Fund Development

Prospect Research & Pipeline Development

Our Prospect Research and Pipeline Development Service is a one-time project to enable an organization to build a set of tightly qualified prospects that is 4 to 6x their fundraising goal, and to create a pipeline of prioritized prospects to cultivate on their own. Organizations gain insights and analysis into the funding landscape in their issue area. Some organizations use this service to scope and validate the funding opportunities before embarking on geographic or program expansion.

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Usual Duration: 8 -12 weeks • Starts at $4,500

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Funder Landscape Analysis

Landscape, Assessment and Analysis: Smarter Good will produce a landscape map that identifies similar and/or like-minded organizations to the Client, with brief information on key funding sources for each. The goal is to uncover funders and funding patterns across the sector/issue area and identify the best type of funding source(s) for the Client.

Prospecting

Master Prospect List: Smarter Good will create a Master Prospect List of up to 100 prospective funders, drawing from Smarter Good’s database of funders that have been pre-screened for Client’s issue area, as well as from external database sources. If available, the Client may provide up to 40 names of funders from their existing prospect list for Smarter Good’s assessment, qualification and prioritization.

Qualification and Prioritization

Prospect Research Rubric: Smarter Good will develop, implement, test, and refine a research rubric to qualify (yes/no) and prioritize (high, low, future) qualified prospects.
Qualified Master Prospect List: Smarter Good will return the Master Prospect list with each prospect qualified, with reason for yes, no and priority. This will serve as a database for Client, avoiding repetition of effort in the future if these funder names get surfaced again.
Top 20 Qualified List: Smarter Good will produce up to Top 20 qualified list with key data on each funder, including contact person and critical deadlines.

Cultivation and Approach Strategy

Connections Mapping: Smarter Good will surface connections for up to Top 20 prospects to facilitate relationship building and cultivation. Smarter Good can check connections for up to two (2) LinkedIn Accounts provided by the client, with 1 of the accounts ideally the primary point person for fundraising.

Insights and Analysis

Presentation of Results: Smarter Good will develop and present a report of findings, insights and recommendations about the Client’s qualified pipeline and the research project. These insights will inform future fundraising targets and projections.

Fundraising Support

Fundraising Support is our cornerstone service that enables organizations to do fundraising for the first time, hone their fundraising function to become predictable, expandable and sustainable, and/or add a new funding type to an established funding base. Our team becomes your team, working directly with your Executive Director or CEO, or as a fully integrated team with your Development lead. Each quarter we craft and implement a work plan, leaving space each month to adjust the work plan to respond to opportunities that arise. Fundraising Support brings your organization fundraising skills, capacity and knowledge from day one of our partnership.

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Usual Duration: 8 -12 weeks • Starts at $4,000/mo

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Funder Prospect Research and Qualification

Funder Pipeline Development: Smarter Good will identify, research and qualify prospective funders based on a qualification rubric jointly developed by Client and Smarter Good. Connections Mapping: Smarter Good will surface connectors in the Client’s network for warm introductions to prospective funders.

Development of Top Funder Pipeline and Moves Action Plan

Top Prospect List: Smarter Good and Client will agree on top prospects to prioritize, cultivate, and approach for funding.Moves Action Plan: Smarter Good will maintain a customized plan to cultivate relationships with current and prospective funders in the Top Prospect List.Moves Action Plan Dashboard: Smarter Good will manage an action tracker, including a grants calendars for the Top Prospects List.

Donor and Funder Engagement: Cultivation, Grant Proposals and Reports

Outreach Emails: As a first step to cultivation, Smarter Good will craft personalized emails to prospective funders using information gathered from the research. Client will send emails.
Meeting Talking Points: To set Clients up for an impressionable meeting with funders, Smarter Good will create profiles and meeting points to guide the conversation.
LOIs, Concept Notes, Proposals: Smarter Good develops successful applications that highlight Client’s impact, and we’ll make sure all the attachments are in order too!
Reports: Smarter Good supports our Clients to create long-term partnerships with funders through complete and compelling reports, as well as other customized funder stewardship.
Tools: We build and maintain a Grant Language Manual, a repository of the best content for future use in proposals and communications.

Tailoring Language for Results

Many organizations come to us because they are not getting the fundraising results they desire from their own grant-writing and communication efforts. Smarter Good will leverage our landscape view to evaluate Client’s current grant proposal language, website, and communication materials. We will develop recommendations to propose language that resonates with Client’s prospective funders and investors.

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Usual Duration: 6 weeks • Starts at $4,500/mo

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Comparative language analysis—with similar/peer organizations
Strengths of current language
Areas for improvement of current language
Aligning prospective funder expectations with your language
Recommendations and sample language rewrites
Presentation of analysis and recommendations
One coaching call to support implementation of new language in pitches and materials

Fundraising Training

Smarter Good will customize and lead virtual training courses to equip individuals or organizations with fundraising knowledge, skills, and effective techniques. Smarter Good’s training approach and curriculum is rooted in practice, and designed and delivered by fundraisers who do the work on a daily basis.

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Price varies

Past Trainings

Smarter Fundraising for Stronger Impact, a 3-day workshop for Nigerian social entrepreneurs.
Facing 2021, a webinar for the Ashoka PH Fellows on trends and tactics for global fundraising.
Writing for Nonprofits, a 2-day writing workshop offered by Emerson Collective to a broad set of organizations in East Palo Alto.
People and Money, an annual session for the Fellows of the Mulago Foundation on capitalizing organizations with talent and funding.

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