Too Busy? Invest in Fundraising Training

When I poll CEOs and fundraising staff in nonprofits asking them why they haven’t adopted a strategic fundraising approach, the answer is almost always “time.”

My response used to be, “Huh?” until I began to hear the same answer over and over. That answer? “I don’t have the time.”

Everyone has the “time.” It’s how they choose to use it that determines their level of fundraising success.

You’ve got six months. You can take two or three of those developing a well-crafted strategic fundraising program and the last three executing it to raise $500,000.

Or…

You can quickly choose a raft of techniques from promotional emails or LinkedIn posts, apply some tips you’ve gotten in a half-dozen free webinars launch in and spend five months executing your program… and raise $100,000.

And guess what? With the strategic fundraising program, that initial $500,000 will morph into $1.5 million the next year. With the technique-driven program, you’ll be lucky to get the $100,000 again.

So how do I get started building a strategic fundraising program? Get the right kind of fundraising training. What’s the “right kind”? Fundraising training that focuses on fundraising principles, not techniques or tactics. Fundraising training that is cohesive and takes you step by step. Fundraising training that prepares you to choose the tactics that will work for YOU.

This method isn’t “hard” nor does it take anymore “time” than any other approach. Strategic fundraising isn’t self-evident, however. More than any other quality, success in strategic fundraising depends upon consistency. That’s where the mega gains are. That’s why a well-designed strategic fundraising program that is consistently well executed will deliver the double-digit percentage increases in revenue year after year; often with less effort than the year before. Fancy that.

I won’t say “spend the time” because it’s about rearranging your time for the fundraising training that will put you where you want to be.

“That sort of training costs money,” you say. So? Ever heard of ROI? That’s return on investment. It’s what you receive over and above what you spent. The transactional techniques get about 25 percent ROI. The strategic approach averages at about 600 percent ROI.

Is there really any contest?

Here at The Eight Principles we have training that gives you the strategic approach. Whether it’s an online, sequential study. A live, interactive workshop. A full-curriculum “inside” your organization.

We have that, too. This is not your mother’s “fundraising consultant,” but a step-by-step method that gets you where you want to be.

“Too busy” says it all. If your fundraising is a catch-as-catch-can bag of tactics of what you’re able to pick up on the internet you will never achieve sustained revenue growth that you must have to fuel your passion.

Fundraising training that’s worth the investment is fundraising training that shows you what a strategic fundraising program looks like then takes you there.

To your fundraising success!