Frontloading Your Annual Fund: Helping you Jump the Shark – Part One.

The first day of every new fiscal year should begin with the blast from a starting pistol.  Why?  Because every moment in an annual fund feels like a race.  After all it’s an annual fund.  We get 365 days to raise the money – and not a second more.  And BANG! the moment one year ends another begins.

We all understand that every year has to end in outstanding fashion to help the organization’s bottom line, and we are therefore working at top speed to make it happen, right?  In fact, the last few weeks of every annual campaign feels less like running a race and more like trying to out-swim a shark when you’re thirty yards out (If I can just make it to the beach before….chomp).

Trouble is you can rarely out-swim the shark — particularly if you don’t give yourself as much time as possible.  Translated into fundraising-speak, it means that you will likely miss the fiscal year-end contributed revenue goal if you don’t use all the time you have – the aforementioned 365 days.  Why? Simple….you ran out of time!  As you may well know there are many reasons why we run out of time before the goal is met, but there is one that we have direct control over – when we get started.

In the next article I will outline thoughts about how you can jump the shark and get started earlier on the business of fundraising.

Bob Swaney is a successful 20+ year veteran of fundraising for the arts and is the founder of Robert Swaney Consulting, Inc.  For more information, you can email Bob at rsc@rrsconsult.net or visit www.rrsconsult.net .