The Bible shares many different names for God describing his character and attributes. Jehovah Jireh has always stood out to me. It means, “The Lord Will Provide.” The Message says it this way, “God sees to it.” Jehovah Jireh speaks of God’s awesome provision for followers of Christ who call him Lord and Savior. How should Christians, for us personally, as well as the ministries we serve, respond to God’s provision?

In the account of Abraham’s sacrificing of Isaac (Gen. 22), God intervened at the last minute and provided a ram to be offered as a sacrifice. God was testing Abraham’s obedience, and as a result, Abraham called that place “Jehovah-Jireh” because GOD PROVIDED. God’s ultimate test (of Abraham) resulted in His ultimate provision – God spared his son. Isaac is a picture of when God would GIVE HIS only son on the cross, as our ultimate provision for sin.

Once we believe and appropriate God’s forgiveness, what more can we do as Christ followers? How do we respond to this gift? I believe that exercising biblical stewardship is an important part of our response.

“The starting point in the journey of the Christian steward is—must be—a realization of the reality of God’s love. Yes, it is just that—a starting point, not an ending point. Accompanying the steward’s recognition of God’s love is an awareness that God’s love is a joyful love and that the steward is called to participate in that joy. As God’s love becomes known, it is clear that God longs for a response from each person.”
-Ronald Vallet, from “Stepping Stones of the Steward”

“From the moment He imparted life to mankind to the climactic gift of salvation through the death of His son Jesus Christ, God has set the supreme example of radical, sacrificial giving for His followers.”
                          -Gordon MacDonald, from “Generosity”

We are called to biblical stewardship as a response to God’s love and provision for us. Have you heard this expression, “We give because God first gave to us?” The simple truth is this, “stewardship is management of resources.” As stewards, we are called to manage God’s resources. We are responsible to the owner (God) who is the creator and owner of ALL things. This means everything you currently have or ever will have: our physical possessions, our talents, our family, our work… everything. It is nothing less than a complete lifestyle.

For those of us in Christian service or ministry this has several ramifications. First, ask yourself, “How will I steward what my master has placed in my care?” Another way to ask the question is, “How am I personally using my time, talent, and treasure to further God’s kingdom? Before we can teach others about biblical stewardship, or ask a donor to support our organization, or deliver a message on the topic, we should examine our own life. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “When we give to God, we are just taking our hands off what already belongs to Him.” Are we practicing stewardship in a way pleasing to God? Then and only then can we ask others to consider supporting our ministry or project.

I started with a question, “What does Jehovah-Jireh have to do with stewardship?” The answer is everything. As God provides for us, we have no choice but to respond with a heart of joy, adoration, and worship. In the Parable of the Talents Jesus taught, “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things’” (Matt. 25:14-30). May that be our prayer.

About the Author: Kent offers clients over 35 years of non-profit experience including teaching, administrative, consulting, and directorships. Through his work as Development Director for The Potter’s House, Gospel Communications International, and Mel Trotter Ministries, Kent brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and development. He currently serves as a board member for the West Michigan chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). His passion for seeing Christian stewardship principles applied in a systematic way helps the non-profit organization or ministry be successful in fulfilling its mission.

Your friendly mechanic uses an automotive scan tool to discover how well your engine is performing. You also need tools to evaluate and adjust your development efforts for better fundraising performance.

Last time, we stressed the importance of using a simple report to track basic fundraising accomplishments. A standard weekly scorecard will tell you where you’ve been. But how do you keep your eyes on the road ahead?

The most common solution is a dashboard that monitors KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and displays them in dynamic visualizations. A fundraising dashboard is akin to the instrumentation on your car. Only, instead of items like a speedometer or a gear indicator, it uses charts, graphs, and status signals to convey point-in-time results. In short, a dashboard is a great way to summarize data and share it in an easily understood manner.

With a dashboard, you not only can report outcomes, but you can also contrast them against budgets and work plans. Variances trigger alerts.

So which KPIs should you track in your Development Dashboard? Some suggestions would be:

• Monthly Contributions (annual, rolling 12 months, actual vs. forecast, current year vs. prior)
• Source of Contributions (direct mail, general donations, credit card/ACH, major gifts, tuition/fees, planned gifts, capital campaign, earned income such as a social enterprise)
• Website Traffic (visits per month, pages visited, donations)
• New Donors/Lapsed Donors
• Cultivation Visits/Calls
• Ask to Close Ratio

Each of these KPIs can be further divided by drilling deeper into the data. Don’t make things so detailed that the compilation takes inordinate amounts of time.

A dashboard gauge only becomes useful when it has context and meaning. They must help the development professional determine what, if any, action is succeeding and where a course correction is required.

The first dashboard I ever built was rather simple but required a good deal of time and effort to update regularly. Since it was a basic way to get started in outcome measurement, I’ll explain how it functioned.

