Fundraisers must balance dozens of daily priorities. Operational issues often require more than their fair share of attention, which can diminish time with donors. How can a busy fundraiser get operational issues under control? This session will guide fundraisers toward the most efficient strategies to manage data, technology, reporting, and business processes. These issues cannot be ignored, but fundraisers will learn effective assessment and solution techniques during this session. Participants can expect a post-session road map for resolving operations issues that will allow a quick return to donors and dollars.

In This Session:

• Discipline: fundraisers need to focus on those things that help raise money. Sometimes, involvement in fixing operations is essential, but fundraisers need to be careful about getting into the weeds.
• Discernment: fundraisers encounter dozens of challenges each day, but many of these will have little to no impact on the bottom line. At issue here is whether the problem is systemic (and deserves fixing) or idiosyncratic (and may deserve monitoring or management). In many cases, fundraisers spend too much time “solving” one-time human errors without fixing the systemic.
• Delegation: fundraisers need to know how to empower team members to solve problems. This includes knowing what activities can be delegated and what activities require a managers’ involvement. In general, fundraisers should stick to advocacy and arbitration and should delegate other assignments to operations and program team members.

Target Audience:

This session is targeted towards fundraising executives and members of fundraising  management teams. Fundraising operations professionals will also benefit from hearing about the best strategies for executives to handle operations.


About the Presenter:

Christopher M. Cannon, CFRE is a managing associate with Bentz Whaley Flessner. His expertise includes fundraising systems, operations, database management and conversion projects, gift processing, data reporting and business intelligence, prospect development, and technology. His book, An Executive’s Guide to Fundraising Operations (Wiley 2011), is widely acclaimed as the advancement services and fundraising operations resource for vice presidents and directors of development.

Spinning Like a Top: 8 Secrets to Well-Oiled Fundraising Operations

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