For some of us, the dawn of a new year represents a clean slate, a fresh start, perhaps another opportunity to get going on all of the resolutions we set aside last year. For those of us in development and leadership, a new calendar year also signifies that it’s time to determine a strategy for the year ahead.
Oftentimes, when we sit down with leaders for their first-of-the-year planning meeting, we’ve noticed many leaders don’t know exactly where to start. They might fixate on their total numbers from the previous calendar year. Or they jump right into planning for all of the projects they hope to fund over the year, fueled by the desire to get going and accomplish something quickly.
If this is you, I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told these leaders over the years: save your calendar for last. This isn’t the best use of your time and energy. Instead, I invite you to walk through a simple, purposeful four-step process that will end with your calendar bringing all of it together. Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Scorecarding
First things first: know your numbers. It’s difficult to plan well for a giving year if you don’t know your previous numbers and trends over the previous years. “Knowing the numbers” might sound overwhelming. You might be wondering what numbers you need to know. I have one word for you: scorecard. Your scorecard is a collection of key data related to development for the calendar year (not fiscal year) that will inform your new giving goals for the upcoming year. If you haven’t started the process of scorecarding, I encourage you to begin with the most important numbers and build from there:
- Total giving year-to-date: This means topline revenue from all giving sources— your most important number because it reflects the outcome of development. We want to see this number go up each year (unless, of course, there’s an economically-driven issue in our country that we can’t do anything about). If it’s not going up every year, we need to ask why and figure out a plan to fix this.
- Number of total pledges or commitments that are open and in place and total pledge amount: A commitment entails someone saying, “I’m going to commit to giving X dollars this year,” or, “I’m going to commit to giving X dollars every year for three years.” This number is a vital health indicator of your development work and efforts. People typically make long-term giving commitments because you’ve asked them to be a part of a longer-term plan, given them a clear vision to grab hold of, and done a great job thanking them, reporting to them, and following up with them along the way. It doesn’t matter so much what the total pledge amount is; it matters that this number increases each year because, simply put, it won’t grow by accident. This is indicative of healthy development growth and that you’re building trust with donors.
- Number of total monthly giving commitments in place and total monthly giving: Know the expected dollar amount each from monthly givers and find a way to identify who these people are. How many of them do you have and is this number growing?
All the other numbers you might include on your scorecard support these most important numbers. Other data you can begin collecting:
- Total number of donors
- Number of donors retained
- Number of donors regained
- Number of new donors
- Gift sizes
- How many decreased giving
- How many increased giving
- And more.
It takes a couple of years to do scorecarding well, so if you’re just starting out, give yourself time and start with simplicity. The scorecard is more helpful as you compare year to year, and it takes time to gather accurate numbers. When you’re doing it well, every number has a list behind it (see Step 3). While the number itself is insightful, the list will drive your decisions. No matter what degree you’re implementing the scorecard, start here for your yearly planning. Know your numbers and let the numbers help frame your message.
Step 2: Update Your Message
Most organizations, when they work on planning, jump straight to the projects they want to accomplish during the year. Projects are great and can certainly attract individuals specifically passionate about a particular endeavor. But a new awning, building, or staff member doesn’t grow a healthy, giving community that’s committed to fueling the future of your organization’s long-term vision.
Instead of honing in on specific projects, start by compiling the major components of your organization’s development in summary form, including:
- Your vision and profile (a picture of your vision or a story)
- How you got here (key milestones in your history)
- What you’re working toward (your strategy)
- The giving-driven steps (what’s complete and what’s next)
- Your progress to-date (what’s been given so far)
- Your immediate focus (your near-term giving milestone)
- A specific project (something you can share if needed)
Here’s what happens when you take the time to get this down on paper: You make a plan. You gain clarity for your vision. You establish a way to talk about your history. You map out a clear strategy. You identify a simple way of articulating what you’re working towards, including strategic priorities and giving-driven steps. And you might identify a near-term or specific project to point someone toward, if needed.
