Fundraisers have pulled the trigger on year-end fundraising, and with fingers crossed for a successful year-end feeding frenzy, most have turned their attention to selling their 2014 budgets to their bosses.

What does the boss want to know?

[Now, hold your tongue a moment! Back in February we gave Agitator readers a chance to rate their CEOs. Asked about their CEO’s understanding of fundraising, 38% said “not a leader in this area”, 23% said “pretty hands-off”, and another 23% said “more of a hindrance than a help”. And 58% of responding fundraisers said their CEO’s orientation to planning was: “Here’s what we need … go raise it!”]

OK, so maybe you the fundraiser will need to provide the planning leadership!

In the interest of helping you pull your 2014 fundraising presentation together, here are some questions I would want addressed if I were your CEO. Consider these a fundraiser’s refinement of the more generic questions The Agitator proferred last week.

1. Did we make a net gain in active donor numbers and dollars in 2013 over 2012? If not, what’s broken … retention, acquisition, both?
2. What does the trend line look like for our donors’ lifetime value … will it be going up in 2014? Why not?
3. I read The Agitator, please bore in a bit on retention for me. What is our retention profile (did it get better or worse in 2013) and program? What improvements do we plan to make in 2014, with what projected outcome?
4. What did we test/innovate in 2013 and what did we learn?
5. What will we test/innovate in 2014 and expect to learn?
6. What do you foresee as the greatest impediments to improving our fundraising performance in 2014? How do you plan to overcome those? What can I and others in the organization do to help you overcome them?
7. If I could authorize an extra spend of $XX for fundraising (make this a hefty increase, but proportional to your current budget … say 25%), how would you allocate it … with what measurable outcomes?
8. What will you do to improve staff capability/skills in the coming year?
9. How did we perform in 2013 compared to our most relevant 2-3 competitors? If they did better, why?
10. If I were to tie any raise you get in 2014 to meeting a specific fundraising target, what would that target be? A net revenue target? A lifetime value target? An active donor growth target? A significant measurable improvement in some specific area?

Actually, if I’m impressed with your answers to these questions, I might just go ahead and give you a raise now … The Agitator would.

Tom