u/robthewinner

I've talked to enough fundraisers this year to notice a pattern that I felt needed to be said louder.

Org sets a goal at last year's number plus 5-10% > Fundraiser hits it, then next year's goal becomes the new number plus another 5-10%...Crush it and you've just locked in a higher floor for next year. So the smart move becomes hitting the goal exactly.

This incentive structure punishes overperformance.

So here are four alternatives I'd push for if you're a development director feel the above:

1. Tie growth to capacity. If your major gifts portfolio added 40 prospects this year, the goal should reflect what those prospects are worth in cultivation stage 2 or 3, not a flat percentage bump.

2. Separate net new revenue from retention. Mixing them creates a moving target where success in one masks failure in the other. A team that loses 20 percent of last year's recurring donors but lands one big new gift looks fine in aggregate. They are not fine.

3. Build in a discovery quarter. Most orgs ask fundraisers to start cultivating in January and close by June. That timeline assumes prospects who are already warm. If they are not, you've set the team up to chase cold contacts and then call it strategy.

4. Stop counting the same dollar twice. If a gift came in through a foundation but a major gifts officer cultivated it, decide once whose goal it counts toward. Otherwise everyone is fighting over the same dollar internally while the donor wonders why three people from your org keep calling.

What I hear from orgs that are doing this well:
Leadership treats the annual goal as a hypothesis that they revisit quarterly. They adjust when the data tells them to. They don't double down on a number that was wrong from the start just because admitting it was wrong is uncomfortable.

The orgs that get it wrong run through fundraisers every 18 months and wonder why they cannot keep talent.

I'm curious, what does your org do? Are you ratcheting, or is there a smarter system in place?