By Jeff McLinden

I’ve been in this business for a long time — 30 years is considered a long time by anyone’s standards.  And I’ve seen far too many instances of nonprofit organizations that operate without any kind of actual plan to guide their fundraising activities.  They’re hoping for their constituents to rally around any and all activities that get thrown into the fundraising “mix” — events, direct mail letters, online donation links in their web site, e-mail solicitations, etc. etc.

The truth is that there is no rhyme or reason for these seemingly dissociated activities.  And that the resulting impact on those on the receiving end of unplanned, knee-jerk solicitations have grown to categorize these communications from otherwise worthy causes as junk mail — alongside the other advertising mail that tends to stuff their mailboxes.

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This is one reason we are such zealots for carefully planned, brilliantly executed fundraising approaches that are designed to delight donors rather than disgust them.  That greater success is achieved through such planning is readily evident simply by taking a good look at the blue-chip nonprofits that continually top the list of the USA’s “best” charities (find out more at charitywatch.org).  An old friend drilled this mantra into my head at an early age:  If you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail. It’s as simple as that.

With the broad variety of fundraising resources available to you in this age of marketing revolution, there are tremendous opportunities for both wild success or colossal failure.  So the moral?  Don’t simply let your fundraising activities run amok…  Carefully plan.  Be creative to find ways to delight your donors.  Learn from what others are doing successfully.  Get professional help.  Take advantage of the resources available at fundraisingsuccessteam.com.

Want some ideas?  Check out the related articles below to see how some are beefing up their fundraising strategies in new and creative ways.  Here’s to your success!

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