[A Plan You Can Defend] Episode 3: Make It Balance, Then Make It Official
A fundraising plan has to balance on three things: dollars, hours, and dates. In the final episode of A Plan You Can Defend, we put one name on every line, build a budget that knows when the cash actually arrives, close Riverbend's hundred-and-fifty-hour gap with a stop-doing list, pressure-test the plan with AI, and take it to the board for a decision.
In this episode you'll learn:
- Why every line in your plan needs one name, including the board's lines.
- Cash timing: why a goal you reach in December still has to get you through June.
- Why Serving Orphans Worldwide cut its budget to rebuild reserves but protected donor acquisition.
- How to build a stop-doing list from return: stop it, shrink it, or hand it to someone else.
- Three rules for using AI in planning: the AI asks, challenges, and drafts but doesn't do the math; no donor names leave your building; and you make every decision.
- Five AI pressure tests, including the skeptical treasurer, the tired donor, and your most overloaded person, plus where AI gets it wrong.
- How to present your plan to the board in ten minutes and ask for a decision, not feedback.
- How to pace quarterly check-ins against last year's pattern, with a short monthly walk-through in between.
- This episode's action item and homework: put your planning day on the calendar, and start your stop-doing list now.
Riverbend Community Food Pantry, Dana, Joanne, and all of Riverbend's numbers are fictional and illustrative.
Ready to build next year's plan? Your 12-Month Fundraising Plan in One Day walks you through it step by step: nine modules and about three hours of video, built for executive directors and development teams of one to three people. You get the Planning Day Kit (data checklist, request emails, one-day agenda, team exercise guides, and a printable wall calendar), the Planning Workbook spreadsheet in a blank version and as Riverbend's filled-in example, the One-Page Board Plan, and the Co-Strategist Prompt Library for using AI without sharing a single donor's name. Lifetime access to the videos and downloads.
When one part of your plan deserves more attention, go deeper with Finish Strong for your year-end campaign, The Gratitude System for thanking and keeping new donors, and the Monthly Giving Masterclass for your monthly giving push.
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