It can feel productive to jump straight into tactics.
A volunteer might ask, “What you want me to do?”
A colleague might suggest, “What if we raised our sponsorship amounts for our gala this year?”
A boss might opine, “You might think about adding another giving day to the calendar.”
Tactics get us moving. Tactics call us into action, into doing something. Tactics are how we ‘make things happen.’
But, if we first don’t gain clarity on our strategy, the tactics we choose might actually point us in an unhelpful direction.
Imagine a planning session for the coming year with you and your colleagues. Someone brings up the idea of increasing the use of matching gift opportunities.
During this brainstorm, a few colleagues get specifically excited about the potential of using matching gift opportunities to increase the number of young alumni donors. All the tactics being proposed are thoughtful and could be effective.
And, then, someone says, “well, yes, next year we might set a record for the number of young alumni donors, but don’t we really need to raise more money from our annual giving program? I’m not sure increasing the number of young alumni donors will do that. Why wouldn’t we plan matching gift opportunities for donors to give at the $1,000+ level?”
We can get excited about perfectly fine tactics when the strategy has not been clarified.
Jumping straight to tactics without first agreeing to a strategy may cause us to end up with a result that people want to celebrate.
But it may not be the result that we really wanted or needed at all.
