothing illegal or unethical about good pay in nonprofits. The sector is shifting, and I have been screaming from the rooftops that we must change our past attitudes that the only way to achieve our missions is by extracting as much labor from people at the lowest price possible - thus repeating patterns of extractive capitalism. We can do better.
By raising more money, you can pay (within reason) your team and yourself better. No one should apologize for wanting to have a middle-class life when you dedicate your life to service.
Conclusion: Nonprofit Leaders Must Prioritize and Embrace Fundraising to Accomplish All Their Goals
You will reach your mission faster, experience more job satisfaction, and have a better-run nonprofit if you commit yourself to making fundraising a priority.
We are living in the richest nation on earth at the richest time in our history. The money is there. By having a board and leaders who prioritize fundraising, you can hire the right team, use the best strategy, and turbocharge your revenue goals.
If you’re interested in getting support to do just that, grab a slot on my calendar for a discovery call and let’s chat about how I can help you and your nonprofit.
