Evaluating your Fundraising Plan should be built into the Plan.
Always start with the data.
1. Review Your Monthly Fundraising Goal:
Look at your fundraising goals and the amount you hoped to raise by the end of March.
Ask these questions:
- Did you make it?
- If not, what will you adjust to reach your goals?
- How will this impact your organizational budget?
If you were successful, think about what worked and how you can use those successes with future activities.
2. Review Your Monthly Donor Goals:
In addition to your monetary goals, your plan should have goals for acquiring new donors and for moving current donors to higher levels of giving.
Are you achieving these goals?
If not, consider how can you adjust your activities, or the people involved, to achieve these goals next month.
3. Compare Your Progress To The Same Time Last Year:
Look at your fundraising efforts over the year covered by your plan and look at your results over the long-term.
Identify the most successful activities and appeals, and consider using those again.
Looking at your numbers over several years will provide information on your donor acquisition and moves management activities. It will reveal trends in your fundraising efforts. Keep doing the activities and events that consistently produce results. Where levels are static (no growth or even decline), consider using an alternate approach this year.
4. Compare Results by Appeal Type:
Examine the types of appeals: direct mail, electronic, face-to-face
Ask these questions:
- What’s working well and growing?
- What’s staying the same or reducing in results?
- How can you adjust?
When you build assessment and evaluation into all your fundraising plans, your fundraising activities become easier to manage, and produce more consistent results.
Network for the Good offers eight ways to do this at: https://www.networkforgood.com/nonprofitblog/eight-ways-measure-fundraising-success/
