Development Assessment Archives - Creative Fundraising Advisors

What Is a Development Assessment, and Why Do I Need One?

Posted on October 4, 2024October 4, 2024 by CFA

Development assessments are a term used to describe a comprehensive review of an organization’s fundraising programs. These rigorous assessments offer distinct benefits for organizations of all sizes and at varying points in the fundraising cycle. Whether your organization is undergoing a leadership transition or preparing for a period of significant growth, a development assessment will uncover new opportunities based on where your organization is today and tangible steps aligned to your goals for the future.

While CFA’s highly tailored approach varies based on each client’s unique circumstances, priorities, and growth trajectory, our development assessment findings share a common denominator in the form of specific and actionable short- and long-term recommendations to sustainably enhance an organization’s fundraising success.

ADVANTAGES OF ENGAGING EXTERNAL SUPPORT

A simple online search yields a plethora of DIY assessment tools designed to help organizations internally evaluate their fundraising programs. For example, the Fundraising Effectiveness Project (FEP) offers free reports, resources, and tools to help organizations measure their individual donor fundraising efforts against more than 100 performance indicators. Similarly, MarketSmart offers a Fundraising Report Card that provides performance dashboards with key metrics on donor acquisition and retention, donation growth and frequency, and much more.

While these tools can provide helpful data visuals and comparative benchmarks, their resulting insights are directly correlated to an organization’s internal capacity for self-assessment. These tools also rely solely on quantitative measures, limiting their results to scientific measures of success without addressing the qualitative art of fundraising. This is where engaging external support can help.

CFA’s consulting team brings valuable external perspective and a systematic approach to the development assessment process. With projects and partnerships spanning all facets of fundraising, our team is well-versed in established fundraising best-practices and current philanthropic trends. And with vast experience conducting development assessments, our team is positioned to engage the right stakeholders and pinpoint the datasets that will yield the greatest insights.

WHEN TO CONDUCT A DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT

Development assessments provide vital insight for organizations seeking to evaluate the efficacy of their development program and can maximize a team’s fundraising potential during points of inflection. Development assessments are uniquely valuable and most often implemented during stages of significant organizational growth and change, such as:

While development assessments can be conducted at any point in time, CFA Head of Consulting and Principal-Midwest Jake Muszynski encourages organizations to consider their readiness to fully engage in the process. “We work hand-in-hand with our clients and need them to approach the work with open minds and open hearts. While CFA does most of the heavy lifting, they must be open to embracing what the process reveals.”

DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT PROCESS

CFA balances the art and science of fundraising through data-driven strategies coupled with unique, case-by-case solutions. While CFA offers a customized approach to every development assessment, our process includes the following core components designed to uncover the most significant fundraising challenges and opportunities for growth for each organization we serve:

Kickoff Meeting
The project team meets with the organization to discuss a proposed project timeline, share upcoming deliverables, and identify scheduling considerations.

Materials Request
CFA conducts an audit of the organization’s development programs, donor communications, systems, and strategies to assess fundraising capacity and potential.

1:1 Interviews
CFA interviews the organization’s Executive Director, development or advancement staff, key leadership staff, and board members with insights into the fundraising programs and/or deep institutional knowledge.

Data Meetings
CFA’s Data and Research Team partners with the organization’s database administrator(s) or related staff to identify their data needs while assessing their database infrastructure and data strategy. Following an extensive donor wealth and engagement screening resulting in custom inclination scores, our team also provides segmentation recommendations for assigned portfolios, targeted appeals, and other tailored fundraising strategies.

Specialized Services
Because we know that each client’s needs are unique, we activate specialized services to ensure our work remains highly tailored. These services can range from surveys to understand stakeholder motivations, a deep analysis of donor trends, case for support development, campaign readiness, and much more depending on the client’s need.

Check-In Meetings
CFA meets regularly with key organizational stakeholders to provide ongoing counsel and share insights through the process.

Final Report
CFA provides a comprehensive report with specific recommendations and goals based on the organization’s unique priorities and opportunities, outlining clear and actionable strategies to enhance fundraising results.

ACTIVATING YOUR STRATEGY

CFA’s work is far from complete after sharing the findings from a development assessment. As Jake shares, “The organizations we partner with often have the answers, but the challenge comes in deciding what to do next. That is where CFA comes in, bringing the art to the science of development assessments and partnering with our clients to create action plans to carry the work forward.”

CFA has supported dozens of organizations to implement customized action plans based on the findings and recommendations culminating from their development assessments. Learn more about CFA’s recent development assessments.

