Streamlining Workflows: Automate, Delegate, Eliminate
Nonprofit fundraising is no easy feat. Between managing donor relationships, planning events, and ensuring day-to-day operations run smoothly, fundraisers often find themselves stretched too thin. If you feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, it’s time to streamline your workflows. By automating, delegating, and eliminating unnecessary tasks, you can focus on what truly matters—advancing your mission.
Identifying the Biggest Time-Wasters
The first step in streamlining your work is recognizing what’s slowing you down. Common time-wasters for fundraisers include:
Redundant administrative tasks: Manually updating donor records or crafting repetitive email responses can eat up hours.
Meetings without purpose: Frequent, unstructured meetings can derail your productivity.
Inefficient systems: Outdated CRMs, poorly organized files, or lack of integration between tools can cause unnecessary delays.
Lack of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Without clear guidelines, even simple tasks take longer and are more error-prone.
Take a moment to reflect on what’s consuming your time.
The Automate, Delegate, Eliminate Framework
Once you’ve identified your time-wasters, apply the Automate, Delegate, Eliminate framework to tackle them:
Automate
Leverage technology to take repetitive tasks off your plate. For example:
Use your donor CRM to automate donor acknowledgments and reminders.
Do all your campaign planning at once, and then set up and schedule email campaigns all at once using platforms like Mailchimp or Constant Contact. Doing it all as one batch means you don’t have to constantly remember to prep and send the next email in a series. (True story, I drafted this blog back on January 7…but you got it today!)
Have your CRM email you the reports that you pull on a regular basis. Many of them have this capability today. (If it doesn’t…see above note about “outdated CRMs” and think about a migration.)
Delegate
Empower your team, volunteers, or interns by assigning tasks they can handle. Delegation not only lightens your load but also helps others grow. Examples include:
Assigning data entry or event logistics to volunteers.
Asking fellow team members (like program staff) to draft up one section of your donor newsletter to lighten the load on one person.
Involving board members in donor thank-you calls or stewardship activities.
You can also delegate to AI. I love using ChatGPT to help me brainstorm, write a first draft, or copy edit something I’ve drafted. I don’t believe in using AI to do the work (trust me, people can tell that AI did the work). But I’ve saved hours of staff time by asking Grammarly to find typos in my work vs. asking my colleagues to do it.
Eliminate
Be ruthless about cutting out activities that don’t add value or align with your mission. Some examples:
Decline unnecessary meetings or suggest alternative ways to share updates (check out Loom as a platform to record short-form video to answer questions, screenshare documents, and other things that used to be meetings).
Stop engaging in campaigns or events with minimal ROI.
Simplify processes to eliminate extra steps—does the board chair really need to look at the newsletter before it goes out?
Printable Reminder: Automate, Delegate, Eliminate
To help you stay focused, we’ve created a printable reminder you can post in your office. Download it, print it, and place it somewhere visible to remind yourself to evaluate every task: Can it be automated, delegated, or eliminated?
Click here to download the printable.
Time to Learn More: Join Us on February 21
Ready to take your productivity to the next level? Join our Friday Focus Session on February 21, sponsored by Donorbox. In this session, we’ll dive deeper into productivity hacks for fundraisers, including advanced strategies for streamlining workflows and prioritizing tasks. Don’t miss it!
Homework: Streamline One Workflow in 30 Minutes
Put these ideas into action with this quick assignment:
Identify a repetitive task you do regularly (e.g., donor thank-you emails, scheduling social media posts).
Ask yourself: Can I automate, delegate, or eliminate this task?
Take one step to streamline it today—set up an automation, delegate it to a colleague, or decide to stop doing it.
By tackling just one workflow, you’ll see immediate benefits and set the stage for long-term productivity gains. Streamlining your workflows isn’t just about working faster; it’s about working smarter. By focusing on automation, delegation, and elimination, you can free up your time to focus on high-impact activities that move your mission forward. Let’s make 2025 the year of smarter fundraising!
