Identify Your Arc
As a fundraiser, one of the keys to not just surviving — but thriving — each year is to identify an arc to your year’s activity. Once you recognize general patterns in your fundraising activity, you can begin to layer in critical, seasonal rituals (or checkpoints) for assessment, goal-setting, planning, and reflection.
Without these checkpoints, chances are high that you will get swallowed up into your organization’s yearly grind of activity, and eventually experience burnout, a topic well-documented in UnderDeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising.
Avoid the Endless Cycle of Overwork
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Implement plentiful self-care rituals
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Build in seasonal checkpoints for reassessing and resetting fundraising goals
Remember, what feels like an endless chain of fundraising activity is actually more cyclical and seasonal. Build in natural resting points for yourself and your team that align with the seasonal activity.
For instance, October-December feels like an onslaught of fundraising activities — annual appeals, donor events, Board meetings, Annual Reports, social media pushes, etc. But come the middle of January to early February, things feel calmer. This is a great time of year to do personal and organizational intention-setting.
Reflect and Reassess
Tomorrow, June 21, is the Summer Solstice. With it, we are reminded of the longest day of the year. For many of you, it might feel like a never-ending climb to the end of the fiscal year, and a mad dash to hit year-end fundraising targets.
The solstice also represents the moment when the sun literally stops and reverses direction. In the coming weeks, schedule some time to do the same for yourself — stop and reflect.
Take your team out for a celebration of their hard work, honor the effort you made to accomplish your goals, and take a minute to send an “appreciation intention” to yourself, your team, your donors, and your Board. Then, begin to think about some of the ways you need to reverse direction, course correct, or reassess your strategies for the next six months.
Ask the Hard Questions
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What were some of the strategies we put in place over the last year that really worked and why?
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What were some of the activities that produced strong results? Which ones didn’t?
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Where did we miss the mark?
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How can we streamline this coming year’s plans so that our time yields better results?
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Which areas of our fundraising make us feel stuck and ineffective?
Once you have some rough answers, you will be in a much better position to reassess your Annual Fundraising Plan, and how you want to spend your time in the next year.
Find Guidance
As you reassess, and if you are in need of some guidance or planning, please reach out. Consider taking advantage of my speed coaching offer while you have some time to do so…before the hustle of the fall carries you with it.
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