It was driven by two Microsoft products – Excel and PowerPoint. Since I didn’t have an interface between our CRM software (Blackbaud in our case) or QuickBooks, the data had to be retrieved each month and manually posted to an Excel worksheet. The date was then copied into a cell for the corresponding month. A separate cell housed the annual or a running 12-month cumulative total. Parallel rows contained either the budgeted amount for the period, or a comparative matrix such as prior year results.

Using the standard Excel chart tool, a visual depiction was created within the Worksheet for the type of chart that was appropriate for the KPI being measured. For example, Revenue by Month was displayed in a line graph. Revenue by Source was a stack chart. A pie chart was used for Website Pages Visited.

The chart was then copied and pasted into a PowerPoint slide template. Each slide had space for the visual representation of the KPI (the chart), plus various symbols and text to provide background and context.

In the next “What’s New…”, I’ll include sample slides so you can better visualize what I’ve described. This is what my standard dashboard slide contained:

• Title of the Gauge
• Description of what was being measured and the source of the data (QuickBooks report, CRM query, etc.).
• Evaluation Criteria (outcomes versus budget, a monthly standard, what formed a favorable/unfavorable variance)
• Trend Line (usually depicted by a traffic signal where green represented “on pace,” yellow a variance requiring “vigilance” and “red” indicating corrective action necessary.
• Champion (the staff member responsible for generating the report).

Once the monthly dashboard was built, it was posted to the agency’s internal network. 11” x 17” copies of the gauges (the PowerPoint slides) were posted on an office bulletin board with a large scorecard listing each gauge and its corresponding Trend Line (traffic signal) for the month. I would also review the dashboard, in summary form, at our quarterly all-staff meetings so everyone in the organization knew how development was performing.

After a while, I created some shortcuts and workarounds for the monthly process of updating the dashboard. Fortunately, there now are powerful tools like Microsoft’s Power Bi, and commercial software that will do most of the heavy lifting for you. That will be part of the next installment in this series.

Until then, treasure what you measure.

Author: Denny Bender, Consultant
Before joining The Timothy Group, Denny served as Executive Director of Union Rescue Mission in Wichita, Kansas, a 114-bed emergency housing shelter for homeless men that also provides addiction recovery, a residential life-change and re-engagement program, as well as food assistance and infant care items for women and needy families.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” This oft-cited but not-quite-accurate quote is from the Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s tale, Alice in Wonderland.

Throughout recorded time, man has searched for wayfinding aids that would ensure a safe arrival or a profitable outcome. If you ask Google, the Chinese, as early as the 12^th Century, used magnetic compasses as navigational aids. In the 1990’s, the Global Position System, or GPS, became an indispensable part of society supporting everything from oil exploration to package delivery.

But the fundraising profession hasn’t been quite as quick to embrace the principles of measurement to make day-to-day decisions. To the CEO or the Director of Development, data should serve as a bedrock for corrective actions and in the formation of future strategies.

If your school or non-profit isn’t using metrics daily, especially to further your fundraising objectives, you are operating with self-imposed limitations. A discipline that tracks something that has already occurred may not sound like forward thinking. But if you monitor even simple data, you will be able to spot trends or shortfalls that may require future action.

You don’t need sophisticated (and often expensive) software or glitzy dashboards to help you navigate your fundraising year. The objective is to focus on the right things, the critical measurements that will reveal where you have succeeded and what next steps are appropriate.

There is no single set of right things that every organization should measure. For example, if you depend largely on annual campaign fundraising, you’ll want to monitor donor contacts and major gift close ratios. If your support base is more direct mail responsive, tracking average gift income and lapsed donors could be priority metrics. Regardless, you need to consider the effort and cost involved with gathering the data you track. And the outcomes you measure must be essential to the achievement of your mission.

It may be nice to know how many visits were made to your “About Us” website page, but a more important statistic may be how frequently visitors navigated to your donation page but left without making a gift.

If you are a small nonprofit, or new to data analysis, you might want to start with the basics – a simple weekly scorecard. I’ve attached a sample that uses key indicators like income dollars, donor activity and number of gifts received. These are values that should be easily and quickly retrieved from a CRM or financial tool. Review this data during your weekly one-on-one with leadership as well as with your development colleagues.

Statistics can be the scaffolding that supports your fundraising efforts. Use them to build strong practices and grow your income.

NEXT ISSUE: How to design, populate and share a Fundraising Scorecard built specifically for your organization.

Author: Denny Bender, Consultant
Before joining The Timothy Group, Denny served as Executive Director of Union Rescue Mission in Wichita, Kansas, a 114-bed emergency housing shelter for homeless men that also provides addiction recovery, a residential life-change and re-engagement program, as well as food assistance and infant care items for women and needy families.

