All too often well intentioned staff or board members will come to you, the seasoned fundraising professional asking for help securing funds for a need not originally in the strategic plan and more specifically, the integrated development plan.

These requests are usually for last minute programs, non-budgeted expenses, “silver bullet” fundraising events, and my personal favorite consultant fees… upfront payment for somebody promising to write grant requests.

When these requests come across my desk I’ll typically ask these questions:

Is the (insert urgent need here) worth alienating the donor most likely to fund the request? Not usually. If you have been properly cultivating and stewarding your donors you might have somebody interested in helping with urgent needs. If this is true, be sure to link the funding need to your mission and provide a clear case for support that resonates with your donor’s personal interests.

Why wasn’t this in our original budget? Usually last minute financial needs are not considered in the original budget because they are not essential to your ability to satisfy the organizational mission. If the emerging need is critical for organizational success, ask yourself (and the board) “what can we cut from the planned budget to fund this unplanned item?”

If we pay upfront for somebody to write grant requests, how do we keep them accountable for meeting performance benchmarks? You can’t. Staff performance should be built into the strategic plan and should be reviewed by the board at least quarterly. Adding staff or consultants to the payroll without clear performance expectations, and which are paid irrespective of performance sends a terrible message to the remainder of the organizational staff being held accountable by the strategic plan and proper board governance.

So when I’m asked “how long will it take you to raise the money?” I typically respond that it will take anywhere between four months and a year. This range varies depending on how the specific item relates to organizational mission, strategic plan, integrated development plan, budget priorities, board oversight, and donor linkage, ability and interest.

Just finished listening to the latest podcast from Fundraising is Beautiful entitled Back from the brink: How a sick organization got better. It is over twenty-six minutes, but the first ten is worth it.

In discussing how he addressed the dreaded death spiral of an ineffective fundraising strategy, Chris Doyle, President and CEO of American Leprosy Missions revealed that the problem was their disregard for the fundraising basics.

By “fundraising basics” of of course am referring to the donor cycle. In the interview Doyle states that, for his organization,”the donor cycle was neglected. [...] It was money and people passing through rather than a comprehensive donor plan which included the cultivation of these donor and retention of these donors.”

Don’t marginalize the importance of stewardship and cultivation.

In my experience Doyle is right on target about how organizations behave as they realize they are in a death spiral. “When organizations get into crisis… they run around looking for the silver bullet that’s going to solve all the problems rather than just stopping, stepping back and assessing ‘what are we doing wrong here and how do we fix that?’ rather than looking for some new idea or something that is going to fix things.” I have seen this trend more times than I care as organizations respond to decreased donor interest and support.

It’s not the economy, it’s how you treat donors that invest their philanthropy in your organization. If things are looking bad, focus on the mission. If your fund raising efforts don’t connect directly to the mission, they aren’t sustainable.

The ears of executive directors and fundraiser managers everywhere are burning. This article from onPhilanthropy.com is a must read for anybody that manages a development staff.

I have found that nonprofit leadership (when removed from frontlines fundraising) often times loses touch with the character qualities that define a productive fundraiser. These managers replace quality with quantity and have a deadfast focus on contacts and moves rather than the soft skill of making and maintaining sustainable donor relationships. Their focus tends to favor the here and now, meeting nearterm goals. This approach is to the detriment of a philanthropic culture that will outlast the tenure of current leadership.

I have yet to see a management system or measurement matrix that recognizes and rewards organizational pratices and policies that orientate the management structure as a donor-centered and mission-focused.