Your organization doesn't have time to waste with consultant jargon. What would actually help is if you were given practical, insightful advice to elevate your fundraising efforts. You deserve a mission-aligned consulting partner who will do more than hand you a plan, bill you thousands, and say; good luck! But how do you identify the right consulting firm? This article outlines what you should expect from a modern nonprofit fundraising consultant and highlights what you should avoid.

Nonprofit Consulting Overview

A top-tier nonprofit consulting firm delivers more than just standard advice; they offer your development team strategic insights and actionable tips to help your nonprofit raise more money.  They should go beyond fundraising platitudes, working side-by-side with your development professionals to cultivate fundraising champions and drive amazing results.

Strategic Planning Expertise

Every nonprofit needs a concrete plan to reach its long-term goals, and one of the marks of a good fundraising consultant firm is strategic planning expertise. If your nonprofit doesn't have a strategy in place yet, start by evaluating your current performance and setting a baseline. Establish realistic targets based on industry standards and past performances. Finally, develop a detailed playbook with step-by-step actions, timelines, and reporting methods to guide and track your plan's implementation.

Strategic Development Planning

A critical component of strategic planning is creating a clear fundraising roadmap. This begins with a thorough analysis of your current fundraising situation. Once you have this established, look at donation trends and benchmarks. Examine your messaging across all channels, including mail and digital. Review your advancement staffing and gaps you may or may not have, and be honest about your team’s capacity. This review should involve comprehensive interviews with staff members to better understand their focus, bandwidth, and priorities.

Strategic Organizational Planning

Organizational planning is often forgotten, yet a solid operational framework is vital for conquering obstacles and achieving success. Thoroughly analyze your nonprofit operations through staff interviews, board members, clients, and external stakeholders. This is also the perfect time to conduct a competitive landscape assessment, identifying organizations with effective structures and adopting their best practices for your organization.

Major Gifts Coaching

Another earmark of a great fundraising consultant is in-depth major gifts coaching. A successful major gifts program requires a consistent, ever-improving approach focused on best practices. Be prepared for a long-term commitment, though you might achieve some quick wins along the way. The longer vision will net the goals you are seeking. Make sure your consulting partner has personalized coaching, classes, and one-on-one liaisons for your Major Gifts Officer (MGO) and those involved in your development program. Your consulting partner should also provide practical tools to identify and attract major gifts from foundations and high-net-worth individuals who align with your mission, including:

• Customized lists of potential major donors and the tools, materials, and training necessary to engage them.
• Coaching on the best ways to approach, communicate with, and retain major givers.
• Guidance on writing spectacular grant letters that will encourage foundations to become partners.

Major Gifts Accelerator Program

If you are ready to make a significant impact, partnering with a firm that has an excellent Major Gifts Accelerator Program will boost your journey toward life-changing revenue. Such an accelerator program should give you access to fundraising professionals who can work with your MGO to plan ways to upgrade current donors and renew lapsed major donors. You should gain exclusive access to in-depth research on new major donors and foundation prospects, creating a curated list of potential high-impact givers. The accelerator service should also include wealth screening and proven donor profiles to make sure your major gifts program is primed for success. Here a few highlights of what a fundraising consultant firm should provide in an accelerator program:

• Draft materials and templates for one-pagers, meeting requests, letters of inquiry, and call scripts.
• Develop individualized solicitation strategies and an effective tracking system.
• Build the tools, materials, and training necessary to engage them.
• Coach staff in preparation for donor meetings.
• Provide guidance on writing streamlined grants to inspire foundations to partner.
• Advise and coach the MGO and development officers on follow-up strategies in regular check-in calls.

If you do not have an official MGO in place, you can utilize a fractional MGO service.  This approach can expedite your program and help you identify major donors more quickly. Working with a fractional MGO will have a two-pronged impact on your development. First, it will jumpstart your major gifts program, and second, it will provide an example of teaching your development professionals the best practices to produce desired outcomes.

Campaign Experience

Campaigns are often considered one of the most significant projects in a development department. They require dedication to time and a willingness to work through difficult challenges and are usually guided by a knowledgeable campaign vendor. It's important to determine whether your aim is a traditional capital campaign or a mission campaign with a broader and greater impact. 

The campaign process begins with feasibility studies to evaluate your campaign goals, timelines, and capacity to achieve them. An experienced fundraising consultant can help clean up your messaging to build a powerful story that resonates with donors. At this point, you are working closely with your consultant, leveraging their experienced guidance and access to proprietary data. They will provide objective, third-party oversight of the campaign to keep your team focused on a successful outcome.

Expanded Fundraising Services

One of the most frustrating situations that commonly arises and leads to sticker shock is when your fundraising consultant says they can handle your needs but through another partner. This approach is highly likely to be disorganized and more trouble than it is worth. To avoid this, make sure that your fundraising consultant not only covers the above services but also has the experience to provide these additional critical services that will place you on the path to long-term fundraising success.

• Grant Writing and Foundation Management
• Direct Mail and Digital Expertise
• Grant Writing & Communications
• Wealth Screening
• Planned Giving
• Executive Search & Talent Acquisition
• Fractional MGO Services
• Donor Database/CRM Implementation & Database Cleaning

Finally, don't forget that a mission-aligned partner who believes in your organization's mission to the core is a critical evaluation point. Once you cover mission alignment and tick the above boxes, you are ready to unlock the power of your fundraising program. AmPhil has been trusted by hundreds of organizations to raise billions for their missions and has a proven track record, having helped hundreds of organizations raise billions for their causes. Could AmPhil be the right partner to drive your success?  Reach out to us here to discuss your needs and explore how we might work together. We look forward to a brief conversation of your goals and how we can best support them!