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12 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2007

Although fall isn’t the start of most organization’s fiscalyears, perhaps as a remnant of our school-year sched- ules, it is a time when many of us gear up after summer holidays — often with renewed energy — for the busy fall fundraising season. One task facing those of us with fiscal years beginning on January 1st is the preparation of our annual fundraising plan.

This article presents a systematic way of creating an annual fundraising plan for your organization. The focus of this process (like the focus of the Grassroots Fundraising Journal) is on strategies for building a base of individual donors in order to create a reliable and repeatable source of income.

The six-step planning process this worksheet takes you through will help you create a plan that is based on the realities of your organization’s funding base, infra- structure, and fundraising team. We recommend you include both board and staff in creating your plans, along with anyone else who is key to implementing the plan. When the people who are expected to carry out the

fundraising activities have participated in developing the plan, their commitment to it will be greater, boosting your chance of fundraising success.

Before calling together everyone you want to involve in creating the details, however, go through the steps here and gather whatever preliminary information will be needed to complete the plan. Then schedule a meeting of all the people who will be key to carrying it out, sending them a copy of the following worksheet pages with the information you have gathered.

You’ll see that Step 1 assumes you’ve already devel- oped your budget for the coming year, or at least a draft that will be completed once you’ve figured out exactly how much money you can realistically raise.

It takes some time to think through a fundraising plan in this amount of detail, but once you’ve done this planning, all your fundraising tasks are clear and ready to be implemented.

PRISCILLA HUNG & STEPHANIE ROTH ARE CO-DIRECTORS OF GIFT. MIMI HO

IS PROGRAM DIRECTOR OF THE ASIAN PACIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK.

GFJ

Fundraising Planning Worksheet A Tool for Creating Your Annual Fundraising Plan

S T E P 1 : G AT H E R T H E N U M B E R S A. What are your projected total expenses for the coming year? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ _________________

B. How much income, in total, is already committed toward your expenses? (Include only support that is already promised — individual donor pledges that have been made as well as government, corporate, or foundation grants that you are assured of) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ _________________

C. Subtract “B” from “A” for total amount to be raised: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ _________________

D. Fill out the following chart with your results from last year’s fundraising activities, your current year-to-date figures, and projections for the coming year. There will likely be some parts of the chart that you’ll leave blank at this stage in your planning process until you’ve completed more of this worksheet and can come back to them. The “sources” listed are examples only. Add ones that are relevant to your organization, such as house parties, online appeals, and so on. In the “expense” column for each activity, include in the cost of raising the money not only materials and other expenses but also staff time if possible.

BY STEPHANIE ROTH, MIMI HO AND PRISCILLA HUNG

STEP 2: ANALYZE PAST FUNDRAISING EFFORTS (Use separate sheets of paper for the following questions for each source.)

• For each of the sources of income in the chart in Step 1, note briefly what has worked well to bring in money that you want to do again.

• What hasn’t worked? How can you improve or modify these strategies to make them work?

• What are new opportunities coming up that you want to take advantage of, such as a special anniversary, a large organizing campaign, a new executive director?

(If you want to do a more detailed evaluation of your past fundraising efforts, including rate of response, what worked, and what should change, see “Evaluating Your Individual Donor Program” by Stephanie Roth in Grassroots Fundraising Journal, Vol. 20 #6, (Nov-Dec 2001), available at www.grassrootsfundraising.org.)

STEP 3: DETERMINE YOUR AVAILABLE RESOURCES Resources for fundraising include the people who will be involved in carrying out various fundraising tasks as well as money you’ll need to spend on staff time and materials. The expenses were included in Step 1. The following chart will help you brainstorm who you can recruit to your fundraising team.

13GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING JOURNAL • WWW.GRASSROOTSFUNDRAISING.ORG

SOURCE LAST YEAR’S LAST YEAR’S CURRENT YEAR’S CURRENT YEAR’S NEXT YEAR’S NEXT YEAR’S INCOME EXPENSE INCOME EXPENSE INCOME EXPENSE

Individual donors Total

• Membership dues • Events • Major Gifts • Mail solicitation • Other:

Sales / earned income Other sources:

• Government • Foundations • Corporations

TOTALS

If your organization’s budget-setting process has identified how much you plan to spend on fundraising, put that amount here as another resource you have available: $ _________________

Fundraising activities, current year-to-date figures, and projections for the coming year:

WHO? HOW MANY? WHAT COULD THEY DO?

Board members

Staff (including program staff)

Volunteers (including former board and staff, members, supporters)

Who else?

Expenses to complete this strategy:

14 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2007

EXPENSE $ AMOUNT NOTES

Staff time Consultant / Services Design Printing Postage Travel /Transportation Food Other: Other: TOTAL

STEP 4: STRATEGIES — WHAT WILL YOU DO? Now think about the fundraising strategies you’ll use to build support from individual donors — and in some cases, from small businesses or corporations — from the point of view of getting new donors, renewing current donors, and upgrading current donors.

Acquire new donors — List all the activities you will engage in to bring in new donors, such as direct mail appeals, e-mail outreach, house parties and other events, and individual donor asks:

1. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Renew current donors — List the activities you’ll engage in to ask your current supporters to give again. Typically, these include mail appeals, e-mail solicitations, and follow-up phone calls. They also include personal solicitation for larger gifts. Special events are also activities that donors often come to year after year.

1. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Upgrade current donors — Getting donors to consider larger gifts usually requires a more personal approach. The size of a major gift depends on your donor base. For a group with few or no donors, a major gift might be $100. For a group with several hundred donors or more who give varying amounts, $250, $500, or even $1,000 may be the threshold for a major gift.

1. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

STEP 5: HAMMER OUT THE DETAILS For each fundraising strategy that you plan to use, fill out a separate page with the following information:

Strategy: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Projected income (gross): $ ______________________

Total cost (use worksheet below): $ ______________________

Net income: $ ______________________

Other goals that this strategy will meet (such as get new donors, generate publicity, involve board members in fundraising): _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Number of staff and volunteers needed to carry out this strategy: ______________________

15GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING JOURNAL • WWW.GRASSROOTSFUNDRAISING.ORG

Activities / Steps to complete this strategy:

S T E P 6 : P U T I T A L L T O G E T H E R Finally, you can pull together all your fundraising planning in one chart that will show what fundraising activities you are doing, how much you intend to raise, from whom, when, who will do what, and how much it will cost. The following worksheet starts with a couple of sample activities to give you an idea of how to fill it out.

DATE TASK(S) WHO

STRATEGY

House Parties (total of 3)

Major Gift Campaign

GOALS (dollar amount and response)

$3,000 45 new donors

$20,000

TARGET AUDIENCE

Friends and family of board members

Current donors, $100 & up

DESCRIPTION

Small events in homes of board members (or other supporters)

Personal solicitation: phone or in-person

WHEN

March, May, October

October 15 – November 30

COST

$200 per party

Minimal: some postage and meeting costs

WHO

Staff: Help recruit hosts, help create invitations, thank yous, logistical support Board: Host part, invite own contacts, provide refreshments

Staff: Prepare materials, identify prospects, draft letter, conduct solicitations Board & other volunteers: Identify prospects, conduct solicitations

TOTAL INCOME: $ TOTAL EXPENSES: $