I am surprised when I work with organisations where staff do not know what the fundraising goal is for the year. They are not familiar with what the organisation needs to raise let alone what their responsibility is within the overall goal.

We have all been in a situation where our fundraising manager hands us our fundraising goal for the year. It sort of feels similar to when you get handed a sandwich over a deli counter – except you may have had more input into the make-up of the sandwich than you had in setting the fundraising goal!   The result is often that we are more invested, as well, in the sandwich than we are in the annual fundraising goal likely because we had more input into the creation of the sandwich than we did in creating the annual goal.

What is wrong with this picture and how can staff and managers change it?  Consider the following:

– Fundraising goal setting should start from the bottom up.  When creating fundraising goals, start at the programmatic level.  If you want to raise $10,000,000 this year, what programs will make up that $10,000,000?  And within those programs, what are the sub-programs or who are the donors that you project that will give what amounts?