What the Most Sustainable Nonprofits Already Know: Fundraising, Strategic Planning, and Marketing Are Stronger Together
Beam Consulting is Proud to Now Offer a Full Suite of Fundraising, Strategic Planning, and Marketing Services
I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside countless nonprofits since founding Beam Consulting over 10 years ago. And during that time, I’ve come to recognize what separates the truly sustainable organizations that fulfill their mission and exceed their goals year after year.
They haven’t discovered a secret sauce, and they don’t rely on luck.
The most sustainable nonprofits build solid foundations on three pillars: fundraising, strategic planning, and marketing.
And they recognize that if one pillar is neglected and starts to crack, the entire foundation weakens and their programs end up suffering as a result.
Building an Effective Nonprofit from the Ground Up
I’ve always considered an organization’s fundraising effectiveness to be an indication of its health. I also know that creating an effective fundraising strategy starts by developing trust with donors.
But how does a new donor know that an organization is trustworthy, effective, and values-aligned? Even more, how does an organization find new donors in the first place?
That’s the job of a strategic marketing effort.
I also know that donors support organizations with a vision for the difference they want to make in the world. You can have the best fundraising and marketing strategies out there, but without a clear vision and impactful programming, you can’t create meaningful connections with donors.
Creating that vision is the job of a strategic plan.
As you can likely see by now, Beam Consulting believes that by bringing these three foundational pillars together, nonprofits can become more effective, raise more donor dollars, and do the most good.
Beam Consulting Now Brings Strategic Planning, Marketing, and Fundraising Together
I’m so proud to share with you that Beam Consulting has expanded and now offers three service areas: fundraising, strategic planning, and marketing communications.
And I couldn’t be more excited about the value we can now deliver!
Before I identified team members who could help me provide more comprehensive support to nonprofits, there were limitations on what I could do to help my clients. I was inspired by this challenge to find new, better ways to serve them.
We Believe We’re Shaping the Future Model for Nonprofit Consulting
Our new model has the power to resolve many of the challenges that I’ve seen stunt the growth, energy, and financial resources of nonprofits in the past.
Take, for example, an organization that brought on Beam Consulting to do a worthy capital campaign project. The project was necessary and urgent. The nonprofit’s leadership was respected in the community. But they lacked the number of major donors the project required. And, unfortunately at the time, I lacked the expertise to help them put together a marketing strategy to grow the organization’s donor audience.
Ultimately, they engaged a terrific marketing firm to help them develop a strategy that would build a bigger audience, but that process took the organization extra time. Imagine how seamless and more efficient it would have been to roll right from the feasibility study into a new marketing strategy? Or even better, if that marketing strategy had been incorporated into thinking about the campaign right from the start.
As another example, let’s say your organization receives grant funding to develop a strategic plan. Great! You work with a strategic planning consultant to develop the plan. It’s thoughtful, detailed, and contains the organization’s bold intentions for the coming years. Your board members and leadership team love it and are eager to implement the plan and see the organization grow.
But then you quickly realize that many of the new initiatives are costly, and the current operating budget can’t absorb the new expenses. Suddenly, you find yourselves stuck and unsure of how to pay for the initiatives the strategic plan involves; initiatives you’ve already decided are critical to the future success of your organization.
With Beam Consulting’s new model, fundraising will never be an afterthought. It will always be baked into the strategic planning process, thanks to our ability to streamline efforts through collaboration.
This means we can now give your board members and leadership team the confidence of knowing that not only are the elements within the strategic plan the right moves to make, but they’re achievable because the organization has a strategy to raise the money needed to accomplish them.
I can’t wait to get to work helping you further advance your organization with a synergistic approach to strategic planning, marketing, and fundraising. I’m also excited to introduce you to my teammates. You’ll be hearing from them soon as we work together on future Beam Consulting articles to provide you with valuable insights to strengthen your nonprofit organization effectively.
In the meantime, please get in touch if you want to learn more about any of these new services. We’d love to work with you!
My best,
Dani
About The Author
For the past 25 years, Dani has helped nonprofits at local, regional, and global levels find sustainable solutions to tricky growth and funding issues. She works with leaders and teams to optimize their approach to fundraising, strategic planning, marketing, and more! Dani is passionate about helping motivated people build vibrant and effective nonprofit organizations—so they can make a meaningful impact in the world!