General Development

Our Process

Successful fundraising requires a clear, prioritized, and right-sized development plan. We are experts in conducting comprehensive fundraising assessments and plans. Our proven process covers all aspects of your program, assesses the philanthropic potential for your cause, and provides a plan to strengthen your operation and position you to achieve your potential.

We do it by answering four seemingly simple questions…

WHO are you now?

The project begins by fully knowing who you have been and who you are today. The result of this process is a deep and wide understanding of your organizations strengths and opportunities for improvement. This phase includes stakeholder engagement, detailed revenue analysis, fundraising process review, organizational structure evaluation, technology and analytics assessment, and culture check-up.

Think of this as a full organizational physical plus personality test.

Who COULD you be?

This is all about your potential. We bring a variety of tools to answer this question. They include donor capacity assessment, benchmarking, and public and institutional funder scan. We conclude this step with the Benefactor Group “skull session.” We gather the team and review your data and situation for hours. The collective wisdom of an experienced team elevates our and your understanding of what’s possible.

Who WILL you be?

In this phase, we work with you to set an ambitious but achievable goal. The centerpiece of this step is the goal setting workshop. Each fundraising path has distinct opportunities and risks. Benefactor Group facilitates a discussion about the implications of selecting your strategy: What is the right goal? What will you have to invest in time and money? What are the opportunities and constraints? What are the risks?

HOW will you get there?

This may be the most important step – delivering the detailed fundraising plan to achieve your goal. The plan includes strategies to deliver fundraising results, a multi-year revenue model, staff structure and responsibilities, training recommendations, operational recommendations including fundraising policies, and optimal utilization of data and the technology.

At the conclusion of this stage, you will know what to do, when, and who’s responsible for doing it. That is a recipe for accountability.

Raise more money

The work and end product produced by our Benefactor team provided substantial savings in time and resource allocation. Their work will enable us to follow a solid plan which will create a stronger Foundation in terms of funds raised and relationships built. Most importantly, the new plan will increase the number of people served who are in need of care and assistance.

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