The Case For a Fundraising Advisor

The only good reason to hire a fundraising advisor is to achieve results. It represents an investment of your organization’s resources, and you have a good reason to expect an appropriate return on that investment. Results are everything: results in the form of stronger ongoing fundraising; results in the form of successful major campaigns. When you hire a fundraising advisor, you are hiring expertise that has been derived from broad and successful experience. 

The best advisors take their experience and distill it into proven best practices.  They calibrate those best practices to the unique culture, dynamics and needs of each organization they work with. The best advisors help you develop a clear strategy, supporting tactics and corresponding operational plans. The best advisors support you every step of the way, from soup to nuts, in order to ensure that the strategies, tactics and best practices translate into increased revenue. 

Do not hire a fundraising advisor if you already have it figured out. Do not make the investment if you are not open to advice or to thinking differently about fundraising. It won’t work and you will be wasting precious resources. But if you think that your organization has more philanthropic potential than it is achieving; if you are embarking on a major campaign and know you need help; if you are open to exploring new ways of approaching raising money, then a good fundraising advisor can make a huge difference.