Core Elements of the Development Plan
It's about What, Who and then How!
Stillwater Strategy Partners is proud to facilitate a ton of training for not-for-profit executive and development leaders throughout the US. One of the topics most often requested ties to effective development planning, rooted in a desire to build more thoughtful, durable and impactful revenue streams.
Based on more than 150 years of collective SSP experience, our team believes that effective development plans need to be anchored in three core elements, and we love to help our clients dig in and refine each of these critical components...in sequential order.
First, organizations need to clarify and document what they hope to raise more money for. What will new financial support allow your organization to do better, to do differently or to do more of in service to your mission and beneficiaries? Ideally, a clear sense of the "what" can be partnered with estimates around how much financial support is needed to affect this positive change.
Then, who are you best positioned to raise this support from? We've never met an organization with the time and resources they'd need to touch literally everybody, so it's essential that executive and development leaders prioritize their hoped for supporters. We encourage our clients - without judgment - to evaluate and prioritize potential donors through the lens of affinity to their cause, access to discretionary capital, and any known history of demonstrated charitable inclinations. Often, following this exercise, it becomes clear that success depends on our ability to advance somewhere between 25 and 100 key relationships, depending on the size of an organization.
Finally, once our clients have a clear grasp on the what, and the who, then they can begin to key in on the how. That's when they're ready to develop and document the more detailed time-driven tactics, measures and assignments of responsibility that will lead to positive outcomes. At their best, development plans typically drive toward growth in acquisition efforts, more engaging affinity programs, accelerated relationship-based major giving efforts and long-term strategies to bolster legacy investments from our most loyal supporters.
Folks have often heard us say that "development is difficult, but it's not complicated." Starting the planning journey with what, who and how often sets our clients on the right path.