Everything on this page is our read of one coffee. Some of it will be wrong. The point is to find out which parts, put your numbers against the rest, and agree where the energy goes first. This page is for everyone on the team, not just the CEO. Nothing is sent until you press send.
Each person on the team fills this in once. Your answers are kept separately.
Confirm, correct or tell us we've misunderstood. The second half is where we think time and money are leaking. Blank is fine. "Don't know" is a useful answer.
Rate each one. Agree, partly, or no. If there's a bigger leak we didn't hear, the last card is yours.
This is the part only you can answer. Nobody is being measured. We're looking for the work that should never have been a person's job, so the people can do the part only people can do.
Three things that eat the most time. Rough hours a week is fine.
We went and read the sector evidence after we spoke. It is unusually consistent for a charity your size and shape. It says do more with less, and it says where.
| Lever | What the evidence says | Our read |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | About 3 percent of donors give three quarters of the dollars. Only a third of mid-tier donors are realistically upgradeable. A charity that halved its high-touch list lost nothing and converted the rest at 28 percent. | Primary lever |
| Less admin | Retained donors supply 83 percent of individual giving income in Australian small charities. A personal thank-you inside 48 hours makes a first-time donor four times more likely to give again. Duplicated files make both impossible. | The enabler |
| Targeted campaigns | Mail to active donors returns about $4.50 per dollar, to cold prospects about 40 cents. Match pools lift revenue 3.7x, a monthly option 2x. A targeted campaign on an unsegmented file is a mass campaign with a better name. | Second, once tiered |
| More outreach | Small donor counts are falling 5 to 12 percent a year sector-wide. Acquisition costs several times retention. UIA alone has taken $140m+ from the same community since October 7. The constraint is attention and calendar slots, not new names. | Not the lever |
Three people cannot hold relationships with a few thousand duplicated records. So right now nobody is stewarded well, including the majors who are warm today.
Fundraising Effectiveness Project 2025, FIA Benchmarking Project (43 Australian charities), Blackbaud donorCentrics, M+R Benchmarks 2026, Bloomerang's 1.9 million donor thank-you study, Dataro's Australia for UNHCR case, JBWere's 2024 bequest report. None of them are your numbers yet. That is what Part 5 is for.
Each one names what it replaces, what we think it's worth and how long it takes. The uplift figures are our guesses from the sector evidence, written down so you can argue with them. Mark each one Now, Next, Later or Not for us.
Our suggested order is A then B (the plumbing, and a visible win against the $20k quote), then C, E and I (where the needle moves), then H, G, F and D as the calendar allows. Nothing here needs a new licence. Nothing pitches AI to your donors.
These replace every assumption above with your figures. The four tiles update as you type so you can see what a lift is worth before anyone builds anything. If this isn't your part of the organisation, skip to Part 6.
Extra income next year if 10 percent more of your active donors give again. Driven by the 48-hour call and the welcome journey.
Annual value if 3 percent of active donors move to $30 a month. Regular givers retain at 70 to 90 percent.
At the Australian average gift of $60,000. Lands in five to ten years. The prospects are already on your file.
PIXO's cleanse quote plus the duplicate mail pieces at about $4 each. The clean room runs monthly instead.
Tony comes back with an order of work, the questions still open, and what he'd need access to. If the return isn't there on a piece, he says so and you've lost nothing. The only cost that passes through is model usage, capped at $400.
tony@tonysimmons.com.au