|
Grant
Station
The Development Plan:
Foundation for Success
Part
I – Why
You Need a Development Plan
by Linda Lysakowski, ACFRE
President/CEO
CAPITAL
VENTURE
SM
|
|
How many times has a well meaning
board member or volunteer come to one of your board
meetings and offered this sage advice — “We
should do a (golf tournament, gala dinner dance,
art auction, walk-a-thon, etc.) because (Girl Scouts,
Boy Scouts, the hospital, etc.) did one and raised
$100,000”?
Before the meetings ends, the whole board or committee
is caught up in “event fever” and has
the invitations designed, the flowers ordered, and
the T-shirt sponsors listed. And there you are,
the new development officer, trying to meet grant
deadlines, straighten out the donor database, and
organize the other events that your organization
is currently conducting.
On the other hand, some organizations make the mistake
of relying solely on a grant writer to raise all
the money they need for programs and operations.
Given the fact that foundation grants account for
approximately 12% of all philanthropic giving in
the United States, this approach seems equally as
foolhardy as depending mainly on events to raise
money for the organization.
While both grants and events are important parts
of a well-rounded development program, neither should
be the sole method of fundraising used by nonprofits.
So, how does one handle board suggestions or (in
some cases) mandates regarding grant research? What
do you do when the board is bitten by the “event
bug”?
Often boards and volunteers do not realize that
events and grant research can be costly, not only
in terms of hard costs, but in “opportunity
costs.” In other words, what activities must
you give up in order to focus your limited time
on this proposed new activity? Your first reaction
to the board or development committee that suggests
either of these approaches should be, “Well,
let’s pull out our development plan and see
if this event/grant is included; if it’s not,
what other activities must we drop in order to concentrate
on this event/grant?” However, many organizations
do not have a development plan to reference. If
your organization is one of those, this scenario
is a good reason to develop a plan. In addition,
the development plan provides:
|
|
- a way to measure the success of
your development activities;
- assurance that your development
activities provide a balanced approach – in
other words, you avoid putting all your eggs in one
basket;
- a way to determine the appropriate
budget for the development office;
- assurance that you have the human
resources to implement the development activities
that are planned; and,
- timelines that allow the development
office to best utilize staff time.
|
Organizations
that have a development plan complete with timelines,
areas of responsibility, and budgets will be more successful
at keeping the staff, board, and volunteers focused on
the activities that are most cost-effective and produce
the best results.
What Should the Development Plan Include?
The development plan should start with an analysis
of current development activities. Some questions to ask: |
|
- What has been the history of this
activity; have results increased or decreased over
the years?
- What are the costs of this activity,
including hard costs, staff time, and opportunity
costs?
- Does your organization have the
human resources to manage this activity?
- Does your organization have the
technology needed to manage this activity?
- What are the subsidiary benefits
of this activity, i.e., if the activity is a cultivation
or awareness-raising event, should your organization
continue the activity even if it does not raise money?
- How do current trends affect this
activity?
- Are there ways your organization
can increase the effectiveness of this activity?
|
| Once
the current activities have been analyzed, decisions should
be made to focus more time and energy on them, drop them,
or keep them as they are.
A solid development plan lists detailed goals for each
activity. Goals do not always have to be monetary ones.
For example, goals might be to raise constituent participation
by 5% this year, to increase the size of the development
committee by four people, or to personally visit three
major donors each month. Without specific goals, it
will be impossible to measure success of the plan next
year. (We will discuss more on goal setting in a future
article.)
A development plan also helps the development office
justify its budget, provides measurement tools to be
used in performance appraisals, and provides donors
with a sense of confidence in the organization.
In Part II, we
will talk about who should be involved in the development
planning process.
|
|
|
Part
II |
|
|
|