Powerful message planning enables you to articulate all of these details—in one page or five, in five minutes or a couple of hours.
This tells your donors—current or potential—that you have a plan, that you’ve identified steps that move you forward, that you’ve made progress to date, and that you’ve identified the near-term focus. These are what we call your Core Four Goals—numbers you need to have a pulse on every week of the upcoming year:
- Your long-term giving goal (within 3-5 years)
- Your progress to-date toward this long-term goal
- Your goal for giving this calendar year (by December 31st)
- Your near-term milestone that you’re working towards (end of June or July)
With your updated message in hand, you’re ready to turn your attention to your givers.
Step 3: Prospect Planning
Just the other day, my wife and I received a letter from a non-profit we were once connected to—a long, long time ago. She turned to me and cried, “Why, oh why, are we still on these people’s list?!” After years of not responding and kindly communicating that, although we believed their work to be valuable, we weren’t prioritizing it in our giving, we were still getting mail from them—eight years later! This organization would be wise to spend some time on prospect planning, release us from their list, and put their energies elsewhere.
To avoid being these guys, take the time at the beginning of your year to simplify your prospect planning with these three action items:
- Make your four master lists: donors to retain, regain, recruit, and non-donors—these lists correlate with your scorecarding numbers.
- Select the 100-200 people you’ll invest a disproportionate amount of time, energy, and focus into (face-to-face, ideally). You only have so much energy, time, and staff. And you can only really do extraordinary work and grow significant giving with 100-200 prospects at a time. Prioritize these people at the beginning of the year using the four master lists to ensure you intentionally invest time in the right places.
- Make sure everyone on your team, even if it’s just you, has a selected prospect list to shepherd and a defined follow-up list (people they’ve already met with or talked to). Get other team members involved and make sure each of them have a follow-up list.
You know your numbers. You’ve updated your message accordingly. You’ve spent some time organizing your donor lists. Next, it’s finally time to turn to your calendar.
Step 4: Calendar Planning
Armed with your numbers, mission communication strategy, Core Four Goals, and donor lists, now you can truly strategically map out your calendar year. Where each donor is on their journey should inform your calendar planning, which is the reason why we save this step for last. The easiest way to map out your year is to break down the donor development calendar into two six-month cycles of the donor journey: thanking, reporting, asking, following up.
Here’s an idea of what this might look like:
January-March: thanking and reporting
April: asking
May-July: follow up
August-September: thanking and reporting
October: asking
November-December: follow up
This isn’t rigid or written in stone, but notice there’s a predictable rhythm to this. You can make your face-to-face, small group, and large group plans in light of this cadence. If you have events planned for the end of March, you need to think about who you need to thank and share reports with in advance of those events. Every step of the way, you need to consider where your donors are on this journey and where you want them to be when you make the ask..
Begin With The End
We talk often about starting with the end in mind. In other words, establish a goal and vision for your development plan and work backwards. Another way to think about this is start big and get smaller.
When you start with your numbers, you take a big picture view of your development plan. Where were you this past year? Where do you want to be this next year? Then, you update your message to support what’s been done and where you’re headed. You make a plan for who you’re going to share this message with and then decide on exactly how you’ll engage donors over the course of the year, another reason why saving the calendar for the last is more efficient and strategic.
At the end of this process, you can be confident that you have a plan that aligns with your long-term vision and goals for the year. Everything you’ve mapped out is a priority. It all has purpose. And it will all move you towards growth and success. Now, you’re equipped to embrace this year as a new beginning with a purposeful plan.
To re-cap, this is your checklist of planning essentials:
- Apply a disciplined process of reinvention
- Complete a yearly giving scorecard
- Update your message
- Clarify your Core Four Goals
- Update your master prospect list
- Identify 100-200 focus individuals
- Prepare to implement the donor journey
- Use a development communications timeline
- Use your weekly scorecard to focus on lead indicators for giving
We’d love to help you solidify a development plan for this upcoming year. If you need more information or help along the way, please reach out!