Don’t Kick the Fundraiser and Expect Money to Come
How many times have you heard one or all of these from organizational leadership, funders, and well intentioned future donors?
"We're the best kept secret, if they just know about our nonprofit, they'll give." False. If you're waiting to be discovered and become an overnight success, you've lost months, possibly years of opportunities to build business infrastructure, fundraising systems, strategic communications, marketing, business development, successes, and failures that are needed to build something other than a One Hit Wonder.
Fundraisers have heard variations of the "we're the best kept secret. They just need to hear about us, then they'll give" from their leadership and donors for decades. In the absence of infrastructure, robust systems, multiple revenue streams, you need scalable plans and strategies for each.
"Build it and they will come!" No they won't. Kevin Costner still had to get in a van, drive to James Earl Jones, listen, share the impact Mr. Jones' character would have in the field of dreams, Kevin had to walk away. He didn't just build it and greatness followed. He had his wife, daughter and James Earl Jones! Go team!
"Bring us all your contacts, and ask your entire network to support us." Trust is earned. It's earned over and over again. If a nonprofit expects a fundraiser to bring all of their donors and a new funding stream with them, then they need to expect that when that fundraiser leaves in 24 months, they'll take all of their donors with them and a good portion of the donors they cultivated while they work for your nonprofit. Hiring a fundraiser and expecting them to bring all of their relationships and revenue to your business - yes, nonprofits are businesses, sets false expectations and can cause real harm. That said, if a fundraiser has good relationships with past donors, some will naturally migrated to the new nonprofit because they trust their relationship with "their fundraiser".
TL;DR
You can't kick an ATM and expect money to come out, so don't kick a fundraiser and expect money to come out. Strong mission driven organizations understand and implement wise business practices. They value relationships, and they invest in the infrastructure needed to bring in revenue, aka fundraise. If you build it, they will come – donors will come if invest in donor research and data analysts, you have people and systems in place to build trust with future donors, and you implement strategic communications and marketing before, during, and after you fundraise. Without revenue/fundraising, research, marketing and communications, you won’t be able to stand up your program design and impactful work. If you're the best kept secret, you'll always be a secret unless you balance all of the above. Is any of this easy, can we do it all at the same time without money and resources – no.
When your program concept is strong, focus on investing in prospective donor research and analytics. When you have an initial pipeline of donors, be very cautious and realistic with your revenue targets. Then invest in fundraising strategies and strategic communications and marketing (yes, at the same time). Scale as you bring in money.