The Development Audit Questionnaire

Save and Continue Later

Your Address*
Street Address Address Line 2 City State / Province / Region ZIP / Postal Code Country
Would you like to receive our free Newsletter?*
- Yes
- No

Save and Continue Later

Most organizations require financial resources in order to fulfill their mission. Success in raising money is often an imperative.
How many names are on your database?
What is the average number of individual donors over the last 2-3 years?
What is the average number of church donors over the last 2-3 years?
How many (foundation) grants in the past year?
What is the average amount given by individuals over the last 2-3 years?
What is the average amount over the same period from foundations?
What is the average amount given from churches?
On average, how many gifts are received annually under $500?
On average, how many gifts between $500-$1,000?
On average, how many gifts over $1,000?
What percentage of your income comes from your country?
What percentage of your income comes from outside your country?
How much money do you need to raise this year?
Do you have annual giving programs in which people can participate?
How many new donors on average do you add annually to your database?
List the giving programs in which you are currently engaged?
Do you conduct fundraisers to meet short-term needs?
List them here:
Have you ever conducted a major capital funding campaign?
- Yes
- No
If so, when did you complete your last campaign?
How much was raised?

Save and Continue Later

Organizations are constantly seeking to engage others to support their mission. If you represent an educational institution, you want to add students. You want to “recruit” new donors, and most organizations are heavily dependent on engaging new volunteers to help them. To accomplish these objectives you will need to recruit, support, and meaningful engage people in the support of your mission.
List the areas where you are involved in recruitment.
The list might include things like adding new students, new faculty, new volunteers, new donors, etc.
Name someone within our organization whose sole responsibility has to do with recruitment?
In your recruitment activities are you experiencing growth?
- Yes
- No
Do you set recruitment goals for each year?
- Yes
- No
Do you generally achieve these goals?
- Yes
- No
What are your biggest challenges as it relates to recruitment?
What are your recruitment goals for this year?

Save and Continue Later

In referring to the work of development someone once said, “you will never experience success in growing an organization if there are more people leaving your organization than coming in!” The opposite of retention is attrition. Tracking attrition percentages in every area where you are recruiting others is one of the measurements used to assess effectiveness.
List all of the groups of people that you are actively “recruiting” each year.
If possible, track each of those who were with you in the previous year who are not involved with you in the current year, e.g. if you recruited 50 volunteers in the previous year to assist you and of that group only 25 returned to help in the next year, you had a 50% attrition rate. Record the percentage of each group.

Save and Continue Later

We want people to know about our organization and to do so we communicate with them in a variety of ways. Included among them are materials we produce to share with potential supporters such as brochures, newsletters, advertisements, magazines, direct mail, the organizational website, social media posts, etc. There are other ways in which we communicate that are equally as impactful, things like dress, the attitudes of personnel, the appearance of facilities, etc.
List the things you are doing to communicate with others
What others learn from your materials about you?
Put together 5-7 packets of materials that you use to promote your organization. Ask 5-7 others who are either new to your organization or who may not even know about your organization. Ask them to review the materials and then write a paragraph that describes what you do in their words.

Save and Continue Later

The organizational database represents the heart of development. It is in your database that you keep records of the names and addresses of individuals who have an expressed interest in your organization. Among other things, through the database you can track emerging relationships, generate relevant lists to help you plan and manage special initiatives, you can produce targeted mailings and communications, development algorithms that help you to recognize trends, and a host of other things. All of this information is helpful in assessing the overall health of your organization.
List the kind of reports you regularly analyze to do your work?
What kind of information would be helpful for you to know if it were readily available to you?
Rate your database activities
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
On a 1-10 scale, with 10 representing that your database is providing you everything you need in order to grow your organization, how would you rate your database activities?
Why did you ascribe the number you did?
Make a prioritized list of things you would like to see you database do.

Save and Continue Later

We all plan but are we strategic about it? The strategic plan recognizes all the things that would need to occur in order to achieve desired outcomes. Strategic plans address everything from the things that might be done to enhance the fulfillment of the organization’s mission to planning the steps to meet the infrastructural needs to support desired goals. Strategic plans are generally reviewed and adapted every 3-5 years.
Do you currently have a strategic plan?
- Yes
- No
Do you currently have a strategic plan in place that serves as a roadmap to what you want to be, where you want to go, when you want to be there, the approximate cost of getting there, and a list of the intermediate steps that must be taken to succeed?
Rate your strategic planning activities
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your strategic planning activities?

Save and Continue Later

Good organization skills are essential to achieve goals. Given the fact that the majority of organizations like yours cannot afford to hire enough help to get things done, it becomes imperative to engage volunteers to help. Managing volunteers can be challenging but success can be achieved through good organization.
Approximately how many initiatives (activities, events, etc.) do you plan annually?
How many paid staff assists you in organizing initiatives?
Approximately how many volunteers support you in any given year?
What percentage of your time is devoted to managing events?
List some of the organized events in which you are annually involved:

Save and Continue Later

Every organization exists to accomplish its mission. Mission has two perspectives (1) what we do now to accomplish our mission, and (2) how we measure long-term success. If those we served 10 years earlier do not reflect the mission to which we are committed, have we really achieved success. Ultimately our real success will be determined long after we delivered our services. And this is something that needs to be evaluated.
Does your organization track long-term outcomes?
- Yes
- No
Rate the impact of your mission
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
On a 1-10 scale, and this is entirely subjective, how would people within your organization (ask them!) rate your success? In other words what number would reflect the impact of your mission among those you served 10 years earlier?
In the space below, write down some of the reasons why you ascribed that number.
Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Save and Continue Later