PARTNER WITH US

Development assessments are a powerful way to energize your organization’s fundraising efforts. Engaging an external consultant offers the added expertise, bandwidth, and perspective to yield actionable yet transformational insights. At a time when most fundraising teams are stretched thin yet challenged to accelerate organizational growth, development assessments provide a direct path to actionable strategies that will result in more successful, consistent, and sustainable results.

When you partner with CFA, you are accessing the collective expertise of our entire team. As an organization seeking to continuously improve, our consultants meet regularly to identify trends, share learnings, assess the efficacy of our strategies, and scale promising practices. We bring the best of these insights through a highly-customized approach to each development assessment we complete and every client we serve

If you are interested in exploring what a development assessment might look like for your organization, contact CFA today to see how we can help.

Jake Muszynski, Head of Consulting & Principal, Midwest

Jake is a highly experienced fundraising and consulting professional with over 15 years of combined experience in the industry. He began his successful career in major gifts at higher education institutions and has since provided counsel to over 40 clients at CFA.

In this role, Jake leads major projects across the United States, including campaign readiness and feasibility studies, campaign planning and counsel, and development assessments. He takes a holistic approach to fundraising, considering organizational health from all perspectives and applying a mix of soft skills and data-driven decision-making to each unique situation.

A native of Perham, Minnesota, Jake holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from Concordia College. He and his wife have two children and share a love of folk and jazz music.

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Kendall Carlson, Content Writer

A frequent contributor to CFA’s digital content, Kendall Carlson has spent her career advancing nonprofit organizations across the Twin Cities. With 16 years of experience, Kendall brings a balance of strategic and operational leadership spanning fundraising, program development, evaluation, and strategic planning.

Most recently, Kendall served as Development and Communications Director at Hired, where she diversified revenue for the organization’s $11M budget and increased individual giving by 60%, led a rebrand, and launched an organization-wide data for impact initiative. Prior to Hired, Kendall served at Greater Twin Cities United Way, where she led an advancement strategy team to increase investment and engagement from the organization’s top corporate and major donors. Kendall is known as a strategic, solution-oriented leader with a high capacity for detail and commitment to quality. She launched her consulting practice, Luminate Consulting, in 2022 to bring her skills in fundraising and program strategy to nonprofits seeking sustainable growth.

How Development Plans Can Generate Fundraising Results

Posted on February 9, 2024February 9, 2024 by CFA

Development plans are an essential tool for nonprofits seeking strategic, sustainable annual fundraising growth. According to a survey of 2,722 nonprofits conducted by CompassPoint, 93% of organizations considered to be “top performers” operated their fundraising program with a formal development plan. While development plans take many shapes and sizes on paper, the most effective plans are measured by the actions and an organizational culture of philanthropy they inspire off the page.

At CFA, we regularly partner with nonprofits to conduct development assessments to elevate key fundraising programs, such as annual giving or major gifts, while simultaneously strengthening their operations in anticipation of future campaigns. Our comprehensive assessments, recommendations, and support are customized based on the unique needs and opportunities of each organization we serve.

Whether your organization has an established approach for development planning or is starting from scratch, consider the following key principles for creating or refreshing, implementing, and sustaining an actionable development plan that will generate fundraising results.

What is a Development Plan?
An organizational document summarizing quantitative and qualitative fundraising goals, strategies, activities, accountabilities, and resources for each fundraising program within an organization’s fundraising team.

What is a Development Planning Process?
A collaborative process in which every member of a fundraising team takes responsibility for the goals assigned to them and contributes to the overall effort of reaching those objectives.

Building Blocks of an Actionable Development Plan

Structure is paramount when it comes to creating a development plan that will drive action – both in terms of the planning framework itself as well as the process used to articulate the plans behind the fundraising strategy.

CFA Senior Consultant Rob Ruchotzke brings more than a decade of annual giving experience and offers strategic guidance to organizations creating and implementing development plans. “While there is no ‘one-size- fits-all’ approach, development plans should always reflect an organization’s mission and goals, structure, and strategies,” shares Rob. Development plans require clear and attainable fundraising goals established in collaboration with organizational leadership and tied to specific programmatic needs and strategic priorities. Most importantly, development plans must be user-friendly and actionable with clear milestones and responsibilities.

When creating a development plan that will work best for your team and organization at large, consider the level of detail necessary based on the experience of your staff, co-dependencies within the team or broader organization, and other internal stakeholders that will reference the plan. Rob encourages organizations to use bookmarks within longer planning documents to allow for easy navigation, in addition to integrating work management tools to track progress on a tactical level throughout the year. For organizations with an existing development plan, Rob suggests a close review to ensure the plan meets this criteria and is structured in an accessible format.

