Annual Fundraising Pipeline
We have consistently used one fundraising tool over the past ten years at my organization; the Annual Fundraising Pipeline. If you are looking for a simple yet powerful tool that tracks your organization’s fundraising opportunities, forecasts, and reports on your successes, then I encourage you to download this file.
Make it Your Own
What sets the Fundraising Pipeline apart is its remarkable flexibility. Every organization is unique, so we have made the file editable. Feel free to tailor and customize it according to your organization’s needs.
Quarterly Goals
I firmly believe that Fundraisers prefer short-term goals, not intimidating Annual Organization Fundraising Goals. Break up your Annual Goal into four equal quarterly goals. Why does this matter? Your fundraisers will miss some quarters’ goals, and when they do, this will allow them to have the necessary closure to move on to the next quarter. For example, my organization’s worst fundraising quarter is the year’s first quarter. Our fundraisers are always eager to turn the page on the “perceived failure” of the first quarter and win big during the second quarter.
Fundraising Meetings
We use the Fundraising Pipeline at our weekly fundraising meetings. Before the meeting, we ask that all Fundraisers update their Fundraising Pipeline and have it open on their laptops. We use this file as our meeting agenda. Each person will share the funds they won and the opportunities they are working on. We will then offer each other support as needed.
Salesforce & Online CRM Tools
The Fundraising Pipeline is not a replacement for online Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce. In my experience, keeping online fundraising systems updated is a struggle. I ask fundraisers to update their online CRM once daily, but their Fundraising Pipeline is always more accurate because this file is so easy to update.
Getting Started
Introducing a new tool within any organization is rarely easy. I would recommend getting your fundraisers together and sharing this file with them. Ask for their thoughts on how it can be edited to reflect your organization’s fundraising goals, programs, donor base, challenges, and opportunities. Making the changes together will set it up for a successful roll-out.
Download the Annual Fundraising Pipeline
Tom Stader
Tom Stader has worked within the International NPO/NGO sector since 2005. He has experience working in Mainland China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the USA. In 2007, Tom founded The Library Project, which donates to rural elementary school and orphanage libraries in Asia, and most recently, Nonprofit Insights. Tom understands the real-world challenges that Founders and NPO/NGO professionals face. He understands that our work is not easy, there are never straight lines in development work, and support is hard to find.