Assess Yourself and Your Fundraising: 5 Profound Questions

As we head into the fall fundraising season, I thought it might be interesting to do a personal and professional assessment of where you are and where you’d like to go. There’s no reason to wait until January for New Year’s resolutions — you can make changes right now.

Personal and professional improvement should be ongoing. The good news is that changes don’t have to be huge. Small, incremental changes can make a real difference in your personal and professional life.

In other words, every day can be the first day of the rest of your life.

Use the questions throughout this post to help you assess both yourself and your nonprofit’s fundraising potential.

Reflecting Upon the Past Year

As you look back over the last year, did you try something new? Did you take any risks? What worked and what didn’t work?

Question 1: Did you recently learn a new skill?

If so, how did you go about learning that skill? Did you take a class, read a book, listen to a podcast, or attend a webinar? How did you implement the skill? Did it stick or did you try it once and then it faded away?

Don’t Be Afraid to Find the Right Fit

Earlier this year, I took a storytelling class. I dropped out in the middle because the class wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. But it opened my eyes enough for me to realize I still have a lot to learn about telling better stories.

So, that first class wasn’t the right fit. But I’m using what knowledge I can to try to tell stories with more details. No doubt, there will be another storytelling class in my future. (If you know of a good one, let me know in the comments.)

Fear Holds You Back

As you reflect over the last twelve months, ask yourself the following:

Question 2: What you haven’t you done because you were afraid?

In the fundraising world, there is a lot of fear around raising major gifts and launching capital campaigns. Those are the biggest fear-inducing kinds of fundraising.

If you have not been actively raising five and six figure gifts, what’s stopping you? What could you do to get in motion and overcome your fear?

Energy and Excitement Propels You Forward

Now, let’s go in the other direction. Ask yourself:

Question 3: What do you do that creates energy and excitement? And what drains you?

For me, public speaking creates energy. I know that for many other people, public speaking is terrifying. But your thing doesn’t need to be my thing. You do you.

From my standpoint, being in front of a live audience is super-empowering. There’s nothing quite like it. Therefore, I’m committed to speaking at least one conference per month to keep me connected to front line fundraisers.

How can you add more energy and excitement to your work and personal life? What can you eliminate that drains you?

It’s Okay to Experiment with What Motivates You

Almost a year ago, I realized I wasn’t reading enough non-work (fundraising and business) books. I was also feeling a need to connect with friends as my first child headed off to college. I merged the two needs, and I started a banned-books club.

I invited a few close friends and others I didn’t know as well. I encouraged each to bring a friend. I held the first three meetings at my house to get it off the ground and now it has a life of its own.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I committed to running a 5K this year. I started off strong and was running three times per week, but my running buddy got hurt and I’ve dropped the ball. I don’t love running. I stopped running — and I’m okay with that.

Not everything you try is going to be successful. The learning, growing, and reflecting are what’s important. So with that in mind, here’s question four:

Question 4: What will you commit to trying this year?

It can be something large or small — the key here is to commit to trying it. See what you’ll discover from the experience.

Final Question — Dream Big

One of my favorite questions of all times comes from the book, “A More Beautiful Question” by Warren Berger.

Question 5: What would you do if you could not fail?

For me, it was creating Capital Campaign Pro, which aims to change the way nonprofit leaders’ access and utilize expertise and resources for capital campaigns. I am proud to say we’ve changed the capital campaign consulting model in several ways. And we continue to work at it every day.

For you and your organization, it’s probably a capital campaign. That’s the biggest hurdle for most nonprofit organizations. And while it might be scary and intimidating, what do you have to lose by trying? Likely, you’ll raise more than you’ve ever imagined — even if you fall short of your goal.

Capital campaigns are win-win because they strengthen development teams and systems, build relationships with donors, raise the sights of organizations, and so much more. So don’t be afraid to dream big!

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What did you learn from this personal and professional audit? Let me know in the comments.