Fundraising Best Practices and What to Consider When Choosing a Consulting Firm

If you're reading this, chances are fundraising is taking up more of your mental energy than you’d like it to. At some point, many leaders start asking whether outside help could move things forward faster, or whether they're even doing things right in the first place.

This post covers both sides of that question. First, a look at fundraising practices that tend to separate organizations with steady, growing revenue from those that struggle. Second, some practical guidance for evaluating consulting firms, since not every firm is the right fit for every organization.

Fundraising Practices Worth Revisiting

Fundraising is only as strong as the organization behind it. A clear vision, strong programs, realistic budgets, meaningful impact measurement, and engaged leadership all influence an organization's ability to attract and retain funding. Organizations should ensure these foundational elements are in place to set themselves up for long-term success.

Fundraising starts with strategy. Before pursuing any funding opportunity, organizations should understand which revenue strategies best fit their mission, programs, staff capacity, and long-term goals. Strong fundraising starts with a strategy, not simply pursuing every available opportunity.

Diversified revenue protects against volatility. Organizations that rely heavily on one or two funding sources are more exposed when circumstances change. A healthy mix of individual giving, grants, investments, and earned revenue, where applicable, tends to provide more stability over time.

Fundraising takes time. Building a meaningful relationship with a funder doesn't happen in the blink of an eye. Moving from an initial introduction with a family foundation to securing multi-year funding often takes 18 to 36 months. Even once a proposal is submitted, private foundation grants typically take two to four months for review, while federal grants often require three to six months from the application deadline to award notification. 

When it comes to making asks, quality wins over quantity. You're more likely to succeed by submitting a smaller number of well-researched requests to funders whose priorities genuinely align with your mission than by sending a generic pitch to every prospect. Depending on the source, the average grant proposal success rate sits somewhere between 10 and 30 percent. That number climbs significantly when organizations do the research to identify the right prospects, build authentic relationships over time, and make asks that reflect what the donor actually cares about. 

More donors isn't always the answer. Donor retention matters just as much as new donor acquisition. If you're trying to close a funding gap or raise money quickly, those closest to your mission are always the right place to start. People who have given before are far more likely to give again, and often give more. Repeat donors are retained at a rate of 69.2 percent, compared to just 19.4 percent for new donors.

Accessible data is a critical fundraising asset. Making the pitch is important, but so is the institutional knowledge behind it. Organizations should be keeping centralized records of conversations, contact info, and giving history so that information lives with the organization and isn't lost during staff transitions. An organized filing system and donor database that's actively used is one of the most valuable tools you can have.

None of these practices are complicated in concept. What's hard is finding the time, structure, and sometimes the perspective to build the tools required and put them into practice. That's often where a consulting relationship comes in.

What to Consider When Choosing a Consulting Firm

Bringing in a consultant is a meaningful decision, both in terms of budget and organizational bandwidth. Here's what's worth thinking through before signing a contract. 

Be careful of overpromising. If a firm tells you they can bring in new funding overnight, that's a signal to look more closely at the proof behind those claims. The firms worth working with will be upfront that real results, especially in institutional funding, are built over months and years. 

Understand what success looks like before you start. Ask the firm to be specific about deliverables, timelines, and what realistic outcomes look like. A clear scope of work with honest milestones is far more useful than vague promises. 

Ask about experience with organizations like yours. A firm's track record with large institutions doesn't always translate to small or mid-sized nonprofits, and the reverse is also true. Ask for examples of work with organizations similar to yours in size, mission area, or stage of growth. 

Ask what resources and tools they bring to the table. This is often a meaningful difference between individual consultants and firms. Firms may offer access to platforms that would be prohibitively expensive for individual organizations to maintain on their own, including wealth screening, project management, and prospect research tools. These resources can improve the quality and targeting of your outreach. 

Ask how knowledge transfer and relationship ownership work. Consulting engagements should leave an organization stronger and more capable than before, not dependent on the consultant indefinitely. A good firm should position your organization as the owner of every funder relationship so that trust and history live with you, not with the consulting contract. Likewise, the information collected during a consulting engagement should remain with the organization long-term.

Consider the relationship, not just the credentials. Consultants will be working closely with your staff, board, and sometimes funders directly. Beyond expertise, it matters whether the people you'll be working with communicate well, are responsive, and are people your team will actually want to work with. Pay attention to how they listen during early conversations. A good partner should be asking a lot of questions about your organization's history, culture, and challenges before proposing anything. 

Moving Forward

Strong fundraising is based on a combination of fundamentals paired with patience and realistic expectations about how long meaningful change takes.

If you're thinking through where your organization stands, or wondering whether outside support might help, CIMA Consulting works with nonprofit leaders to think through exactly these questions. We're happy to have a conversation, even if it's just to help you figure out what kind of support, if any, makes sense for where you are right now.

1 https://grantedai.com/learn/guides/family-foundation-cultivation-guide
2https://grants.com/grant-review-process-timelines-in-2026-how-long-does-it-take-and-whats-new/
3  https://afpglobal.org/sites/default/files/attachments/resource/FEP_Report_Q4_2024_Final.pdf