You wouldn’t wait until your car stops running to add fuel, right? Just one occurrence of that awful sensation teaches you to keep the pipeline between gas tank and engine filled. Keeping your nonprofit running smoothly and continuously requires that you follow a similar process in keeping your proposal pipeline filled at all times. Nicole Nakoneshny notes key pipeline points in her article published by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She shares that the prospect pipeline places cohorts of prospects at different stages of the development cycle (identification, cultivation, solicitation, stewardship) and then measures their progress as they move from an unqualified lead to donor. Indicators of health? Nicole suggests the following: 1. Active prospects at all gift levels. Enough submitted to meet your needs? 2. Active prospects at all stages of the development cycle. Prospects found at each stage? 3. New prospects are added regularly. What is your prospect identification strategy? 4. Prospects are moving through the pipeline. Watching for prospects that get ‘stuck’? 5. Access to good data. Your ability to analyze will only be as good as the quality of your data.
Tom’s Note: There will be many denials along the way – balance that by having a healthy number of proposals “in-play” at all times!