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Steier Tips

Getting to Goal
Understanding, Promoting, and Realizing Your Limitations and Expectations

In fundraising, few situations are as rewarding as walking into the initial goal-setting and strategy meeting with a team that is committed to give 110% of their time and talent to the effort at hand. That same meeting, however, can be just as demoralizing as people start throwing out potential goals for the effort that you know probably cannot be achieved. A successful group, and a successful fundraising campaign, will properly challenge itself and its members—not threaten them. Unfortunately, we often find ourselves caught up in the moment and self-perceived importance of our mission, and fail to take into account the opinion of others. Consider the following:

1. Set up for success, not failure   It's only a matter of time until that core group of excited volunteers starts to dwindle when it feels like they're on the losing side of the battle. This tends to happen more times than not when the group's fundraising goals were established without any research and based entirely on internal resources. By being honest with your own limitations, and creating reasonable challenges, you're equipping yourself with the tools for both short- and long-term success. Certainly no organization enjoys hearing about their limitations, but it's better than finding it out halfway through a campaign effort that has demoralized volunteers and left its members with a feeling of failure.

2. Do your homework!   Trying to compare present efforts with past ones (whether external or internal), is much like comparing apples to oranges. Setting a level of success based solely on what others are achieving or even on what may have been accomplished in the past is not a proper foundation on which to build. Your organization is not impervious to the economic and social conditions that affect everyone else—in fact, it's probably more susceptible to any imbalances present in both. What is the current economic condition? How involved have your past donors been since your last campaign? Have there been any internal factors that would warrant a new "friend-raising" campaign as opposed to a planned fundraising endeavor? By conducting ongoing development audits, pre-campaign feasibility studies, and researching resources such as gift calculators, you will most often walk away with a firm understanding of what can be done now, and what can be accomplished later.

3. Imaginative goal setting   Sometimes the most difficult thing for an outside consultant to tell a non-profit is that they may not be able to raise as much money as they had initially hoped. Remember, this doesn't mean it will never happen, it simply means that we must do the things necessary for right now to make it a reality later on. Some groups have seen great success in realizing otherwise unattainable fundraising goals through long-term phasing of a project. Back-to-back three- and five-year capital campaigns have met with great success, exciting members and donors with successful results from two smaller efforts instead of one unattainable campaign.

Keep in mind, your group might very well be ready to handle a multi-million dollar effort because of the time spent cultivating new and past donors, as well as properly handling all the various intangibles that have led to your accomplishments. Truly reflect on your abilities and available resources, and set goals that will inspire immediate and future success!

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