What Your Year-End Fundraising Results Are Really Telling You
January is when nonprofit leaders finally come up for air. The year-end rush has passed, donation totals are in, and attention quickly turns to planning for the year ahead. Yet before new goals are set or strategies drafted, there is a more important step that is often skipped: understanding what last year’s results actually reveal about your fundraising program.
Strong year-end numbers can be reassuring. They can also be misleading. Revenue alone does not tell the full story of how an organization raises money or whether its approach is sustainable.
When “Success” Masks Structural Strain
In my work with nonprofits, I regularly see organizations celebrate strong year-end performance while quietly acknowledging that the effort required was unsustainable. Staff worked nights and weekends. A handful of donors carried a disproportionate share of the goal. Systems were stretched or bypassed just to get appeals out the door.
These patterns don’t negate success, but they do raise important questions:
Was this growth repeatable, or was it heroic?
Did staff capacity align with expectations?
Were systems and processes supporting the work or hindering it?
If these questions aren’t addressed early, organizations risk building plans on assumptions rather than reality.
Revenue Is an Outcome, Not a Diagnosis
Fundraising results are outcomes of many underlying factors: staffing, leadership alignment, board engagement, donor strategy, systems, and culture. Looking only at dollars raised obscures what’s actually driving performance.
A year-end review should go beyond totals to examine:
Donor retention and acquisition trends
Revenue concentration among top donors
Staff workload and role clarity
Board participation and expectations
Effectiveness of systems and data
Without this context, planning becomes reactive. Goals are set without understanding what it took to reach them or what it will take to sustain them.
Why January Is the Right Moment for Assessment
January is uniquely well-suited for reflection. There is distance from year-end urgency, but still enough runway to make thoughtful adjustments before the year gains momentum.
A development assessment provides a structured, objective way to evaluate fundraising capacity and performance. It is not about blame or judgment. It is about clarity.
An effective assessment helps organizations:
Understand what is working well and why
Identify structural gaps that limit growth
Align leadership and board expectations
Make informed decisions about staffing and strategy
Most importantly, it creates a shared understanding of where the organization is today so that planning is grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.
Clarity as a Leadership Responsibility
For executive directors and boards, commissioning a development assessment is an act of stewardship. It signals a commitment to sustainability, staff well-being, and long-term impact.
For chief fundraisers, it provides a framework for honest conversations about capacity and priorities—often conversations that are difficult to initiate internally.
When organizations invest in clarity early in the year, they reduce stress later. They plan with intention rather than urgency.
Wanda Scott & Associates partners with nonprofit leaders to strengthen fundraising strategy, systems, and capacity through development assessments, strategic planning, advising, and interim leadership support.