DO THIS BEFORE Creating You Nonprofit Fundraising Plan

whether you're part of a large-scale charity  organization or a smaller Community Driven non-profit fundraising serves as the Cornerstone  of your organization's efforts and initiatives without consistent and strategic funding many  organizations find it hard to fulfill their mission and realize their goals now that's  where fundraising planning comes in handy the first step in creating a fundraising plan  is conducting a fundraising audit which is a comprehensive assessment of your organization

's  fundraising efforts the purpose of the audit prior to creating your fund development plan is  to understand your current Effectiveness areas of success and potential weaknesses that require  attention so in today's video we're going to delve into how to conduct a fundraising audit  as part of the first step in your fundraising plan so that you can make the most of your  non-profit fundraising activities now I'm going to be doing more videos on fundraising  planning so I'm creating a new play

list which I'll link in the description and make sure  to subscribe so let's get to it foreign let's talk quickly about the importance of a  fundraising audit as part of your fundraising planning a fundraising audit helps nonprofits  to identify strengths and weaknesses it helps you understand what's working and what's not  working in your current fundraising strategy it increase Effectiveness so by identifying areas  for improvement you can streamline operations and make your fundraising effort

s more effective  and it maximizes potential an audit can reveal untapped areas of fundraising potential that can  be capitalized on the first step in conducting a fundraising audit is gathering data Gathering  involves collecting comprehensive information about all your fundraising efforts over the  past couple of years this data should cover a wide variety of aspects including fundraising  totals this includes growth and net revenue figures and the number of donations and the  total funds rais

ed and donor data here you'll need information about your donors such as their  demographic details donation amounts frequency of donation and preferred donation channels and you  want campaigns specific information which includes details about individual fundraising campaigns  such as their objectives strategies duration costs and results and any other pertinent information  so this can involve any other elements of your fundraising activities that may be significant  like size and structure of

your fundraising team or Partnerships and collaborations or Foundation  step two is analyzing this data so once you have all the relevant data collected it's time to  dive in and make sense of it your goal here is to detect patterns Trends and anomalies some  questions to ask yourself might include how have your fundraising totals evolved over a set period  how do donor retention rates change throughout the year which campaigns yielded the highest returns  which donor segmentation is most engag

ed and generous and what is the return on investment  for each fundraising initiative now step three is optional but I think it's important and that's  benchmarking which helps me understand the organ organization's performance stacked up against  similar non-profits or industry standards the aim is to provide a more nuanced context for  fundraising performance allowing me to set realistic and yet ambitious goals and I use  non-profit resources like industry reports or other industry reports for

benchmarking and I  also use peer groups all ask other non-profits and fundraising professionals what they are  seeing step four is evaluating your individual fundraising channels so this step involves an  in-depth assessment of each Channel you use for fundraising the objective here is determine the  efficacy of each Channel and find potential areas for improvement these channels may include events  so assess the cost Effectiveness and success rate of each event or email campaigns analyze  you

r open rates your click-through rates and your donation conversion rates or social  media evaluate your engagement your follower growth in the effectiveness of any paid social  media ads Direct Mail consider your response rate rates donation amounts and cost Effectiveness  major gifts review the number and size for major gifts and the effectiveness of your stewardship  strategy step five is identifying opportunities and challenges so having analyzed the data and  evaluating your fundraising chan

nels you can now identify opportunities for growth and potential  challenges these could be underutilized channels perhaps you could Explore More digital options  or untap donor segments demographic groups or communities that you have not reached out  to yet or ineffective communication methods maybe your messages aren't resonating or your  call to action could be more explicit so step six is developing an action plan the final step  is to take all the insights from the audit and develop a compr

ehensive action plan your action  plan should aim to capitalize on opportunities this might mean expanding into underutilized  channels or developing strategies to engage untapped donor segments and you also want to  look at how you're going to mitigate challenges and this can involve improving community patient  methods or enhancing donor stewardship practices and improve overall fundraising Effectiveness and  this could entail realistic fundraising goals and improving donor retention strategie

s or refining  your fundraising mix this plan will act as a roadmap to guide your fundraising activities in  the coming period ensuring that your efforts are focused strategic and effective fundraising  planning is extremely powerful in helping non-profits optimize their fundraising strategy  and maximize their potential fundraising audit is part of the plan allows organizations to take a  step back and look at their overall performance and make strategic decisions based on hard data  remember t

he ultimate goal is not just to raise more funds but to ensure the sustainability and  impact of your organization so thank you so much for watching to the end watching to the end your  subscribes your comments your notification Bell clicks they all are the best ways to support our  Channel and because you did watch to the end I have a download for you which I will link in the  description in appreciation so see you next week