If you're fundraising for your nonprofit's mission, remember this:
💡 There are 9 million get-rich-quick transactional fundraising ideas.
⏲️ Executing them is hard and time consuming.
🎼 There's a practical approach to the daily rhythm of relational fundraising.
🎶 Consistently building relationships seems harder. It's not, with real training.
📈 The payoff is 10X greater.
Start and don't stop.
The Shiny Idea Treadmill
Every week, a new idea lands in a nonprofit leader's inbox. A viral challenge. A new giving day. A peer-to-peer platform. A fresh social media tactic. Each one promises a quick win, and each one asks your team for something precious: hours.
Here's what rarely gets said out loud:
Transactional fundraising is not easy money.
A gala, a campaign, or a blast email series requires weeks of planning, design, follow-up, and recovery. Then the cycle resets, and you start again from zero.
That's the treadmill. Your team is running hard, the calendar is full, and the income statement barely moves. It's a bit of a fingers-crossed mentality, and it's why so many organizations never reach their growth goals.
Why Relational Fundraising Feels Harder (But Isn't)
Relational fundraising often sounds harder because it asks for something different. It's not a single burst of effort that ends on a deadline. It's a steady, repeatable practice: personal visits, one-on-one conversations, customized updates, small-group gatherings, and investment-level conversations that lead donors to their best gift.
Many fundraisers hesitate because nobody ever taught them how. Without training, relationship-building feels vague.
What do I say?
When do I follow up?
How do I bring up a larger gift without feeling pushy?
Those are skill gaps, not personality flaws. With real training, the work becomes a rhythm. In fact, that is the difference between a team that is busy and a team that is funded.
If you want to see what that training looks like, take a look at my donor cultivation training. It's built around the day-to-day logistics of leading donors to their best gift, every year.
What a Daily Relational Fundraising Rhythm Actually Looks Like
A rhythm doesn't require more hours. It requires different hours. Think of it as a few small, consistent actions that compound:
📅 Every day: reach out to a handful of top donors or prospects with a personal note, call, or invitation.
📅 Every week: schedule and hold one-on-one meetings that deepen relationships and uncover what each donor cares about most.
📅 Every month: send customized impact updates that show donors exactly what their investment is doing.
📅 Every quarter: host an intimate gathering or exclusive presentation where donors connect with the mission and with each other.
📅 Every year: lead each donor through an investment-level conversation toward their best gift.
None of this is flashy. That's exactly the point. Relational work builds on itself. The donor you met with in March is more open to a larger gift in October. The impact update you sent in June makes the year-end conversation feel natural, not urgent.
Where the 10X Comes From
The "10X" isn't a gimmick. It comes from how organizations actually fund themselves.
In a high-ROI fundraising model, relational activities should generate 50 to 75 percent of annual revenue, while transactional activities make up no more than 25 percent. Your top 30 donors alone often account for a large share of what you raise each year. When your hours align with those relationships, a single conversation can yield a gift that dwarfs a month of email blasts.
That is what I mean by aligning hours with dollars.
If you'd like to see how that math works for your own organization, explore my hours-to-dollars funding model.
Relational gifts also tend to be larger, more loyal, and more likely to be unrestricted. That matters, because unrestricted dollars are what let you fund infrastructure, pay your people well, and invest in the growth your strategic plan calls for.
Don't Forget the Rest of the Team
Relational fundraising isn't only the executive director's job.
When I say fundraiser, I mean the CEO, the development staff, and the board. Each group has a role, and each group needs to be equipped.
Boards, for instance, are often handed transactional tasks like selling event tickets, when their most valuable contribution is opening doors and building key relationships. If you'd like your board to step into that role with confidence, my board fundraising training is a good place to start.
I've also written about this topic as a member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council. You can find those pieces, including the indicators that tell you whether your team needs relational training, on my Forbes Nonprofit Council articles page.
Start Small, and Don't Stop
You don't need to overhaul everything on Monday.
Start by subtracting one transactional activity that eats the most hours for the least return. Then fill that time with two or three relational touches each week.
Consistency is the whole game.
A donor relationship isn't built in a single conversation. It's built over months of showing up, listening, and following through. The organizations that grow the most aren't the ones with the cleverest campaign. They're the ones that decided to keep going when the novelty wore off.
Chasing the next shiny idea will always feel faster. Building relationships will always pay more. So pick your rhythm, get the training you need, and keep the beat.
If you're serious about shifting your team from the treadmill to the rhythm, fill out this form and we'll hop on Zoom. You can also see how the approach plays out in my methodology and case studies.
How about you? What's one relational touch you could make before the end of this week?
Whenever you’re ready to stop chasing shiny objects, there are THREE things you can do next:
👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share insider fundraising info daily — the same lessons I teach my clients through my consultancy about securing larger major gifts and diversifying revenue.
🍎 Get Resources + White Papers — download robust resources you can use to push against the nonprofits sector’s scarcity mindset, equip your board, and shift your entire team into high-ROI fundraising.
📈 Work with me to fully-fund your nonprofit organization’s strategic plan and aspirational budget. If you’re a business-minded nonprofit CEO or Executive Director with big growth plans but need to make charitable revenue from relational donors a bigger part of your budget, you can apply to work with me here.
