The Importance of Time Allocation for your Fundraising Team
Imagine your Development Director just told you they only need to work 30 hours per week to reach their 7-figure annual goal.
Yep. That happened.
Why such a confident statement from my client I’ve been coaching for a few years?
Well, he’s consistently done it. He's exceeded his goal every year for the last three years.
How? He…
➡️learned how to be himself - led with his natural ability to be relational.
➡️realized the financial conversations followed pretty easily.
➡️allowed the top 50 relationships take.all.the.time.they need
➡️built trust which led to the donor comfortably discussing wealth
➡️perfected soliciting donors for their best gift and stopped leaving money on the table
➡️secures 5- and 6-figure gifts regularly
The biggest challenge I hear from fundraisers is that they don’t have enough time in their day to pivot into relational fundraising.
Can I be frank? We all have the same amount of time in our day. It’s the time allocation that needs to be fixed.
This is critical when you want to 2X-5X your overall revenue. To grow by millions, your team must choose wisely when prioritizing...
The sector chatter tells your team to prioritize on:
🪄 more appeals
🪄 more events
🪄 more grants
🪄 government contracts
What you should prioritize:
✅ identifying your true financial need
✅ building a team of strategic fundraisers who align hours with dollars
✅ moving beyond mission-stories and into investor-level stories
✅ providing mission-aligned experiences for your top 30 donors
✅ equipping your team with the skills to ask donors for their best gift
Don’t allocate too much time to activities that attract and lead to small dollar results. These activities TAKE too much time and require you to work at WARP SPEED for results.
Yes, every dollar and donor is important. But, your team doesn’t have 40 extra hours this week. 💣
SLOW DOWN.
Mid- and major-level donors need to you to be slower. Lead them through a very specific cadence of steps. You won't get their best gift if you rush it.
I know. It's counterintuitive.
Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:
👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share the same lessons I teach my clients about attracting larger gen-ops dollars so they can scale.
🍎 Read my GUIDE! THE TRUTH ABOUT GIVE/GETS :: Top 5 Reasons Your Board’s Give/Get Is Leaving Thousands (Sometimes Millions) on the Table. See how limiting board members to the Give/Get model keeps your staff from reaching their full fundraising potential. Here to get it.
📈 Work with me to fund your organization’s Strategic Plan and scale your budget by 2 - 5X // If you’re a business-minded CEO already raising MILLIONS but still need more general-operating revenue to invest in growth, you can apply to work with me here.
