The Fundraising Matrixes here to help you plan post-Corona

Corona virus has had a big impact on fundraising income, leaving many fundraisers with the task of reviewing their situations and re-strategizing.

With so much going on, it can be a daunting task and difficult to know where to begin. So what tools are available to us to help us review and re-plan in the face of Corona?

At Nova Fundraising, we love a good Matrix (or two) and use them regularly to help us with audits and strategies. They are a really effective tools for laying out information in a clear and visual way, which can then help you to clarify your fundraising position and identify the best way to move forwards.

Here we give a whistle stop tour of our top 5 Fundraising Matrixes and how you can use them to review, re-strategize and plan your fundraising during Corona.

1. Risk Assessment Matrix.

This matrix can be used to highlight which fundraising activities are likely to be highly impacted by Corona virus and which one less so. The matrix takes into account the likelihood of a fundraising activity being affected and also to what extent it will be affected. It is a great visual aid to help highlight fundraising activities which fall into high risk categories.

The next step once the matrix has been completed would be to do a Risk Mitigation Plan. The Risk Mitigation Plan would look at what steps could be taken to mitigate the impact of those activities which fall in to high and medium risk categories.

2. SWOT.

In all the mayhem of the past few weeks, the glass can start to feel pretty half-empty and like there are lots of weaknesses in your organisation and plenty of threats. But when you take the time to stop and review, you can also uncover what opportunities are out there and how your organisation’s strengths can take advantage of these. For e.g. is there an opportunity to engage more with your database and let them know what you are doing? Can that new event you had been planning launch be piloted online?

Start to look at what your organisation’s top strengths are and how can you use these to make the best of the situation. Now start looking at how you can use the SWOT to your advantage? How can you use your strengths to take advantage of the new opportunities and to overcome weaknesses and minimise threats? What strengths do you need to focus on developing to tackle the threats and weaknesses?

3. Portfolio Matrix.

This is a really useful matrix to use if you are considering having to adapt some of your fundraising activities or introduce new activities to help mitigate ‘at risk’ activities and are not sure which ones to invest. It can also help you conclude which activities may not be fit for purpose in the current climate.

To use the model, you need to come up with 3 or 4 internal factors which are relevant to your organisation (such as available resources) and 3 or 4 external factors which will be important to your audience (such as ease of participation). You then give each factor a weighting, which when added up should total 1. You then take each fundraising activity you are appraising and score it from 1 (very poor) – 10 (excellent) To get the value you multiply the weighting you gave the factor by the rating you gave it. If all this sounds a bit complicated, then do request one of our free templates which gives a bit more detail on how to create a Portfolio Matrix.

This matrix is really great for giving an overview of which activities you should be looking to invest in, which ones may need a bit more evaluating or testing and which ones you could drop in the current climate.

We love how you can tailor it by listing your own relevant internal weighting factors and factors important to your own donors.

4. Ansoff Matrix. 

The Ansoff Matrix is useful in helping to visualise the overall strategy that new income generating activities can adopt. It’s a really useful way for you to consider all the options available to you. The strategic directions that the Ansoff depicts are:

Market Penetration. This is essentially raising more money from existing supporters and existing activities. So perhaps if you have a regular giving scheme, you may be turning to your database to see if you can recruit more regular donors. This is usually considered the least riskiest tactic and should be a go-to option.

Activity Development. This option attempts to solicit income from the same audiences, but through new activities. Whilst this activity is traditionally considered a bit more risky, in the face of Corona some charities may have to look at developing new activities to replace those which may no longer be possible owing to social distancing restrictions.

Market Development. This tactic is where fundraisers are using their existing fundraising activities to attract new donors. This may be if you are looking to target people in a different area, or perhaps a different demographic, for e.g. The risk here is that you may not know as much about this new audience as your more developed donor-base.

Diversification. This is usually considered the riskiest of all the strategies, as it involves targeting completely new donors with brand new fundraising activities. It is therefore usually suggested to use this strategy as last option, once you are sure that you have already exhausted your existing donors and then your existing fundraising activities.

5. The Eisenhower Matrix
So now you have complete your Matrixes you may well be left with a big ‘to do’ list. How can you best allocate your time to get the key tasks done? Well, we have one final matrix to share to help with that too… Introducing the Eisenhower Matrix.

The Eisenhower Matrix, quite simply has four quadrants – Urgent AND Important, Urgent AND Less Important, Less Urgent AND Import and Less Urgent AND Less Important. Simply list your tasks in the relevant quadrants. Those tasks which are time critical and very important you should action first, whereas those in the ‘Less Urgent and Less Important’ box you can leave until later.

So there you have our top 5 Fundraising Matrixes that could help you plan during Corona. If you would like free templates of any of the Fundraising Matrixes listed above email hello@novafundraising.co.uk