People often ask us how to decide if they are ready to embark on the process of attaining sustainable funding. Here are the three categories of questions we encourage them to ask themselves. I hope you find these questions useful.

What is so important about the work of your organization that you are giving your time to it?

Why are you doing all of this anyway? What is it about your organization that captivates you? What is it about the work or mission that reaches deep into your personal values or background? Why would a person like you be involved with your organization? Why is it so important to you?

This is the driving personal motivator that keeps you involved and has you want the very best for this group; you want to be certain they can sustain themselves financially into the future.

What is the legacy you are committed to leaving your organization? What might happen if you made sustainable funding your legacy?

No matter how committed you are to this group, you aren't going to be around forever. What will be different there by the time you leave the organization? What would have to happen at your organization before you could turn over your role there and walk away with your head held high? Perhaps it's a financial legacy—a certain amount of money to be used for a particular program or building. Or is it a particular program you want to see launched or expanded? Is it a huge endowment? Or a deeper reserve fund for emergencies?

Take the time to imagine life at your organization without the worry that your largest funder might reduce your annual grant or cut you off altogether. Imagine being able to diversify your funding mix to significantly increase individual support. What if you could grow a reserve fund to tide you over when the next hurricane hits? What about building an endowment fund large enough to generate interest or investment income that covers the "treadmill number" that your organization struggles to raise each year?

How would you define sustainable funding for your organization?

Looking out over the next ten years, how would you quantify your definition of sustainable funding? How much unrestricted funding would you need each year?

If you are looking to build an endowment or a reserve fund, how large must it be to generate enough investment income to significantly reduce (or even eliminate!) your anxiety about meeting your annual fundraising goal? Think big enough to get your organization off the treadmill.

This doesn't mean your organization will ever stop doing fundraising altogether. On the contrary, the very process of building towards sustainable funding will open up your group to the community in new and exciting ways. Your program goals will expand accordingly and the next level of fundraising may be needed. Yet the days of scarcity-based fundraising will be over.