This step is what all of your hard work has been leading up to. You’re raising funds, asking people to be part of your team, building out your branding and the reason is that you’re trying to make a difference in the world. Once you get here, this is the time to celebrate! You’re seeing lives changed and now you get to tell people all about it and thanking everyone who took part. This is a really fun step and one that too many people miss. How do we celebrate with the team? If you haven’t read t...
Mar 05, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 18
What do you need to organize to make sure you’re in the best position to make the ask? Depending on how you’re raising funds, everyone has a demographic they serve and tend to raise funds from. There is a process for every group of people, and you need to think it through before you just go in and ask for money. You should never do a blanket approach to fundraising because you want to be well-received by every group you get in front of. Tell us more about dating and fundraising. When you talk to...
Feb 27, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 17
In today’s episode we are talking about how to Deploy Your Team. This is where the momentum really picks up. Often, when you’ve been fundraising for a while, you’ve done the first two steps where you knew your vision and then went straight to asking for money. You jumped from steps 1 to 6 to 7 which gets you a little way, but then you run out of contacts, you run out of resources, and then your fundraiser dies. This FREEDOM process we are talking about here is to help you never run out of resour...
Feb 20, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Today we are on step 4 of Mary’s Fundraising FREEDOM process, Enhance Your Brand. There are so many organizations that lean on their staff for branding. They hire marketing people to design a logo or to make sure that your message is en pointe. However, in this step, I want your volunteers to have a say in what you’re putting in front of the general public. So if you’re going to be doing a campaign around your fundraising efforts, I want to make sure your volunteers have an opportunity to review...
Feb 13, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 15
This is the step that changes everything. It’s how you go from raising thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions and so on. This is the meat of the entire Fundraising FREEDOM process. Tell us about how to shift your mindset to know there are people who want to give to your cause. When you first get started, you don’t know anyone because you’ve never talked to anyone to giving to your cause. As you’re getting going, now is the time to start thinking about how you want t...
Feb 06, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 14
What kind of research are we looking for in this step? Research actually allows us to gain confidence. Especially if you are trying to raise a larger amount of money, this step allows you to regroup and overcome your fear of fundraising. The data and numbers are important – you want to be as specific with the data as to be believable. You want to give enough stats to show that you know what you’re doing. In this step, what you’re trying to do is evaluate what other people are doing. What’s worki...
Jan 30, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In today’s episode, we are jumping into Mary’s Fundraising FREEDOM process with step 1, Focus Your Vision. For today, we are talking about vision as it pertains to finance. Is it $100,000, $1,000,000, or $10,000,000? Whatever it is, I want you to focus your vision on the dollar amount you want to accomplish that you’ve laid out in your strategic plan. Get that number locked in your head. I’m a big fan of the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. When you can lock into that dollar amount, y...
Jan 23, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 12
After completing steps 1-6 of the Strategic Planning process, you should have tactics all over the place. At this point, you are ready to formulate and pull together your one-page strategy. You already have your strategic objectives finished, now all you have to do is gather the tactics you and your planning team have put together. And that’s step 7. If you’ve been following the process and capturing all the notes, now it’s time to start plugging in the information into your one-page strategy. I...
Jan 16, 2020•39 min•Ep. 11
On today’s episode, we are discussing step six of the Strategic Planning process, Establish Your Measurement. How are you measuring the progress of the objectives and initiatives of the organization? Starting with the end in mind and setting quantifiable goals is great, but you must also create targets and get those numbers on paper. One way to measure your progress is, did you do it or not? For example, if your objective is to increase the awareness and education of your audience, an initiative...
Jan 09, 2020•22 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Today we are diving into step 5 of the strategic planning process, Tighten Your Focus. This is where you start to drill down deeper and get your arms wrapped around your strategic objectives and initiatives. There are four key areas that move from internal to external – capacity, internal process, financial stewardship, client and stakeholder satisfaction – and these four areas will show up on your 1-pager (strategic plan). Capacity: If you’re a 2-3-person organization, you simply don’t have a l...
Jan 02, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 9
On today’s show, we are talking about Step 4 of the strategic planning process, Assessing Your Organization. This step is important because it allows us to hit the pause button and really talk about ourselves and the organization as a whole. This allows to get all the players in the same room and discuss what they’re good at as well as areas that need improved. It forces you to have critical conversations and determine how your organization can grow. What is a SWOT analysis? A SWOT (Strengths, W...
Dec 26, 2019•33 min•Ep. 8
On today’s episode we are talking about the second half of step 3, Realize Your Future, which relates to your Mission and Core Values. Last week we talked about the first half of step 3, which is focused on your vision. The difference between your vision statement and your mission statement is the vision is the end result and the mission is what you’re going to do to get there. Mission is our purpose and why we exist as an organization. It’s about the people we serve through our programs and ser...
Dec 19, 2019•35 min
Step three of strategic planning is one of the most critical steps in the process because it can make or break your fundraising efforts and your organization as a whole. Clarity attracts and confusion repels. Everyone has people in their lives who communicate so clearly and effectively that you will follow them wherever they go. Likewise, you also know those who say good words, but you have no idea what they actually said and what’s going on. Today, we are talking about realizing your future. Wh...
Dec 12, 2019•25 min
In strategic planning terminology, take a look at your world means to do an environmental scan. What’s happening out there has an impact on your organization. This is not to come up with a list of excuses of why you can’t get something done, but rather to help you make better decisions for the future of your organization. You’ve gotten your foundation set, so taking a look at the world around you is going to include articles, research and data trends, conversations you’ve had with your key stake...
Dec 05, 2019•28 min
The number one reason most nonprofits do not have a strategic plan is because they think it’s going to be a daunting task. But all you’re really doing is gaining some clarity and focus in order to set the organization on the right path. If you go on vacation, you have to plan out how you are going to get there. Strategic planning is the same way; you’re mapping out the steps you need take to get to a desired future state. There are 3 questions you need to ask yourself: Where do you want to be? W...
Nov 21, 2019•35 min
Welcome to the Nonprofit Executive Club podcast. This podcast is for growth-minded executives who are looking to take their nonprofits to the next level through strategic planning and fundraising. Meet your hosts: Joel Kessel has spent the last 25 years in communications and public relations. He focuses on helping nonprofits get their message out into the world by casting a strong vision and creating a powerful strategy. Mary Valloni has raised millions of dollars through her work as the develop...
Nov 14, 2019•13 min
On this episode, Joel will take you through a high-level overview of his STRATEGY steps to build your strategic plan. These 8 steps are built on industry best practices, books and courses, and real-life experiences in taking organizations through this process. Step One: Set the Foundation. What are you planning for? Who is your core planning team? Step Two: Take a Look at Your World. What is happening in the world around us – politically, demographically, economically, etc.? These issues are goi...
Nov 14, 2019•33 min
On this episode we are talking about fundraising, on which Mary has literally written the book. We tend to raise our money by taking whatever we can get, however, there is a strategy behind fundraising. But first, a little background from Mary. When I first took my position with the American Cancer Society, the town I worked in had a population around 150,000 with the surrounding area numbering near 250,000. Rather than solely focusing on my community, I latched on to what my counterparts were d...
Nov 14, 2019•37 min