Here it is, the middle of December and so much to do. Have you met your year-end goals? What can you do in this last 12 days of 2021 to increase or maximize charitable giving to your organizations? One statistic says, “Approximately 31% of all annual giving occurs in December and approximately 12% of all annual giving occurs in the last three days of December. 28% of nonprofits raise between 26 – 50% of their annual funds from their year-end ask.”

Donors give to your ministry for three reasons: (1) they believe in your mission, (2) they trust you and how you will use their gifts, and (3) they like your vision for the future. Donors give a year-end gift for at least three more reasons: (1) the holidays inspire generosity, (2) donors seek last-minute tax deductions, and (3) donors have money left in their annual giving budget. Here are 12 time-tested ideas from our clients on how they make the most of their final 12 fundraising days of the year.

1.  Start Early… Stay Late. Development work is not a nine-to-five job. If you thought that, you chose the wrong career. Be prepared to work long and hard at year-end. Your organization needs you to burn the midnight oil to make sure every donor is contacted and presented with a year-end giving opportunity. Be willing to set aside all the other stuff you do and make this your priority. Be the first person in the door in the morning and the last person to leave the office.

2.  Visit your top 10 donors. This is critical. Personal contact is especially important with your top donors. If you cannot see them in person, schedule a virtual call with them. Do not just send a generic mail appeal; include a personalize, handwritten note on nice stationary or note card.

3.  Hand-deliver Christmas cards and gifts. This is a practice that many development officers and CEO’s have implemented over the years with great results. Imagine the joy on your donor’s face when you ring the doorbell and deliver a gift or a card. Find a gift that has local charm like a specialty coffee or food item. Recruit board members to help deliver gifts.

4.  Burn up the phone lines calling donors. For those donors you cannot meet personally, call them. Thank them for their faithful support. Ask them why they gave to you this past year and what your organization does that resonates with their heart. A personal phone call to ask for their support will make a significant difference. One ministry has assigned four team members to each make 50 donor calls per day for three days (December 28, 29, & 30) with the goal of completing 600 donor touches before year end.

5.  Focus on LYBUNTs fist, then call SYBUNTS. A LYBUNT is someone who gave “last year but unfortunately not this year.” Pay special attention to those who gave in November or December of 2020, but not yet this year. That would indicate they are a year-end giver. Some just need an encouraging reminder. SYBUNTS have given “some year but unfortunately not this year.” Share impact stories. Perhaps your call will reignite their interest in your ministry.

6.  Share matching gift opportunities. The year-end giving season is an excellent time to talk to your donors about a matching gift. Donors love to feel like they are part of something bigger and this allows them to double or triple their impact.

7.  Involve board members. We mentioned this above with hand-delivery of cards or gifts, but year-end “thank you” calls are also an excellent way to involve your board. Board members who are somewhat reluctant to roll up their sleeves throughout the year will agree to a small, manageable list of “thank you” calls. Make sure to provide them with a good script.

8.  Test your DONATE button. Hopefully, you are sending out e-newsletters or electronic fund appeals with a donate button to make it easy for your donors to give. Make your donate button prominent on your website and include a link in all your correspondence. There is nothing more frustrating to a donor who tries to give online but cannot get it to work. One donor recently tried for 10 minutes and just gave up. He eventually called the ministry who took his gift over the phone instead. Test your online giving process to sure it works properly.

9.  Promote the Charitable IRA Rollover. It is likely that your mature donors who qualify are already aware of this option which produces tax advantages for them. But do not assume everyone knows. Include this information in your direct mail and every conversation with donors in this age category. Many organizations neglect to promote this opportunity.

10.   Remind donors to apply for matching gifts. Many companies offer matching gift opportunities to their employees. If you already know your donor’s employer offers matching gift opportunities, remind them. If they do not know, have them ask the corporate or HR office where they work. Some will be surprised to find out they have been leaving donation dollars on the table.

11.   Send eye-catching emails. Because everyone is raising money at year-end, your emails need to stand out. Consider something that shows impact. Make sure your subject line grabs their attention. A quick message that links to a short 60-second thank you video can be powerful. One school we worked with used a “count-down” clock to convey urgency.

12.   Do not forget gifts of appreciated assets. All your year-end giving will not be cash, check, online with a credit card, or by electronic funds transfer. Some donors will decide to transfer a stock gift or other asset and you need to be prepared to handle these right up to December 31. You do not want to be unprepared.

Happy fund raising in December, the most wonderful season of all.

About the Author: Kent offers clients over 35 years of non-profit experience including teaching, administrative, consulting, and directorships. Through his work as Development Director for The Potter’s House, Gospel Communications International, and Mel Trotter Ministries, Kent brings a wealth of experience in fundraising and development. He currently serves as a board member for the West Michigan chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). His passion for seeing Christian stewardship principles applied in a systematic way helps the non-profit organization or ministry be successful in fulfilling its mission.