Just as you might need a map before you set out on a road trip or a shopping list to prepare for a grocery run, developing a fundraising plan for your organization keeps you on the right path to reaching your fundraising goals—and most nonprofits know it.
In fact, over half the nonprofits surveyed by NonprofitPRO have committed to outlining an in-depth fundraising strategic plan every year. If you’re looking to improve an existing plan or create an entirely new one to guide your team, we’ve got you covered. In this guide, we’ll discuss:
Whether you’re preparing for a capital campaign or opening up new giving opportunities to donors, building a plan ensures you know exactly what you have to do to succeed.
What Is a Fundraising Plan?
A fundraising plan, also known as a nonprofit development plan, is a detailed document that specifies the goals, timeline, budget, and strategies involved in your organization’s fundraising activities. Any organization that engages in fundraising, from associations to educational institutions, can benefit from creating one of these plans.
Fundraising plans can cover a single or multiple years of fundraising activity. By developing a fundraising plan that aligns with your organization’s mission and builds upon your past efforts, you can set your team up to strengthen donor relationships and raise more over time.
Why Do You Need a Nonprofit Development Plan?
While assembling a thorough fundraising plan can seem like one more task on your extensive to-do list, the benefits are well worth the effort. A nonprofit development plan allows you to:
Better align key stakeholders. Collaboration is essential for successful fundraising. Having a thoughtful plan in place ensures your board, other volunteer leaders, senior staff, and your development team are all on the same page regarding how to approach donors and nurture reliable sources of funding for your organization.
Enhance resource allocation. Nonprofits strive to use their limited resources to generate the greatest impact possible in their communities. A fundraising plan helps you zero in on which activities and areas deserve the most time, attention, and budget support to engage your donors and meet your fundraising goals.
Improve impact reporting. By establishing clear fundraising goals and measuring your progress toward them, your organization can more effectively communicate its results with donors and other community members. Doing so can increase trust and solidify your reputation as a reliable, outcomes-driven organization worthy of support.
To maintain your long-term success and sustainability, your organization must cultivate diverse revenue streams you can count on. Compiling your goals, objectives, and strategies for individual, corporate, and foundation fundraising activities into one document provides stakeholders with confidence in your approach to achieving them.
How to Create a Fundraising Plan: 5 Steps
No matter your organization’s size or purpose, you can follow these basic steps to produce a thorough fundraising plan that will help ensure success from start to finish:
1. Conduct a development assessment.
It’s often helpful to engage an outside consulting firm with experience working with organizations like yours to help you examine your current processes and operations and fully understand your challenges and opportunities. You can expect the process to look something like this:
Internal Review
First, the consultant must take the time to understand your organization’s mission, operations, and existing fundraising strategies. To provide them with the context they need, you’ll want to share materials on:
Leadership and Board | Current/Past Capital Campaigns |
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Development Staffing | Marketing/Communications |
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Annual Giving | Finances and Operations |
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Major Gifts/Planned Giving | |
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The consultant will then interview key fundraising leaders and staff members at your organization to better understand your organization’s history and culture.
Case for Support Development
To ensure that you’re effectively communicating your organization’s ‘why’ to donors and prospects, the consultant will test your case for support through a series of stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and segmented surveys.
These conversations will yield important perspectives on program interest as well as donor preferences on recognition, communication, and various solicitation methodologies. In addition to helping refine the case for support during the development plan’s implementation, this process will serve to further engage all constituents who participate in it.
Comparative Analysis of Peer Organizations
To help you develop the most effective fundraising strategies, the consultant should look into similar organizations to identify their strengths and weaknesses. With your input, the consultant will research your peers’ websites and recent IRS Form 990s and conduct informational interviews with representatives of each organization for a deeper analysis.
Doing all this will allow you to benchmark your fundraising performance and efficiency in the following areas:
Organizational Revenue
Sources of Philanthropy
Fundraising Costs
Board/Volunteer Engagement
Annual Giving
Major Gifts/Capital Campaigns/Planned Giving
Special Events
Marketing/Communications
Donor Stewardship
Transparency (i.e., GuideStar/Charity Navigator ratings)
Using these gathered insights, your consultant can then recommend the optimal staffing and configuration of your fundraising program.
