You don’t need a big fundraising team to accomplish great things. 

Taking the time to understand one another, improve your communication, and effectively reach your goals are all it takes to start seeing general improvements within the workplace.  

Follow these three simple steps to start maximizing the efforts of your fundraising team!

1. Bond with Your Team

It’s important to build trust with your team, despite any differences you may have. Everyone is uniquely different, and it’s our varying perspectives and ideas that allow us to make positive strides within an organization.

We all know that there are times when personalities and preferences can collide, but it’s essential that you and your team are on the same page. That’s why it’s important to take the time to really get to know every person on your team. You can do this by dedicating some time each month to getting to know one another better. It could be as simple as going for lunch or getting drinks after work. You could even plan a fun activity together.

Building trust and spending more time getting to know one another will help strengthen your team in the long run. Plus, it will fee great to know that you’re all in this together! 

2. Have Daily Check-Ins

Have a check-in each morning where everyone can discuss as a team what they did yesterday and what they plan on doing today. Having a daily check-in is a way to hold yourself and each other accountable.  Consider standing up while you have this meeting so that it goes quickly.  

Encourage your team to use this check-in as an opportunity to mention any difficulties people are having with a particular task and to reach out to another team member for help. Plus, you can provide some helpful encouragement or guidance to your teammates on a daily basis.

3. Utilize a Time Journal

Create a time journal where you write down a list of the tasks you do from day-to-day and how long it took you to do them.  You can use a free app like Todoist, create a spreadsheet, or even write it out by hand on a piece of paper.  

Logging your time will help you identify where you spend time doing unnecessary things.  Perhaps you’ll find that you’re in too many meetings that should have been a simple email thread, or maybe you’re responding to too many emails that really should have been a meeting.  

Find those inefficiencies in your day that are taking up time and make strides to improve your process.

Another great benefit to starting a time journal is that you’ll have back-up when you need it. If you wanted to hire a new staff person, for instance, having a time journal will allow you to show how much of your time is spent doing certain tasks and how much overtime you’re working.

The time journal can help prove that your team needs another staff person, for instance, to help offset certain tasks and give you more time to focus on priorities.

Take these simple steps to strengthen your nonprofit’s team and better manage your time, and you’re bound to see positive results.  Plus, you’ll likely have some fun and develop closer relationships in the process!