So often I talk with nonprofits about building their financial resources and so often they do not have a plan to do so. Strategic planning and an annual plan often exist, but for some reason no fund development plan does. This always intrigues me, as how do you know how much to raise, when and how to plan programming, if you don’t have a fund development plan to go with your annual and/or strategic plan. It is akin to contracting a house to be built prior to knowing how you’ll pay for it.
Nonprofits are often overstretched with more on their plates than time in the day. So it is understandable that often the fund development plan never comes to fruition. The reality however, is you free up time and resources by investing the upfront time in fund development planning. You also increase your possibilities of greater donations. I promise you, planning an annual event takes more time and effort than planning a fund development document, and the fund development piece has more of a long-term impact when it comes to inflow of resources.
