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Top 10 Best Practices for "Annual Funding"
Mike Buwalda, Christian Stewardship Association* "Stewardship Connections Newsletter" Editor

*Note: For 5 1/2 years, Brian Kluth was the national president of the Christian Stewardship Association.

Last month I asked Christian nonprofits in the CSA family, "Did you have any success with funding your operations budget last year?" The responses were very helpful and heart felt once again! Below, you'll find 10 ministry-tested lessons for improving your annual fund, followed by a compilation of actual responses received in our survey.

1. Emphasize trust, not techniques.
Raising funds for ministry requires knowledge, skill, and systems in place. But most important is your trust in our faithful God to use you to help connect God's people and God's resources to God's work around the world.

2. Connect your operations needs with other "front line" activities tied to your mission.
Combine requests for operations and programs (i.e., scholarships, special projects), building your administrative and fundraising costs into those requests. Rename your annual fund or general fund requests to reflect the overall mission of your organization.

3. Focus on caring for donors, not soliciting donors.
Find out how you can pray for your donors, and do it—over the phone, in person, and in staff meetings. See yourself as a pastor to your donors, and watch what God does with those relationships!

4. Create special campaigns and giving clubs.
Launch a deliberate effort to specifically ask people for an ongoing commitment to pray, give, and tell others about your ministry. Those who commit are with you, so emphasize appreciation and updates with them instead of the usual appeals that everyone else gets.

5. Look beyond your current needs.
Don't make the mistake of spending all your time chasing the next gift. Build your strategy around patterns that encourage relationships with your ministry partners that are strong during and even after their lifetimes.

6. Step up your personal contact strategy.
Ask your board members to help you thank donors—as many and as often as possible. Be more visible through one-on-one and group meetings.

7. Leverage the momentum from other campaigns.
Maximize the "spill-over" effect of other campaigns (i.e., capital or endowment) by using the opportunity to highlight your ongoing programs.

8. Reenergize your list.
Make a concerted, intentional effort to encourage inactive people on your list (lapsed donors, alumni, etc.) to get involved. It's a lot harder and more expensive to get new donors on board.

9. Find reasons to communicate more often.
In addition to the normal "thank you's," receipts, and donor updates, find creative ways to stay in touch with your supporters with things like board updates, new plans and other ministry news, etc.

10. Lower your expenses.
Raising money isn't the only way to help your annual fund budget. Take a hard look at your expenses and see if any could be cut or delayed.

For more helpful fundraising articles and resources, CLICK HERE.

Comments From Peers with the Christian Stewardship Association
Presented here is a sample of actual responses CSA received in a recent survey that asked, "Did you have any success with funding your operations budget last year?" Click here to read more.

I've spent the last 25 plus years as a fundraiser for universities and hospitals, but just this year I was prompted to focus our fundraising on caring for the donor and not on soliciting the donor. It is not a new concept to some, but it is a new focus for me and this ministry. This past year we added a person to spend full time on fundraising. We are a new ministry—just 5 years old. We gave our new hire the title director of donor care—a title I found on the Peacemakers Web site. By practicing this concept, we have seen many opportunities open up for our fundraising program. We have many exciting stories; let me share just one. A donor was ill when our director of donor care arrived for his appointment. To demonstrate care for this donor, no mention was made about a gift or the needs of our ministry. They only discussed the donor's needs and spent time in prayer. At the end of the visit, the donor said that he was about to sell his house and, when it was sold, there would be a gift for our ministry—so much for making the ask and closing. The gift income has not magically increased because of this new focus, but we are seeing the seeds we have planted beginning to grow. We are confident that God will honor our focus on others.

Anonymous by Request

We had great success and exceeded our budgeted goal for the third year in a row. We stepped up our contact strategy with personal visits to high-end donors (i.e., $5000 or more) and phone calls to all others, but the introduction of the Samuel Morris Society for $1000 donors with a target goal of 500 charter members was key. We also intensified our segmentation and increased our efforts to multiply monthly and quarterly gifts, which was also very successful. Our alumni solicitation rates are nearing 50% this year.

Harold Hazen
Taylor University

We did meet our annual fund goal for the last fiscal year. I believe there were two reasons that specifically led to that success. The first was our momentum of being in a capital campaign that "spilled" over to unrestricted giving, and the second was our focus on converting more alumni into donors. With our conversion to a new computer system, we hope that our targeted fundraising will continue to show results.

Anonymous by Request

Our revenue exceeded our income goal. More importantly, Christian Reformed World Missions received more money than we spent. Thus, we funded our operations budget from funds received last year. What happened? We worked like mad, prayed really hard, and did some things that our organization had not done before. Lessons? Don't take short-term good results in plain dollars to mean much. What matters is establishing patterns (even if those patterns have to be ways of constantly finding new donors).

Gary J. Bekker
Executive Director
Christian Reformed World Missions

Our fundraising efforts for last year were very successful because we did not separate the ask for operations and scholarships. We call our annual fund "The Seminary Fund" and let our constituents know that it includes operational items but that the key part is that it discounts tuition by about 20%. In other words, if we do not raise these funds, we would need to increase tuition for our students by that same amount. Most everyone gets the point, and we don't have to make specific asks for operations.

Brian R. Fort
Director of Development
Denver Seminary

For more helpful fundraising articles and resources, CLICK HERE.