Six weeks into the year, fundraisers largely have their fundraising plans for 2024 set. Many, however, find themselves anxious about how they will handle any disruptions or setbacks to their best-laid plans. Fundraisers know to “expect the unexpected,” that hoary old cliché, but that doesn’t mean they like it. However, if we can offer some small reassurance today, it is this: the best thing you can do to prepare for the unexpected is just that—prepare. The best way to ensure you can remain adaptable is to build some flexibility into the plan you’ve currently got in place.

In 2008, many organizations, caught off guard by the recession, felt that their only recourse was to slash their budgets, however and wherever possible. In an unexpected situation such as this, when donors step back and funding shortfalls threaten, your first instinct should be to adjust your game plan, not your budget.

You Can't Adapt a Plan That Doesn't Exist.

If your organization hasn’t clearly established its goals and strategies for the coming year(s), take the time to do so now. Without a concrete plan and set goals, you won’t know if unexpected twists are derailing your fundraising. You’ll twist in the wind regardless of which direction it’s blowing.

You should begin planning by establishing your organization’s long-term, high-level goals. Ask yourself what the successful execution of your mission would mean for your community, state, and country. And don’t be short-sighted—you should look to at least the next three years.

Think Outside the Fundraising Box.

Feel free to be ambitious and consider key changes you could make to advance your organization and revitalize your donors and supporters. Don’t feel bound to what you’ve done in the past or standard fundraising wisdom. And don’t be afraid to get ambitious with your vision.

Then, once you’ve done all that blue sky thinking, bring it back down to earth. Determine how you’ll communicate your vision to your donors. Set concrete goals for furthering it. Plot out a step-by-step guide for reaching those goals. This plan needs to be specific, providing the milestones, timelines, and steps necessary to keep you on course, without losing the flexibility necessary to make adjustments as needed.

Now, let’s get into the specifics of building your development plan.

Table of Gifts: The Foundation of Your Development Plan.

Breaking down your development plan into its fundamental elements is essential, but don’t make the mistake of neglecting your gifts table, i.e., the most powerful fundraising management tool at your disposal. It is the best way to plan out how you will meet your revenue goals throughout the year. Laying this out concretely will allow you to make course corrections and adjustments throughout the year, and will keep you accountable to your benchmark goals. This table is your most valuable resource as a development professional. (An example of a gift table can be found here.)

A table of gifts helps you see the asks you need to make, and the type and number of gifts you need to secure in order to meet your goals. This lets you see exactly how large a task you’re tackling and continually assess how realistic your goals are.

Oftentimes our program planning outpaces the fundraising we are willing or able to undertake. The table of gifts allows you to determine the feasibility of raising the funds needed to meet your organization’s programing goals. If leadership is setting goals that will require significant increases in revenue, having a table of gifts will allow you to project what will be required at all your giving levels, if you are to meet expectations. Having this roadmap in front of you allows you to calculate exactly what needs to be done to cross the finish line.

When all goes well, your gifts table helps you stay accountable to meeting your benchmarks by providing a tool off of which you can chart your fundraising course. However, if an unexpected setback occurs, this course becomes less clear. For fundraising professionals, it is par for the course to expect possible reductions in giving and funding; the difficult part, however, is deciding how to respond to these setbacks wisely. A table of gifts will continue to guide your efforts throughout uncertain times simply because it was doing so before their onset.

Plan for Each Individual Donor.

All of your donors require a plan that you utilize to solicit their giving. Lower-dollar donors may not have fully developed individualized plans, but they do fit within various segments and criteria that can be used to map out how best to engage, solicit, and steward your relationship moving forward. Your major donors at the top of your gifts table, however, should have individual plans. As you are faced with a reduction in funding (either current or anticipated), you need to review all of the plans on your gifts table that inform our fundraising: the individual plans for the high-value revenue sources at the top of your table as well as the segmented ones for lower levels of your table.

As you begin to plan for reduced funding, you should review these plans: both the individual ones at the top of your gifts table and the segmented plans on the lower levels. As you review, adjust expectations and approach for each. As you complete adjustments, you will be able to make an informed prediction into how your revenue for the year will change. From there, you can determine whether or not you can reasonably expect to meet your goals, or at least how close you will come.

These updated projections can then be used to adjust programming and budgeting accordingly. As Doug Schneider wrote  at the height of the COVID pandemic, cash flow changes are difficult to predict, but having the right tools in place makes your adjustments both easier and more accurate. These tools further enable your organization to make decisions more responsibly, simply as a result of having the ability to make informed judgements about fluctuations in contributions revenue.

Remember: Preparation Pays Off.

Planning to this degree can seem to be a massive venture and the benefit may not be obvious to all in your organization. After all, none of this is easy—but keeping donor plans and gifts tables at the ready does make it easier to be accurate and adaptable in unpredictable times. You can, of course, continue to raise money without a plan, without knowing if or how you can reach your goals… but if taking the time now to establish a plan becomes the difference between being in control of your fundraising and playing a reactive game of catch-up, the choice seems clear. As Carlos Castaneda said, “The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” Taking the time now will save you time and frustration in the year (and years) to come, and keep you in the driver’s seat, even when the unexpected strikes.