Your journey of Continous Improvement

You’ll be successful if you faithfully do the best you can with what you have

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In a recent session they explained the Virtuous Circle.  The concept of Ask, Thank, Report and Repeat

This is important thinking in any fundraising planning.

They also talked about how the single biggest bottleneck in fundraising activity is… your willingness to ASK!

Yes, our preconceived ideas get in the way of our own effectiveness.

Here are a few more takeaways from that same session:

  • You need to be comfortable asking!
  • You need to know your organisation’s story about giving.
  • You need to get over your (unfounded) fear that asking more will drive donors away. Because the true pattern is actually…  Ask more – Raise more!
  • What would you be doing differently if you were to Assume Abundance!
  • There is evidence that asking more frequently actually increases both the number of donations and donor retention rates. (ie You raise more money and you keep donors onboard longer)
  • You have permission to ask More!

You need to be serious about your personal journey of Continuous Improvement in your ministry.

Record Your Donor Details

Here is a simple Excel spreadsheet as a starting place for recording your donor details.

Download

Read a little more on CRM systems.

CRM Software

There are literally hundreds of options for a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for your ministry. There are some free options but usually they are limited to a short time or a small number of records.

One truly Free option worth exploring is TNTConnect

As CRM software is a rapidly changing field you are probably best to do your own search. But before you do here are some questions you should consider. Start by thinking about Strategy.

  • Are you doing agressive donor acquisition or more focussed on retention activity?
  • What Details do you want to store? For Who? Donors, Customers, Volunteers?
  • Where do you want to house your data? Locally? Cloud?
  • How many donors do you need to manage?
  • What questions do you need reports on?
  • How many people will need access to your donor details on a daily basis?
  • What other systems do you need to work with? eg email lists, websites, events, social media?
  • How will you manage Privacy and Security?

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