It's the New Year, a time for fresh thinking, turning over a new leaf, tackling that nagging goal, and resolving to lick that annoying habit or problem once and for all. This is the perfect time to make your Benevon New Year's resolutions.

All 2007 Ask Events^™ are over, the holidays have come and gone, you've tabulated your results from last year's fundraising efforts, and you've tried to confront next year's goals. Before you step back onto the all-too-familiar year-to-year, hand-to-mouth, old-style fundraising treadmill—stop! What could you resolve to do in 2008 that will help you grow what you have been working so hard to build—and this time do it even better than before?

Here are ten suggested resolutions you could adopt this year. These are taken from the top ten "mea culpa" mistakes we hear from our workshop alumni, because they know these are essential factors for long-term success with our model.

1. I will work with our board and fundraising team to develop our own measurable, working definition of sustainable funding. It will include specific dollar goals by certain dates. The attainment of this goal will allow our organization to get off the year-to-year fundraising treadmill. We will have agreed on our written definition of sustainable funding by _________ (date).
   
   
2. We will hold "sizzling" monthly Point of Entry^® Events with at least ten guests per month for all twelve months of 2008.
   
   
3. I will ensure that the Follow-Up Calls are made to every Point of Entry guest within one week of the event. These calls will be made by someone the guest met at the Point of Entry. Furthermore, all notes from the Follow-Up Calls will be entered into a database tracking system that is easy to use by everyone on the team.
   
   
4. A minimum of 25% of our Point of Entry guests will refer others to Point of Entry Events. That's how we'll know that our Point of Entry Events are "sizzling."
   
   
5. At our 2008 Ask Event (if it is not our first Ask Event), at least 40% of the guests will have attended a prior Point of Entry.
   
   
6. Prior to our 2008 Ask Event, we will have a Challenge or Leadership Gift equal to or exceeding the top multiple-year Unit of Service^™ in our giving society.
   
   
7. At least 10% of our 2008 Ask Event attendees will join our Multiple-Year Giving Society^™, and our lowest Unit of Service will be $1,000 per year for five years.
   
   
8. No less than 100% of our board members will be donors (of any amount) to our organization, and at least 25% of them will be Multiple-Year Giving Society members.
   
   
9. This year, we will have at least two in-person or phone cultivation contacts with each of our Multiple-Year Donors. In each of these contacts, we will have a real two-way dialog with each donor where they will feel they have been listened to—not just talked to.
   
   
10. We will have at least two Free Feel-Good Cultivation Events^™ this year, and at least 50% of our Multiple-Year Donors will attend one of these events.