Fundraising maven Gail Perry, writing in Fundraising Success awhile back, noted some serious signs that might indicate your fundraising is faltering. In 5 Clues Your Fundraising Is Headed Downhill, she offered these indicators:

1. Revolving door in the development office.

2. Laying all the fundraising on one person.

3. Changing fundraising strategy too often.

4. Not investing in fundraising infrastructure.

These first four are pretty self-explanatory. Then …

5. Lacking an internal culture of philanthropy.

This last point might need more explanation. Gail says:

“A culture of philanthropy is a set of practices that nurtures and support fundraising in your organization.

• Most people in the organization across positions act as ambassadors and engage in relationship building.
• Everyone promotes philanthropy and can articulate a case for giving.
• Fund development is viewed and valued as a mission-aligned program of the organization.
• Organizational systems are established to support donors.
• The executive director is committed and personally involved in fundraising.”

All of this is sound advice and I commend her full article.

But I can’t help adding my own more ‘down and dirty’ signs that your fundraising is likely to be tanking:

1. Your executive director doesn’t know your name.

2. You can’t find an anonymous donor to match the donations in your upcoming 2:1 match.

3. You ‘fine tune’ your resume more than once a month.

4. Your database geek just told you all the names beginning with B, C, H, M, S, and W are missing from your donor file. [That’s 51% of your file, see here!]

5. Your ‘celebrity’ direct mail signer of the past ten years just defected to your main competitor.

6. A nude selfie of your executive director has gone viral.

7. A nonprofit in your field you had never heard of until a couple of years ago has just surpassed your annual revenue.

8. You just received a letter from yourself saying your own membership has lapsed.

9. Your parents are bequesting their entire estate to charities … other than yours.

10. Your CEO just made a surprise announcement to the Board: “We’re betting big on Facebook for our fundraising future.”

Good luck!

Tom