Once a development plan framework has been finalized, determine the categories within each fundraising program as well as any important strategies to document. These categories, which may be organized by department, donor segment, strategy, or a combination (i.e. major gifts, annual giving, foundation giving, planned giving, memberships, events, etc.), will provide an overarching framework for the plan and identify staff responsible for completing or contributing to certain sections of the document.

Engaging Your Team in Development Planning

With defined fundraising goals, a structured development framework, and through an intentional planning process, your team will gain increased clarity and alignment as you work together to chart the course toward your organization’s fundraising goals.

The creation of a development plan should involve your full fundraising team and any other staff involved on a day-to-day basis. Start with a team meeting to introduce the purpose and objectives, review the plan framework, and discuss roles and next steps. Rob recommends facilitating the process of documenting fundraising programs and strategies by asking staff to draft the plan section(s) they are responsible for, either individually or in small groups, based on areas of accountability. Rob has also had success using surveys to centralize and streamline the collection of inputs from each team member contributing to the plan.

However you go about collecting information, once complete, compile the details into one cohesive document. As the development plan is finalized, engage staff to make adjustments while identifying any important mechanisms or processes that require further documentation or clarification (i.e. stewardship, moves management, segmentation, partnerships, engagement, specific appeals, events, giving initiatives, etc.).

Executing & Sustaining Your Development Plan

With a solid plan on paper, the real work of activating your fundraising programs and overseeing the plan’s implementation begins. “The last thing you want is a robust development plan that sits on a shelf for the rest of the year,” shares Rob. By establishing a detailed implementation plan with specific touchpoints and a regular cadence for review and updates, your development plan will remain a dynamic tool reflecting work underway, capturing learnings, and tracking progress toward targets and milestones.

To maintain the plan’s relevance and reflect the evolving nature of fundraising efforts, Rob suggests reviewing the plan as a team quarterly, in addition to more frequent use within cross-functional teams and one-on-one meetings between staff and supervisors to capture updates, ensure continued alignment and accountability, and adjust the plan as needed throughout the year.

Benefits of Development Planning

The benefits of the development planning process, as well as the resulting document, extend beyond any fundraising team by advancing an overall organizational culture of philanthropy. Development planning lays the foundation for future organization growth by:

Clarifying goals by outlining key strategies, milestones, and progress measures.
Encouraging confidence in the development team, demystifying the fundraising process and reinforcing the complexity and nuances of fundraising.
Promoting buy-in and increased accountability by illuminating key actions and support needed from key stakeholders to reach certain targets.
Allowing executive and board leadership to monitor and measure progress toward the goals of the development office.
Providing structure for the work of the board development committee and insight to the full scale of the development effort.

Development planning is an important process to introduce and revisit on an annual basis to support your organization’s annual fund growth. Even for organizations with a consistent fundraising strategy year over year, development planning breaks down silos, eliciting creative approaches and increased connectivity between efforts to maximize fundraising results. Establishing a regular practice of annual planning also sets the foundation for developing longer-range fundraising plans to tackle larger endeavors.

Whether your organization has an existing development plan or is creating one for the first time, refer to CFA’s Development Planning Guide to ensure that your planning framework and process result in an active and relevant tool that will guide your team toward fundraising success.

CONTACT US

If you are interested in support to assess your development program and develop an actionable development plan, contact CFA today to explore how we can help.

Rob Ruchotzke, Senior Consultant

As a Senior Consultant with CFA, Rob focuses on providing annual giving strategy, development assessments, campaign feasibility studies and campaign counsel. Rob uses his past annual giving experience and passion for building relationships to find the right solution for CFA’s partners.

Since joining CFA in 2022, Rob has provided counsel to clients including the Community School of Naples, Goodwill-Easter Seals of Minnesota, the Jacques Pépin Foundation, Quarry Hill Nature Center, and the University of Northern Iowa Foundation.

Rob brings more than nine years of annual giving experience in higher education and university organizations. His career began at Ruffalo Noel Levitz as a Project Center Manager (PCM) for Missouri S&T. In that role, Rob supervised student fundraisers and became a PCM trainer and mentor. Then, he joined the Missouri S&T Advancement team as an Annual Giving Officer, managing his own portfolio of donors and assisting with multi-channel mass donor outreach.

Most recently, Rob served as the Director of Annual Giving at Wartburg College and then at his alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). As Director of Annual Giving, Rob led multi-channel campaigns, developed crowdfunding platforms, served as the primary contact for annual giving vendors, redesigned giving forms for ease of use, supported annual giving staff leading the student engagement center outreach and served as the lead for UNI’s Day of Giving strategy.

A native of Camanche, Iowa, Rob holds a BA in Public Relations from UNI. He currently resides in Cedar Falls, IA, enjoying virtual meeting appearances from his cat Loki and participating in any outdoor activity.

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Kendall Carlson, Content Writer