Most of us spend so much time focusing on the latest research, the latest book, reports of the latest dynamite campaign that we lose sight of the basic tasks  essential for long-term success.

The result of ignoring these mundane, seemingly boring tasks and sub-tasks is often disastrous.

For example, tomorrow we’ll post the results of an Agitator Survey in response to Can Your Monthly Doors Be Held Hostage.  That post pointed out the shock and surprise encountered by many organizations when they attempt to move their file of monthly givers from CRM or payment processor to another only to find out they can’t do it.

Consequently, years of work and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in investment are lost or put in jeopardy.  All because someone in the organization didn’t bother to check whether the data were readily transferable or not.  Donors lost or held hostage because no one bothered to check.

Even the most mundane of functions is often overlooked.  Thousands of organizations spend additional thousands in improving response rates by 1 or 2% but ignore the necessity of updating the 5% to 10% of the donors on their file whose addresses are incorrect.  And they wonder why they no longer hear from some of their once-loyal donors.

[ For the price ($0) of a mouse-click  to The Agitator Toolbox  organizations can get their donors’ addresses regularly updated in minutes for a mere $20]

And the same goes for those groups who claim to be donor-centric and place a call to a loyal donor only to awkwardly find out from his family that “he passed away.”  So much for staying on top of key relationships.

[ For the price of [$0) pf a mouse-click to The Agitator Toolbox  organizations can save embarrassment and be alerted to “deceased donors” on their file for less than the cost of a Starbucks a week.]

My point is that when we ignore the “trivial” we are failing to remember the donor.  Concentrating on the basics of donor care is hard work and thus easy to avoid.  Besides, it’s a lot more fun to divert our attention to the new and shiny.

Enter the simple CHECKLIST—on of the most basic-but-important fundraising tools.

The checklist is a low/no cost tool that can prevent costly mistakes and improve the effectiveness of teams.  Even those in ‘exalted’ or ‘sophisticated’ positions should not be above using checklists. In reality, the more complex the tasks, the more essential a checklist becomes.

I recommend you get a copy of  The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by surgeon Atul Gawande. In it you’ll discover that the use of how a two-minute checklist by surgeons in eight hospitals resulted in a drop in deaths of 47%.  And how airplane pilots rely on checklists to ensure that both routine procedures and emergency responses are safely handled.

Dr. Gawande notes there are two kinds of checklists:

• Read-Do: you read each step of the task, and then perform them in order, checking them off as you go, like following a recipe.
• Do-Confirm: you perform steps of the task from memory until you reach a defined pause point, when you go through the checklist and confirm that each step has been completed.

Checklists are not only essential in fundraising (especially for direct response fundraisers where the detail can be overwhelming) but they’re helpful in your personal life as well. As in Emergency Preparedness Checklists for fundraisers in hurricane zones…or People to Notify if something awful happens…or even for packing your bag for a trip to the next conference.

I have worked on hundreds of campaigns over the years, but despite a lot of repetition tasks can become blurred in my memory. However, many of them are important enough that they can’t be omitted without causing frustrating or costly problem.

Have you created–and do you use– a checklist?

Roger