Ops Insights #059 - Fundraiser Fast Start Initiative (Part 3 of 3)

February 15, 2025 | Read Time: 3 minutes | Written by Jenny Kleintop

Building off our prior two editions we were ready. It was time to prepare fundraisers, track activity, launch the initiative and get moving.

Prepare Fundraisers

Now that we were ready to launch, it was time to do some refresher training to make sure fundraisers were comfortable entering their activity.

We held a team session where I ran them through how to add actions into the database and how that would feed into the reporting.

1. I showed them how to enter the actions as a refresher.

2. I explained the difference between a meaningful action and a non-meaningful action, which is also referred to as a move vs. a touch.

3. I pulled up some actions that needed a bit of updating, such as marking the completed check box or adding the fundraiser to the action.

4. I showed them their Work Center and how to utilize it.

Throughout training I encouraged questions and answered as often when one fundraiser has a question others do as well. So we used this as training opportunities.

Plus, I offered and led follow-up 1:1 sessions as we moved forward.

Launch, Get Moving, and Track Activity

When we launched, we ran team check-ins to look at progress and I offered additional opportunities to support with 1:1 sessions.

We would have liked to run bi-weekly check-ins, but in reality we could only fit in monthly team check-ins. We were okay with this as the CDO had her check-ins with the fundraisers on strategy and I did 1:1s to help with tracking activity in the database. You see, I was invested. I wanted them to hit the 100% goal and it’s not always intuitive to a fundraiser to make sure to mark all the details on the action to ensure it’s pulling in as completed on the report.

Here is the report we used to check in on activity overall:

I built this report by exporting the data out of the database and using Access to create the report. I did this since the database didn’t have a distinct/unique type of reporting as we only had the out of the box reporting feature. Any type of reporting system that you are comfortable with would work or if you want to use Excel, that could work as well. The biggest thing is “Any Touch” and “Meaningful Touch” are based on unique prospects. Meaning if a fundraiser met with Jane Smith three times (for three actions), it would count as one (for one prospect) for this reporting.

Here is the report we used to check in on activity for each fundraiser:

Here is the report provided to the fundraisers so they could see which prospects were missing a meaningful touch, which was the most populate used report:

Along with providing the reports, I showed them how to look at their prospects in the database and use their Work Center to see the ones that did not have a last action. Providing a few different views and options helps various styles as each fundraiser has their unique preferences on work style.

Take Action

➡ Review part 1 of 3 to get moving on cleansing and locking in portfolios.

➡ Review part 2 of 3 to cleanse portfolios and fill gaps in portfolios to lock and load portfolios.

➡ For part 3 of 3: Follow steps above to launch and go with the Fast Start Initiative.

You’ve got this!  

👋 See you next time,

Jenny

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