You Can Change Board Conversations Around Philanthropy By Using the Fundraising Fitness Test
Guest Post by by Erik J. Daubert, MBA, ACFRE
We’re bringing Erik Daubert to Kansas City on Tuesday, September 11 as part of the 501(c) Success National Speaker Series. Erik has offered to interpret the results of area nonprofits that take the Fundraising Fitness Test. Learn more and register here.
I have worked with hundreds of nonprofit organizations who have used the Fundraising Fitness Test (FFT) and I am often asked, “How should I use the Fundraising Fitness Test with my board?” (Available for FREE at www.afpfep.org)
The answer is, “Effectively!”
At the Growth in Giving Initiative and the Fundraising Effectiveness Project, our goal is for fundraising to be more effective, and this is just as true with your board of directors as it is with your overall development program.
So, how can you be most effective at using information from the Fundraising Fitness Test with your board?
The first thing to decide is, “Which data points are right for our organization to share?” While this answer is not always clear at the onset, you should begin by analyzing your test results.
Once you have run the Fundraising Fitness Test and reviewed your results, you should ask some key questions:
- What opportunities stand out in our analysis as areas of opportunity? Some examples of this may be findings related to new donor acquisition, specific donor group retention strategies, Pareto Principle analysis and comprehension, Gain/Loss indicators and more. Having a good understanding of the information found in the report empowers you to have and lead strategic conversations about how to improve development performance going forward.
- What does leadership think about how things are going, based on information appropriately shared from the FFT? One of my favorite quotes in fundraising is, “The best idea is someone else’s!” By this, I mean, when a board chair or a CEO thinks something such as, “We need more major donors” or “We need to broaden our base of support of donors”, I almost always say, “You are right!” Because these ideas are “theirs”, you don’t have to do the heavy lifting of convincing them to embark on these efforts…that part of the work is already done! The FFT reveals all kinds of information in the results, and will, perhaps, spark important ideas for your Board on where to spend their energy! For example, by seeing your organization’s major donor acquisition, upgrades, retention rates, and more, you can have strategic conversations about how to best make more, good results happen in your future fundraising efforts. You can use your past performance as your “baseline” while also using information available at www.afpfep.org/reports to see what is happening in the broader nonprofit sector. Nonprofit organizations can compare against themselves (By comparing against previous year’s past performance) and also against other nonprofits in their sector and region of the country.
- What is the best use of board member engagement and/or development committee engagement at this time? If having board members do critical development work like solicitation, recognition, cultivation, stewardship or other activities is the goal, you can use results from the FFT to share why this is a good idea. By leveraging key data points such as “We are behind the national average for Human Services organizations on repeat donor retention” you can help to shape and guide key conversations around development program improvement.
- Determine which points you should highlight. Share some points to celebrate (they are there!) and also points to work on and improve.
- Share these findings with key leaders such as your CEO, Board Chair, Financial Development Committee Chair, or other key leader as appropriate to your organization. Have conversations about what is working and what can be improved. Talk strategically about what you might do to make the results better for next year.
- Mutually decide which points should be shared with the overall board. Be transparent both in the celebration of great work, and recognition of the work yet to be accomplished.
- Remember that while the Fundraising Effectiveness Project has information on how other nonprofits are doing with regard to these metrics, the best comparison of all is against your own organization! Look at how you did last year, two years ago and beyond, and look at what is working and what is not. These findings can be used as a basis for well- informed conversations – about personnel, budget, strategy, tactics, focus and more – to create a better future for your nonprofit organization and your financial development efforts.
We hope you will find these resources helpful and thank you for raising more funds to make the world a better place!
Written by Erik J. Daubert, MBA, ACFRE Chair, Growth in Giving Initiative/Fundraising Effectiveness Project Work Group. Erik serves as Faculty at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, LaGrange College, and Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in their various philanthropy programs, in addition to serving as an Affiliated Scholar with the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. He also works as the Director of Financial Development Education at the YMCA of the USA. Erik may be reached via email at daubert.erik@gmail.com
The Growth in Giving Initiative’s work to date is often recognized by our work on the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) which includes tools like the Fundraising Fitness Test. The FEP was launched in 2006 to help nonprofit organizations measure, compare, and maximize their annual growth in giving. The FEP is focused on “effectiveness” (maximizing growth in giving) rather than “efficiency” (minimizing costs). Check out FREE resources at www.afpfep.org
