In 1789, Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, famously wrote, \u201cIn this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.\u201d Think tank directors could be forgiven for expressing a similar sentiment about \u201cdeath and short-term project funding\u201d \u2013 and that\u2019s assuming any funding is certain.<\/p>\n
As this blog has\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0so well, fundraising is a major concern of think tank leaders. Perhaps most frustrating is the difficulty of raising the core funding and multi-year grants that think tanks need to craft their own agendas and retain their\u00a0intellectual independence<\/a>. One director\u00a0summed up<\/a>\u00a0this feeling well: \u201cI find myself writing fewer articles or policy papers nowadays as I have to deal with the administrative and programme management\u00a0 issues\u201d of fundraising, \u201call of which take time that I should be spending on more strategic things.\u201d<\/p>\n I wonder, though, if spending more time on strategy\u00a0first\u00a0<\/i>actually could help this director with fundraising.\u00a0Redstone Strategy Group<\/a>, the consultancy where I work, has served numerous think tanks in recent years \u2013including members of the\u00a0Think Tank Initiative<\/a>\u2013 along with many other nonprofits and donors. We have found that organizations that start off thinking they have a \u201cfundraising challenge\u201d often really have a strategy challenge that is making fundraising difficult. Those that have good strategies (including strong monitoring and evaluation) are more likely to make donors comfortable with the idea of core and multi-year funding by (1) giving the funder a clear sense of what it means in practice to support an organization\u00a0as a whole<\/i>, and (2) showing the funder that the think tank is thoughtful about achieving the most with its resources.<\/p>\n This trend leads me to think that organizational strategy is not just a luxury for well-funded think tanks.\u00a0Strategy is a tool to raise more \u2013and more flexible\u2013 funding<\/i>.<\/p>\n As an example, consider an environmental conservation nonprofit we recently worked with on its strategy. Some staff members initially were skeptical, believing that formal strategic planning is unnecessary as long as the organization does great work every day. But after they showed their new strategy to a longtime donor, the donor volunteered to increase its funding well beyond historical levels. The new strategy demonstrated that the organization had a long-term plan and was careful to put donors\u2019 investments to the best possible uses.<\/p>\n We also worked with the\u00a0Center for Global Development<\/a>, a think tank with a history of raising\u00a0multi-year grants<\/a>\u00a0for core funding, on its strategic review. The\u00a0results<\/a>\u00a0included steps to improve fundraising. Among them were clearer ways for CGD to \u201cconvey to its supporters how it decides on its work programs\u201d as well as experimentation with \u201cnew tools to anticipate and track influence and impact.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on these and other strategy efforts in which we have participated, it seems there are three major ways to make strategic planning beneficial for fundraising (as well as for your think tank\u2019s effectiveness in general):<\/p>\n But M&E also should produce information to help make decisions. After all, the best argument for flexible funding is that the think tank, rather than the donor, has its ear to the ground. The think tank is better positioned to know what the issues are, how best to address them, and when to change course. Think about what information you need to make these decisions, how you\u2019ll gather it, and how you\u2019ll use it \u2013 and include specific references to all of this in your strategic plan.<\/p>\n\n