What We Do
Fundraising strategy that helps your nonprofit raise more money and do more good.
Americans are generous. Individuals, bequests, foundations and corporations gave an estimated $427.71 billion to U.S. charities last year. However, total giving has been declining for several consecutive years, and shifts in the tax code, social impact landscape, donor demographics and confidence about giving in light of the economic fallout from COVID-19 are making it more challenging than ever to retain existing donors and funders and attract new ones. Thankfully, your organization can overcome these challenges by working with Prosper Strategies to build a smart fundraising and development strategy.
Each of our fundraising strategy engagements are based on the Nonprofit Strategy SystemTM method and Shared Power StrategyTM philosophy, which center the priorities of your stakeholders and make fundraising a tool for advancing equity. We also prioritize strength-based communication practices in our fundraising strategy work, and ensure the people you serve are represented in your fundraising in a way they are comfortable with.
Our fundraising and development strategy projects typically fall within one of these four categories:
Organization-Wide Fundraising Strategy
Create a comprehensive, digital-first plan for your organization’s entire fundraising and development function that includes clear objectives and tactics ranging from direct mail to crowdfunding, a calendar for what must happen when and accountability for who must do what. Then, make your plan measurable with a fundraising objective and key results dashboard.
Campaign-Specific Fundraising Strategy
Create a focused plan for a specific campaign, such as an end-of-year campaign or capital campaign. Then, discover the creative concepts and tactics that will make the campaign a success.
Donor Identification and Acquisition Strategy
Identify the donors and funders most likely to give to your organization, find out what will compel them to support you, profile them and create target lists, and then run digital campaigns to acquire their contact information and nurture them toward the decision to make a gift.
Stewardship Strategy
Keep your donors engaged in and excited about your work, thank them for their support, and build strong relationships so they’ll be more likely to give next time you ask.
Each fundraising engagement is customized to your organization’s unique circumstances. Here’s how our fundraising strategy process works, at a high level.
People
We begin all fundraising strategy projects with an assessment of your nonprofit’s stakeholders to understand how they perceive and are affected by the way your organization approaches fundraising and development. Then, we tap them for input and feedback at key points in the fundraising strategy development process through surveys, interviews, focus groups, listening sessions, and/or stakeholder committees.
Involving your current and prospective donors and funders in this way ensures your campaigns will resonate with them. And when it comes to your beneficiaries, seeking their input is critical to ensure you’re not exploiting their stories in your fundraising materials, but rather sharing them in a way that is strength-based and aligned with their lived experience.
NEXT: Strategy
Strategy
The Strategy phase of our process for fundraising engagements typically begins with auditing your organization’s current approach to development and assessing how similar nonprofits are approaching their fundraising.
Next, we facilitate a series of workshops with members of your team to work through developing the key elements of your fundraising, campaign, acquisition or stewardship strategy. Plans often include elements like goals and objectives, tactics, messaging, calendars and budgets. We bring everything together into a written, easy-to-follow strategy document.
We seek feedback and input from your stakeholders, especially your prospective donors and your beneficiaries, on fundraising and strategies as they are developed.
NEXT: Progress
Progress
The Progress phase is all about ensuring your fundraising and development team has the systems and processes in place to bring your plans to life.
During this phase, we help you develop measurable key results for every objective in your fundraising strategy. We also help you determine who is responsible for executing on each tactic, based on a careful evaluation of your team’s skill sets and bandwidth.
Finally, we help you put dashboards in place that make it easy to see how your organization is performing against the fundraising objectives you set out to achieve.
Case Study
Learn how Prosper Strategies partnered with Feeding America to develop a plan for building fundraising capacity among their food banks.
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Case Study
Find out how VOA Illinois (Volunteers of America – Illinois) collaborated with Prosper Strategies to create transformative messaging and an updated brand identity.
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Case Study
Find out Comer Education Campus partnered with Prosper Strategies to rebrand and develop the accompanying marketing and communications plan — leading to a 13.8% increase in fundraising from the previous year.
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Case Study
Let us show you how the Robert R. McCormick Foundation Communities Program partnered with Prosper to transform their messaging, grow their donor base and exceed their fundraising goals.
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Case Study
Learn how Boys & Girls Clubs of America partnered with Prosper Strategies to evaluate their messaging and evolve toward a more strength-based, equity-centered approach to communications.