Prospect Research
Through internal interviews and independent research, your consultant can develop a top prospect list of:
Individuals. The Sheridan Group, for instance, produces in-depth profiles for your top 15 individual prospects guided by their giving history and screening services from WealthEngine. From there, we’ll identify clear cultivation strategies for approaching these prospects.
Corporations/Industry Partners. Your consultant should review your current corporate partners and internal vendors to propose additional support opportunities. At The Sheridan Group, we’ll also help you forge new partnerships with companies that have demonstrated an interest in your organization or similar causes.
Foundations. The Sheridan Group team taps into the full capabilities of Candid’s Foundation Directory to pinpoint and research mission-appropriate foundations with grant priorities that align with your fundraising goals.
Once the development assessment is complete, you should receive a comprehensive report of the consultant’s findings and recommendations.
Beyond the primary report, The Sheridan Group provides an electronic resource notebook containing prospect profiles and samples of fundraising communications, solicitation appeals, donor recognition, and planned giving programs to jumpstart your strategy. As a full-service fundraising consulting firm that has served more than 250 clients in all sectors of the nonprofit world, we know what it takes to set you up for fundraising success.
For example, when the Ohio CPA Foundation reached out to The Sheridan Group for a full development assessment, we helped them implement a plan that multiplied their direct mail revenue, secured three major gift commitments (including a $50,000 pledge), and set a planned giving program in motion. Additionally, we supported the IFMA Foundation in developing a plan that allowed them to secure their largest corporate commitment ($150,000) to date.
2. Identify your fundraising goals and target audience.
While we recommend partnering with a consultant to complete your fundraising plan, it can be helpful to understand what to expect in each step of the process. The backbone of any nonprofit development plan will be your fundraising goals. Use the SMART framework to define clear, actionable goals for your team:
Specific. Aim for specific numbers to serve as a beacon your organization can work toward. Rather than simply stating you’d like to “raise more from individual donations,” you could instead plan to “increase individual donations by 20%.”
Measurable. Whether you’re trying to increase fundraising event engagement or acquire new major donors, agree on key metrics you’ll use to measure your performance. For example, you might use your major donor acquisition rate to evaluate the effectiveness of your cultivation strategies.
Achievable. Look at your current staff resources, time, and budget to outline ambitious but realistic goals. Suppose you’ve just launched a planned giving program, for instance. Rather than planning to acquire 10 new legacy donors in the next three months, you might give your team a year to identify prospects and build the relationships necessary to secure legacy commitments from them.
Relevant. You should always tie your fundraising goals back to your organization’s mission. Let’s say your organization, which focuses on mental health, plans to raise funds through a challenge gift timed with Giving Tuesday. You could connect this fundraising initiative to your mission by highlighting how these special year-end gifts will allow you to run your helplines and support groups during the holiday season—a time of heightened need.
Time-based. Your fundraising goals must have a clear deadline to promote urgency and initiative across your team. By knowing when you should expect to accomplish each goal, you can better assess your progress along the way and make adjustments as needed.
While there are plenty of promising fundraising strategies out there, the most ideal options for your organization depend on the donors you’re trying to reach. Examine your database to get a better sense of donors’ giving capacities and affinity for your cause. With these insights, you can set more realistic goals and craft more relevant fundraising appeals.
3. Outline your fundraising strategies.
Your fundraising plan should detail the various ways you intend to raise funds for your organization. For instance, you can take this time to establish how you’ll approach:
Annual Giving. Set a specific fundraising target for the year, craft segmented donor appeals, and optimize your website to streamline the giving process.
Major Giving. Establish guidelines and expectations for interacting with each major donor prospect, from phone calls to in-person meetings. Come up with any additional strategies to inspire giving, such as proposing challenge gifts.
Planned Giving. Plan educational materials to raise awareness about planned giving opportunities, create a legacy society to build a sense of community and appreciation, and home in on loyal donors who may be ideal prospects for this type of giving.
Recurring Giving. Add a clear recurring giving option to your donation page with suggested giving amounts. Then, create a name for your program to make donors feel like they’re joining a close-knit group of individuals committed to your cause.
