Fundraising Sales Pipeline

Many nonprofits ask themselves "how do I increase my donors?" and perhaps, instead the question to ask is how can I make money like a company The secret is a sales pipeline. 

A sales pipeline is a specific sequence of actions that a sales reps take in order to move a prospect from a new lead to a customer. Traditionally, the stages of a sales cycle is structured something like:

• Qualification. The sales rep determines if the prospect has the need, budget, and authority to buy in the near future.
• Meeting. The sales rep and prospect discuss a solution that would best fit the prospect’s needs.
• Proposal. The rep sends the prospect a quote detailing what will be provided, at what cost, and for how long.
• Closing. Final negotiations are made and contracts are signed. The prospect is officially a customer.

This same sales cycle is easily adaptable for your nonprofit and is referred to as fundraising or donor cultivation cycle. The backbone of any successful fundraising operation is an understanding of the cultivation process. The largest difference between a sales pipeline and donor cycle is that a large portion of effort goes into retaining and re-engaging donors. For example this visualization below with generic markers of a sales pipeline shows how the sales pipeline is reinvented a circular process for a nonprofit to retaining donors and inspire future cultivation.

• Identification. Targeting your target audience.
• Qualification. Identifying your qualified prospects.
• Cultivation. Informing, engaging and inspiring your prospects.
• Solicitation. Making the ask.
• Acknowledgment. Recognition of your donors.
• Stewardship. Sharing impact. 
• Empower. Provide tools for donors to share your mission.
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So actually, maybe the sales rep should be taking a note from nonprofits!

Picture adapted by Karina Garcia (University of Wyoming) from Jessica Hipchen http://www.slideshare.net/JessicaHipchen/esp

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hubspot for nonprofits

How do I create a donor cycle? You now may be saying, "thanks, this is great information" but I encourage you to take it a step further and act on this knowledge. "HubSpot is an app I came across several years ago when I was a first time nonprofit director asking myself how can I grow our nonprofit organization with a limited budget." says our co-founder, "I was looking to quickly and efficiently document donations and increase revenue with limited resources. This is when I found HubSpot. It is a completely free online software built for sales reps."

HubSpot's sales section has a built in sales pipeline called "Deals". These deals link with individual and company contacts, allow you to set financial goals, and keep track of your progress. You can have multiple deals and multiple pipelines, all of which are fully customizable. Below is an example sequence used for grants with some sample deals. Notice, each deal has a deadline to fit within the grant cycle. Values added to each deal helps track annual progress on the HubSpot dashboard. 

Example of a HubSpot sales pipeline used for fundraising:

Member Center is an a HubSpot plug-in allowing you to affordably document subscriptions and memberships.

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membership system for hubspot

Find out how our co-founder continues to use the free version of HubSpot as a membership system with Member Center!

Learn about member center