Date: Monday, June 20, 2016
Category: Apra News
On May 24, APRA members spent 60 minutes connecting through Twitter in APRA’s first #APRAchats event. More than a dozen fundraising professionals readied their typing fingers to talk “Fundraiser Performance” with Janna Holm, Rebekah O’Brien and Jessica Balsam.
The Twitter Chat was a follow up to Jessica Balsam’s APRA webinar, “Inside Fundraiser Performance.” 200+ tweets and re-tweets followed in the short hour.
Here’s a sampling of what you can learn by perusing the conversation. *Twitter tip: search the hashtag #APRAchats to see every tweet shared during the event.
- Establishing full shared proposal credit encourages collaboration between fundraisers. But clear metrics are then needed to interpret performance.
- The number of prospect development meetings you hold may depend on the need, but consider bringing any MGOs from the team into the room for a productive conversation. Or, give the fundraising team the power to determine if they need to meet as a group or just sending the project manager to maximize time.
- Looking for a more productive season? Meet with the leadership to plan the portfolio review agenda before kicking off the cycle.
- Key things to measure may include: size of portfolio, capacity in portfolio, pv’s on portfolio, number of solicitations and dollar amount of solicitations.
- How do you define substantive contacts? Here’s a sampling of how our subject matter experts define it:
- A meaningful engagement with a prospect that significantly moves the relationship further along.
- File every relationship-building contact.
- Foreground/Background: Foreground is a 2-way exchange that advances the relationship to the next step.
- Guides to successful measurement: Measure what you want to achieve. Measure what you care about. Measure for improvement. Measure the end goal and outcomes.
- How do you incentivize? Is it monetarily based or are there other avenues to reward and recognize?
- It’s all about context: although it may seem like micro-managing to audit the substantive reports, providing guidelines informs the content.
- Help officers meet their goals by encouraging contact reports to receive credit, providing working sessions and balancing their portfolios. Prioritize their work with a “Focus Fifty” or “Top Twenty-Five.”
Do you have a topic for an upcoming Twitter Chat? Email us at info@aprahome.org or tweet the topic to @APRA_HQ using the hashtag #APRAchats. We look forward to seeing you online soon!