Smooth, flat rocks thrown at the right angle with a quick wrist flick will hop across the water’s surface rather than quickly sink to the bottom. 

It doesn’t take a bodybuilder to accomplish this physics-bending feat; it just takes a patient and practiced handler with good form. 

Momentum, once harnessed, is no easy thing to stop.

Having honed your development message and focused your attention on the numbers that matter most–your Core Four, total giving, and long-term commitments, you’re ready for action!

What are your skipping stones? 

Prospect planning 

You have to budget your capacity. You do so by selecting a strategy for each person.

Prospect planning is more than the list of recruits to retain and regain. It’s thinking about the individuals, families, and households involved and saying, “Okay, who are we selecting face-to-face? Who are we selecting for a small group? Who are we selecting for a large group?” 

All this comes together in the form of an actual timeline.

Donor recruiting

I encourage people in any organization to evaluate this on a rolling three-year basis. 

I wouldn’t tackle that in any singular year. Instead, as a leadership team, plan for how you will increase the number of new donors in the next three years.

The energy required to attract donors quickly is almost always wasted energy because it’s easy to come and easy to go. 

Any data you look at on donor retention says this: the quicker it is to recruit, the harder it is to retain.

Regains, for some reason, respond well to small groups that are not fundraising events. 

Consider opening the conversation with, “We’re bringing together people who supported and have been involved in the past just to thank you and help you see what God has done building on your work.”

There’s something safe about wondering who else, aside from oneself who gave in the past, will be there. 

There are always more regains than retains, so you have a larger audience to invite and use that replicate process, too. Bonus? You can become consistent with this without the sheer number of one-to-one meetings. 

Reinvention

My dad always said if it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t get funded.

Reinvent yourself every year with a process. Add capacity before you add people.

So, when planning, go the extra mile and challenge yourself by simplifying your work.

How are you going to delegate some things? 

How are you going to eliminate some things and improve? 

Are you going to grow your capacity? 

Are you using your model week as you should? 

Are you moving the needle on this weekly? 

Our culture works against the power of the week right now. People are so distracted and interrupted, and there’s always something to react to, that we lose potential power.

Reinvention means you add capacity before you add people.

You must be open and willing to add people and capacity as you grow. But before we do that, we always want to apply this discipline of reinvention.

I define reinvention and innovation for our team as the process of making intentional decisions to eliminate, reduce, simplify, automate, or create work that exponentially increases our effectiveness, which you could call results, and efficiency, which you could label capacity. 

Ask your team members to list anything they do closest to the work of the people you serve. Instead of ‘Here’s your job description,’ I want you to list what you do. 

Then, list the work you do that impacts our systems internally. Who’s closest to the people we serve? What is closest to creating new connections with donors? (What’s closest to the internal systems is a way to think about that.) 

What do I do daily, weekly, and monthly for all these projects? What technology or tools do I use? Which of these is automated? Which should I be doing more of? What is a waste of time? What items on my list are driving me nuts?

List ten things to eliminate, and rank them from easiest to most painful. It’s incredible how often and strongly people believe the solution is more people. 

They will type up a job description and begin the hiring process but skip over all of the lists and brainstorming we just discussed, which assumes everyone is doing exactly what they should this year, which, for most people, is a repeat of last year.

You will keep moving forward, whichever stone you choose as your first actionable skip. Report back via text and let the Coaches at Development and Leadership Coaching know which tool propels your leadership and ministry from planning to acting.