In part two of our Introduction to Moves Management series we walk you through everything you need to know about fundraising moves management, and along the way, we’ll show you how Wisely nonprofit software can help your fundraising team.
If you missed the first part, we covered prospect identification, qualification, and cultivation, you can find it here.
Before we get into part two, here’s a quick refresher on moves management. “Moves” are the various steps your fundraising team takes to build relationships with donors and prospects, with the goal of securing donations and increased revenue over time. Moves management is important for your nonprofit to take prospective donors and turn them into lifelong donors and champions for your mission.
Step Four: Solicitation
Solicitation is the step that most people think of when they think of fundraising and it’s likely to be the moves management step that your fundraising team is most focused on. A prospective donor reaches the solicitation stage once you have qualified them, cultivated the relationship, and are making a fundraising ask or presenting a proposal.
To present a fundraising ask to a major gift prospect, your fundraising team needs to put together a proposal for their consideration. Your fundraising team can approach a major gift prospect at the solicitation stage by setting up a meeting to discuss the proposal, or sending the proposal on its own and following up later.
Some donors may want to have a formal in-person or over-the-phone conversation, and some will want a more hands-off approach with space to review your proposal on their own, you should know which your prospect would prefer from what you learned about them during cultivation.
Solicitation is all about the ask, but there is more to it than just presenting the proposal. At this stage, it’s important that you update your prospect’s records appropriately, and Wisely can help your fundraising team manage their active solicitations.
To successfully complete the solicitation stage you have to check off all of the actions and tasks that are involved with making “the ask”. And don’t forget to include the donor’s response and update the pledge information if they say yes!
Update your CRM with the following:
- The ask amount and the amount that was confirmed by the donor
- The pledge schedule if the donation is to be made in installments
- Save the signed proposal and gift agreement
- It’s recommended that all of the documentation include plans for stewardship (which, if you haven’t guessed already, is the next stage!)
- If the proposal is rejected include notes on why
Wisely Fundraising Portfolio Management Software
Wisely syncs with your Raiser’s Edge NXT and Silent Partner Software CRMs so any solicitation information that you update in your CRM, will show up in your Wisely profile.
Updating all of the solicitation information, including ask amount, confirmed gift amount, and the pledge schedule will give Wisely nonprofit fundraising software the information it needs to present your fundraising team with the most accurate dashboard.
When you fully update your CRM with the required information related to the ask, Wisely can help with relationship management by reminding you to complete any steps associated with the solicitation, including when pledge payments are due so your fundraising team can follow up.
Step Five: Stewardship
When the final ask agreement has been accepted and signed, it’s time to move the donor into the stewardship phase. While the proposal and gift agreements were being developed, formal stewardship plans should have been set so your donor knows what to expect.
That doesn’t mean you have to only stick to what is outlined in the document. You can steward your donors informally by keeping them up to date on the latest news related to your nonprofit and reaching out from time to time to check-in.
All stewardship related tasks and actions should be added to your nonprofit’s CRM for example:
- Reporting schedule
- Recognition obligations like donor walls and acknowledgment in annual reports
- Depending on your relationship with the donor you may want to include actions for important dates like sending a card for their birthday
- Special communications you want to send your donor like holiday cards and your nonprofit’s annual report
During the stewardship phase, your fundraising team should continue to log all of their interactions with the donor just like they would during cultivation so your nonprofit can continue to get to know the donor better and better.
Stewardship is a really important moves management stage for continuing to build meaningful relationships with donors and showing them the impact of their giving. Stewardship is what makes donors want to give again and again!
Wisely Donor Lifecycle Management Software
When you add all of the necessary stewardship tasks to your CRM, Wisely can help remind your fundraising team when stewardship tasks and reports are due. This ensures that your fundraising team never misses an important stewardship touchpoint while giving them more time to focus on building donor relationships.
Wisely uses artificial intelligence to help you manage your fundraising portfolio, this means that over time as it learns more about your nonprofit it will get better and better at optimizing your fundraising.
The more information that you can feed into Wisely, the better it gets and Wisely’s AI insights will tell your fundraising team when it’s the right time to ask a donor for another gift.
Step Six: Disqualification
The reality is that not every prospect your fundraising team identifies will end up donating to your organization in one moves management cycle, or even at all. This is the last moves management step listed in our guide, but disqualification can happen at any point along the cycle.
Just because a prospect says no the taking a meeting with you or turns down your proposal doesn’t mean you stop updating their record. Your fundraising team needs to complete certain actions to appropriately disqualify a prospect, especially if you think they may be open to solicitation at a later date.
When a donor or prospect turns you down, make notes about why. There are many reasons that a prospect may say no, and not all of them mean they will never give to your nonprofit. Sometimes a no is really a not right now. Keeping a record of why they said no will help your fundraising team determine if they should keep trying to build a relationship.
Summary
While there are only six steps in the moves management process, the donor lifecycle is ongoing, keep stewarding, cultivating, and soliciting your donors as needed to bring in higher donations over time.
In your fundraising portfolio, you’ll have donors at all different stages of the moves management cycle. Wisely fundraising portfolio management software helps your fundraising team stay on top of moves management and revenue targets, so they can focus on spending time building relationships with donors.
In this two-part series, we discussed moves management strategy mainly in the context of major gifts but moves management is also applicable to other types of fundraising including corporate partnerships and sponsorships, mid-level, and planned giving.
Fundraising is about building long-lasting relationships with your donors and moves management strategy helps your fundraising team do just that. Wisely fundraising portfolio management software is built with moves management strategy at its core and AI-driven insights to help your fundraising team achieve the best results, without spending lots of time sifting through data and reports – giving your team more time to build donor relationships.
Wisely’s Moves Management System assigns and prioritizes donors in the fundraiser’s portfolio at every stage of the moves management process Our customer success team is always standing by to help 🙂
Click on the link below to watch Wisely in Action!
