You have a good idea, but can you execute? (Donors want to know.)

I started my non-profit career working at Young America’s Foundation (YAF) and then SBA Pro-Life America (SBA) – two organizations with great concepts.

At YAF, the concept was easy enough: Reagan was awesome, let’s pass his ideas on to future generations.

At SBA, donors could protect the unborn in our laws and elections.

Both organizations have raised a combined $200 million advancing their missions.

But I find that many conflate the key to their success. Yes, having a strong mission and a big idea was crucial for both organizations.

But what is often overlooked is how they delivered their impact – that was the real key to their success.

Both organizations were excellent planners and housed a great team to execute their vision.

It made a world of difference in donor meetings. At YAF, we could walk donors through how we recruited students, the colleges they came from, the speakers they would spend the week with, and how we would stay in contact with them during and after college.

At SBA, we had county-by-county maps of the voters we were targeting, bios on our grassroots coordinators, weekly voter contact numbers we could deliver, and the raw data of our voter ID program.

We were asked about each of these topics in major donor meetings. Having these details was often the difference between closing a regular donation and a leadership donation.

Most fundraising seminars and non-profit books focus on storytelling and sharing impact. Both are important, we always included stories in our meetings and proposals.

However, equally important is ensuring that your donors are confident in your ability to execute and deliver on that impact.

The inclination of non-profits, particularly those that are struggling, is to step on the gas. More donor visits, more proposals, more phone calls.

To be fair, these efforts will get money in the door but, if an organization fails to thoroughly develop its program plans and instead relies on big visions, charisma, and relationships while neglecting the details, it becomes significantly harder to secure major gifts.

Booking visits, drafting proposals, stewarding donors, and finding the prospects takes significant time.

Our goal is to maximize this time by ensuring that a 'yes' to a visit leads to a 'yes' when an ask is made.

More importantly, we want to instill the confidence in donors to say 'yes' to a leadership gift, rather than just an annual contribution.

The investment of time to think through program plans, and how to communicate the details to donors, is a small investment of time relative to the transformational impact it can have on an organization’s fundraising.

If you are interested in talking through your current programs, let us know. We would be happy to arrange a call.

Bryant Conger
Executive Vice President
Movement Funding