Corporate Philanthropy. According to Double the Donation, the top 10 corporations alone donate $2 billion annually to nonprofits, and 94% of major U.S. corporations plan to increase or maintain their corporate giving over the next few years. Unlock more of these opportunities by sharing information about matching gifts, volunteer grants, and other programs with your supporters.
Foundation Grants. Identify and prioritize grant-making foundations that are aligned with your organization’s mission and program initiatives. Then, establish specific cultivation strategies and pursue these grants accordingly.
Fundraising Events. Assemble an engaging fundraising calendar with various in-person, hybrid, and virtual event ideas. Whether you plan an auction or a walk-a-thon, decide how you’ll secure corporate sponsorships, recruit volunteers, and spread the word to potential attendees.
Beyond determining how you’ll raise funds from donors, think about how you’ll retain their support. What stewardship strategies will you employ? For example, how will you recognize and thank donors throughout the year? What involvement opportunities can you develop to keep donors engaged with your organization for the long term?
4. Map out your marketing activities.
Once you have an array of fundraising strategies at your disposal, it’s essential to figure out how you’ll encourage donors to participate and contribute. Plan marketing activities that will keep your organization at the top of donors’ minds. To maximize your reach, consider how you’ll use the following channels:
Website. Your organization’s website is a central resource for anyone who wants to learn more about your purpose, impact, and activities. It should have a streamlined donation page, an updated event calendar, and eye-catching images that align with your branding. You can share updates and success stories that can inspire more donors to get involved.
Email. You can send welcome emails to new donors, provide organizational updates in weekly e-newsletters, share event invitations, and follow up with personalized thank-you messages. Keep track of metrics such as your open rates and click-through rates to craft more effective emails over time.
Social Media. The typical social media user spends more than 2 hours on social media every day, visiting an average of 6.7 different platforms each month. Social media is a powerful channel for engaging in two-way conversations with donors, posting attention-grabbing videos, and expanding your audience through social sharing.
Direct Mail. A physical card or letter can serve as a meaningful memento donors can keep in their homes for years to come. The direct mail channel is perfect for sending key fundraising appeals, personalized event invitations, and thank-you notes to your most committed donors.
No matter which marketing channels you use, look for ways to tailor your content to fit each recipient’s interests and preferences. Addressing your donors by their preferred names and referencing prior gifts shows that you value them. Segment and target your communications as much as possible.
5. Share your development plan and assign tasks.
Once you’ve finalized your fundraising plan with your team and consultant, it’s time to start putting it into action. Involve your leadership and board in the planning process and preview the draft plan to ensure buy-in from all stakeholders. Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of all involved volunteers and staff. Ultimately, the development plan needs to be viewed as ‘our’ plan, not just your plan.
To ensure effective implementation of your fundraising plan, establish clear communication channels for collaborating and reporting progress. For example, you might agree to meet as a team at the end of every month to review your plan, assess what’s going well, and determine areas to focus on in the next month.
Your fundraising consultant can continue to support your organization as you set your plan in motion, providing strategic guidance to refine your ongoing activities and conducting training sessions to set your board and staff up for lasting success. Ultimately, finding the right consultant who understands your operations, priorities, and mission can turn into a long-term partnership you can rely on to improve your fundraising results year after year.
Wrapping Up: Building on the Momentum of Your Fundraising Plan
Creating a fundraising plan is a time- and resource-intensive process. With the help of an experienced consultant, you can cost-effectively hone your strategy and maximize philanthropic support. Take the time to research consulting firms that have worked with similar organizations in the past to ensure they have the specific perspective necessary to facilitate your success.
Over the past four decades, The Sheridan Group has helped associations, independent schools, healthcare institutions, and other nonprofit organizations map out their development programs and achieve fundraising success. Reach out to our expert consultants to chat about your fundraising goals today!
If you’d like to learn more about what goes into a successful fundraising campaign, check out our additional resources:
TSG Education Series: The Capital Campaign Feasibility Study. Capital campaigns can bring in significant funding to power your major projects. Explore how you can determine campaign readiness by conducting a feasibility study.
Top 10 Association Fundraising Smart Practices for Success. Unlock new and effective fundraising strategies for your association by reading through these 10 smart practices.
TSG Education Series: Leveraging Campaign Success. Discover how your organization can keep the momentum going after a successful fundraising campaign in this guide.