A resource development audit is an assessment of your fundraising program and your readiness to embark on new development ventures. Many organizations consider conducting a resource development audit when they are:
- Preparing to launch a major gifts, capital, or endowment campaign
- Not satisfied with the results of their annual giving program
- Seeking to increase board participation in fundraising efforts
- Attempting to compare their fundraising results with similar organizations
- Looking for an objective evaluation of their development program
- Trying to diversify their funding streams
- Engaging in the strategic planning process
- Looking at restructuring their development office
- Seeking to take their fundraising program to a higher level of professionalism
Conducting a resource development audit is like peeling an onion layer by layer. The resource development audit is a deep dive into the effectiveness of your organization’s resource development and operations.
In conducting the audit, we analyze the way your organization operates, and how it plans for the future. We evaluate the organizational structure. We assess the role your board plays in fundraising. We look at the performance of your development staff. We study your plans and strategies for developing, evaluating, and cultivating resources, and for providing stewardship for your donors. We evaluate your data management system and its utilization. And most important, we examine past fundraising effectiveness in each of your giving areas.
Fundamental to the services we provide at Dogwood Philanthropy Group is our belief – based on decades of experience – that effective communication is indispensable to successful fundraising. So, as part of the resource development audit we perform, we conduct a separate evaluation of your communications and relationship-building activities. We call this the communications audit, which is an examination of your online and offline communications programs, including publications, collateral materials, direct mail appeals, website, and social media presence.
We collect your data and dissect them like an onion. That’s our methodology. The result is a comprehensive report outlining recommendations to increase the effectiveness of your fundraising operations and to position you for future success.