If you feel like you and your leadership team are on a never-ending fundraising hamster wheel – run, run, running to fill current year funding gaps, then starting all over again on Day 1 of the next fiscal year, chances are you are headed for burnout at full speed. How do you move your organization off the hamster wheel and set yourself apart from all the other organizations trying to do the same? Measure your outcomes to inspire major gifts!
Outcomes, or your impact, are among the strongest motivators that inspire major gift donors to invest in your mission. Importantly, outcomes are not outputs. Outputs are things you can count on your fingers (i.e. pounds of food distributed, number of counseling sessions provided, etc.). Think of outputs as measuring your organization’s rate of work.
Outcomes are the why behind your programs! They measure:
- The lasting impact your outputs have on the community you serve, and
- How much closer your outputs bring your organization to solving the challenge you are striving to address.
At the end of the day, major gift donors invest in outcomes rather than outputs.