Announcing the AFP Fundraising Confidence Survey!
Today, AFP is launching a project that I’ve been very excited about for some time: our new Fundraising Confidence Survey.
One of the things that I’m often asked when I talk with chapters or members is, how are we doing? What’s the state of the sector? How are fundraisers feeling?
What’s interesting is that I can provide some data about how much people are giving. I can talk about yearly fundraising totals or quarterly changes in giving. I can point to our annual Compensation and Benefits Report or other research.
But how are you DOING? What are you thinking about right now? Well, apart from my talks with chapters, which are always helpful, it’s hard to say sometimes. AFP keeps its pulse on the profession in many different ways, but we don’t have a consistent vehicle for determining how you’re actually feeling.
Until now.
The Fundraising Confidence Survey is our opportunity to keep in touch with you a bit better, take the temperature of the profession and report our findings so you can see how your colleagues are doing.
And we’re going to be conducting it monthly.
OK, I know what you’re thinking. Monthly? Mike, have you lost your mind? But here’s the thing. We’ve kept this survey SHORT.
Ten questions, most of them asking you to rate your optimism on a scale of 1 – 10, plus one open-ended question that’s optional. Finally, there are three demographic questions. You’ll be done in five minutes, I promise.
Now, here’s what the Fundraising Confidence Survey ISN’T going to do. It’s not going to predict your fundraising totals. It’s not going to identify the latest fundraising trend. It’s not going to pinpoint your strengths or weaknesses. We don’t ask for or expect any actual numbers.
What the survey IS going to provide us all is a sense of how we’re doing each month. Are we feeling optimistic about reaching our fundraising goals? Do we think we’re going to hire new fundraising staff? Are we raising the amount of funds that we expected to over the last quarter?
That’s what I want to hear about it—that’s what I want us all to hear about. So we can better understand what we’re feeling, what we’re anticipating, and what we’re needing to achieve our fundraising goals. And all that will help AFP better serve you and the fundraising community.
By conducting it monthly, we’ll be able to track trends over a long period of time and be better able to identify some benchmarks about optimism and performance in the profession. And we’ll always be open to including new questions if we think they are warranted—but the focus will always be to keep the survey short so you’ll be able to participate.
You can take part in the first Fundraising Confidence Survey right now—it launches today—right here.
I see this survey as a valuable way we can come a little closer together and understand what we’re all going through. Thanks for participating in the survey, and thanks for being a member of the fundraising community.
Mike Geiger, MBA, CPA
Read More
