Frequently Asked Questions

  • You are the expert on your organization, its culture, and its constituents. My expertise is in helping you analyze and strengthen your fundraising and engagement programs.

    You and I know that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. I work to understand your organization’s mission, current situation, and goals and plans for the future in order to craft recommendations that will work best for your organization today.

  • Seeking counsel is helpful in many situations, including when:

    • you want an external “reality check” on your plans and goals

    • your fundraising results have plateaued or are going down

    • you need help elevating existing fundraising and engagement challenges within your organization and making a strong case to address them

    • your organization has a new strategic plan and is now considering a campaign to fund it

    • you’ve been operating on a year-to-year basis and you’re ready to put a longer-term strategy in place

    • your leadership wants the benefit of additional professional expertise

  • First and foremost, you’ll want a partner who will listen and learn about your organization and make recommendations specific to your situation.

    Your consultant should also have a proven track record of achieving goals and objectives, an ability to understand data and convert it to actionable information, and the skill to communicate clearly and effectively with multiple audiences.

    Finally, it’s critically important that you have trust in your consultant and that their approach and personality work well in your organization.

Choosing a Consultant

Capital & Comprehensive Campaigns

  • Before launching a campaign, you must be clear about why your organization is considering having one. Typically, the reasons are found within the organization’s strategic and business plans. If your organization’s strategic plan is not up-to-date, getting it there should be your first priority.

    Once you have answered “why,” your attention should turn to the “how.” Four key pillars support successful campaigns:

    1. A sufficient number of engaged prospective donors with high gift capacity and strong inclination to support your institution

    2. Committed and prepared leadership, both staff and volunteer

    3. A compelling case for support that ties to your organization’s strategic plan, communicates urgency around the effort, and lets donors see how they can positively impact the people your organization serves

    4. Strong infrastructure (staffing, systems, budget, constituent information, etc.) to support the campaign

    You’ll need to assess your institution’s readiness in each of these areas and determine where additional work and investments are needed. I can assist with this process by conducting a readiness review and feasibility study.

  • A feasibility study provides an opportunity to engage individuals and organizations that are closest to your institution and/or those who could be your lead campaign contributors by asking for their advice and guidance. Their feedback can be invaluable as you develop campaign plans, and the conversation should strengthen the relationship between the interviewee and your institution.

    Feasibility studies help you to understand your key constituents’ level of interest in the priorities presented in your draft case for support and their willingness to contribute their money and/or time to achieve them. They allow you to test the feasibility of achieving your proposed campaign goal and adjust that goal or the timeline, as needed, before moving forward.

    • Identifying and prioritizing potential interviewees (those closest to your organization and potential lead campaign donors already connected to it)

    • Inviting selected individuals to be interviewed and scheduling the meetings

    • Sending interviewees a draft case for support to review

    • Consultant interviewing those who accept the invitation

    • Organization thanking interviewees for their participation

    • Consultant preparing a report with key campaign recommendations and next steps

    • Consultant presenting the study’s findings to staff and institutional leaders

    • Organization sharing a written summary of the report’s key findings to interviewees

  • Campaign counsel can provide a broad range of support, but there is one assignment that you’ll want to keep in-house — directly soliciting gifts. Your donors should build stronger connections with individuals within your organization who can nurture those relationships beyond the campaign’s end. Counsel can assist with the development of individual engagement, solicitation, and stewardship strategies and provide training and coaching to solicitors.

    One of the most important services campaign counsel provides is guiding the creation of a campaign plan and timeline and helping you stick to it as closely as possible. Every campaign encounters a wrinkle or two, and your counsel will also be there to help you adjust your plans. Other tasks and roles to be covered by counsel (e.g., reporting, supporting volunteers, etc.) will depend on your organization’s needs and available staff and volunteer resources.

    • Annual Giving/Annual Fund

    • Individual Giving

    • Stewardship

    • Development

    • Alumni/Parent/Constituent Engagement

    • Advancement

    • Custom projects may also be requested

  • An assessment is conducted in four phases:

    1. Reviewing materials provided by your organization, including reports, plans, staffing, budget, policies and procedures, and sample materials such as appeals, event invitations, acknowledgments, endowment reports, newsletters, annual reports, etc.

    2. Interviewing staff and volunteers, both within the program and in key related areas

    3. Coalescing the information gleaned from these sources to create the report and recommendations and sharing findings with staff, interviewees, and/or volunteers

    4. Working with internal leaders to prioritize the recommendations and plan for their implementation

  • Through the assessment process, you will gain greater clarity around areas in which your program is performing well and areas where there are opportunities to enhance results. You’ll also receive feedback on:

    • the available staff, volunteer, and budget resources and their current application

    • the strength of key partnerships important to the program’s success

    • any updates needed to your program’s infrastructure (policies, procedures, data, technology, etc.)

    • the degree to which the program is currently integrated within the broader advancement, development, external relations, and/or engagement operation

    In short, you’ll receive recommendations — customized for your situation and grounded in data and best practices — that you can use to chart a course for greater programmatic success (and thereby organizational success) in the future.

Assessments

    • One-on-one training for new or recently promoted employees looking to come up to speed quickly in a specific area or in fundraising/engagement overall

    • Group training sessions for a team, key staff partners, board members, and/or volunteers

    • Topic areas include fundraising 101, making the ask, annual giving, direct marketing, capital/comprehensive campaign fundamentals, and stewardship; customized training sessions may be available upon request

  • I subscribe to the collaborative coaching model that views the relationship between coach and coachee as a partnership. You bring knowledge and expertise to the conversation. I’ll brainstorm with you, share my knowledge and experience, and serve as a sounding board as you make decisions and find the best solutions to the challenges facing your team, department, and/or organization.

Coaching & Training

  • Data comes into play at all stages of our work. You can use it to establish goals, create plans to meet them, maximize resources, monitor your progress over time, and make many-to-one communications more personal.

    Set Goals

    • Benchmark with similar institutions

    • Make informed projections

    • Understand historical results and recent trends

    • Identify prospective donors who are most likely to give and those who have the highest gift capacity

    • Identify potential volunteers who can assist you in your work

    Plan and Manage the Program

    • Create plans with goals and subgoals that you can reasonably expect to achieve and drive toward growth

    • Determine the staff, volunteer, and budget resources needed to reach your goals; adjust resources or goals so that they match

    • Understand how many prospective donors you can reach through each solicitation channel

    • Monitor your progress and adjust plans and tactics throughout the year, as needed

    Execute the Program

    • Allocate resources to the prospective donors and program areas with the highest expected ROI

    • Personalize your outreach to individuals and reinforce their relationship with your organization (see next question for more info)

  • There is no one-size-fits-all appeal, acknowledgment, or communication, and constituents who are connected to your organization expect your messages to reflect their existing relationship and history. That’s where data comes in!

    Better Telescope can help you use your constituent data (e.g., location, relationship to your organization, gift designations, survey responses, etc.) to define segments and tailor communications for those smaller groups. You can also personalize outreach to each recipient by changing the text in a letter, photos in a newsletter, ask amounts in an email, and/or stories of impact in a stewardship report based on their data.

Leveraging Data