THE NUMBER ONE MISTAKE MOST

CONSERVATIVE NONPROFITS MAKE

Continued #2...

 

Post #116  

June 10, 2025

 

Last week I told you that the vast majority of conservative nonprofits is the FAILURE TO HAVE A FULLY FUNCTIONING DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT.

 

I also provided you with some reasons conservative nonprofits give for not having a development department.

 

A brief response to these reasons:

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1. “I can’t afford to hire a development team.”

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The truth is you can’t afford not to.  Don’t make the perfect enemy of the acceptable.

 

• Take an energetic conservative or two or more that you want to hire, but can’t afford to, and put them on a commission of say 10-15% of what they raise.

• Engage a freelance conservative fundraiser on a commission arrangement.

• Assign one or more of your hard charging employees the project of calling and meeting with your loyal donors, and let them know this could be an exciting, promising career path for them.

• As money comes in from the above, apply your newfound income to hiring full-time professional development people.

   

     2. “I can’t find good people.”

 

When I hear that (which I do regularly), I respond with—“why would a sharp, talented person want to come work for you?”  That type of person wants to be able to have opportunities for money, career, growth, job satisfaction, etc.  Provide these and you’ll get good people.

 

     3. “I’m working on it.”

 

Everybody needs someone to hold them accountable—to make sure they don’t procrastinate.  For the President of a nonprofit, that should be the Board of Directors.

 

     4. “It’s on my list of things to do.”

 

Each day we’re faced with choices between the urgent and the important.  If you go away for the weekend and come home to find your kitchen is filled with bees, it’s urgent to get rid of them—but it’s also important to find out how they got in.  Because if you get all of them out today, there will be more back tomorrow, the following day, etc.  So, the meetings, phone calls, and letters to write will always be there.  But dealing with the important issues are the things that change history.

 

If you have an organization with 25,000 donors and the one person who does your development work lives 500 miles from your office and shows up a few times a year—you do not have a fully functioning, properly run development department.

 

For 25,000 active donors, you should have 4-5+ people working full-time on development.

 

Identify how much your organization is raising from postal and email, then multiply it by 10 or 15—and that is the amount of money you’re leaving on the table each year, if you don’t have a fully functioning development team.

 

In other words, if you are raising $1,000,000 yearly from postal and email, you should be receiving another $10,000,000 – $15,000,000 from the efforts of your development team.  There’s no shortage of money, but there is a major shortage of ideas, hard work, and entrepreneurial leadership among too many conservative leaders.

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