What’s Keeping You Up at Night?

2. How well-documented are our processes? The reality is very, very few people stay at the same job for their entire career. And it’s amazing how much is known by only one person who has copious notes either in an unreadable scrawl or only in his or her head.

It’s not fun, but everything that matters to the function of raising funds and retaining donors must be documented. And that documentation must be so detailed that almost anyone could pick it up and implement the process.

Part of being a fundraiser is being creative, so hopefully you can come up with a creative way to make documenting tasks fun. Set aside an hour a week and follow it with a favorite treat. If you have a larger team, add this to its weekly task list as well, and make it a measurable performance goal. Brainstorm all the processes that need to be recorded and put a master list on the wall that everyone can refer to—both to see what’s needed and to celebrate what’s done.

Another advantage of documenting your processes is you can pinpoint what works—and why. I recently heard someone say, “The reason you need to know what it is that is making something work is so you know what to fix when it isn’t working.” That applies to fundraising, and all the things we count on to bring in our income.

Documenting processes won’t raise a single dollar—until someone leaves, and you find out that no one else has a clue how to send out an e-appeal or generate a thank-you letter.

3. What are we saying about our mission that is different from what everyone else is saying? Even if you’ve never read the 2000 book by Jack Trout, its title and subtitle should be your mantra: “Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition.” Does your organization’s website depict a unique story, or could it be boiler-plate copy for a number of other organizations?

If you haven’t written a case for support for your organization, maybe it is time to do that. (Not sure how to begin? You can check out my earlier article on this subject here.) What is unique about your organization that will make a potential donor say, “Now that’s cool!”? What will keep them from saying, “Oh yeah, another organization that does ____. I already support one of those.”?

Fundraisers will never be without things to worry about, but hopefully there are many, many things you are celebrating, as well. This old dog knows that you have a tough job just raising the ever-expanding budget, let alone worrying about the kinds of things I included in this article. But I also know that any one of these three things, when ignored, can make it even harder to do the fundraising part of your job. Don’t despair and think you have to do it all this month. After all, raising funds at year-end is a huge—and vital—job. Just prioritize them and include them in your goals for the next several months so by this time next year, you can speak with confidence about your organization’s data security, you don’t worry about who’s going to quit and leave you hanging, you have a story to tell that is exciting and unique—and oh yeah, you’re sleeping better at night, too.