Can Fundraising Be Automated?
Is it possible to automate something considered as high-touch and human-intensive
TLDR;
This is among the topmost questions in startups and nonprofit communities. Here we try to better define this problem, and find an answer using the 3 common assets every firm has:
People, Processes and Technology
Having bagged both highly coveted grants and institutional investment, I wanted to share my learning on how automation of the fundraising process helped us win.
Who Should Read This?
If you are founder of a startup, a small business owner, a fundraising head at a nonprofit, or someone looking to raise funds for your personal cause, this article should resonate with you.
Doesn’t everyone want to know more about the elusive fundraising process?
Why Care?
Less than 1% of startups raise VC funding, as per public sources. The competition for disposable income towards charity is worse, making the process 10X more competitive for non-profits.
As such, deep understanding of the modern fundraising process, optimal stages, best practices is indispensable.
The current approach towards fundraising comes with its own set of limitations. We tried to break down the issues in 3 buckets:
People issues:
Not preparing enough for investors’ pitch
Not knowing or reaching out to the right investor for your mission
Not knowing or capitalizing who are your hot investor leads
Process issues:
Not checking the “hygiene” factors before investor outreach — defensible idea, great team, big enough market/problem to solve.
Lack of organized systematic follow-ups and updates
Lack of balance between fundraising and other critical processes
Unorganized, outdated or missing investor documents
Missing out on timely communication with investors
Technology issues:
Inappropriate, inadequate, missed or delayed communication to investors
No resource or time allocation or tracking of fundraising efforts
No data, analytics or insights on investor leads, communication, trends
Nowhere a complete list…Just tip of the iceberg.
Automation Saves The World
The business process automation market is projected to reach roughly USD 19.6B at a rate of CAGR 12.2% by 2026. Automation of the manual work in managing leads, data, documents, communication et al supports in having a focused and well-organized approach to attain investments. Automation of fundraising process is now gaining more momentum than ever, due to the pandemic changing the investor interaction dynamics forever.
What can be automated?
As a rule of thumb, atleast 1/3rd of your fundraising efforts and time can straight away be automated using an automation platform. Here are a few you should start automating using such a platform:
Outreach communication templates for mail, text, slack, call scripts, meeting
Integrated investor communication insights in 1 place
Auto-scheduled follow-ups within set timeframes
Investor journey mapping and best practices checklists
Task allocation, scheduling, analytics, reporting
Document and deal room with time or role based access control
Custom process setup for targeted or marquee investors
So automate and customize the workflow as per your roadmap, funnel the right mix of investors database and create your own pipeline.
Your team must keep adding updates to ensure the fundraising process remains effective and efficient. Whether you are sitting on heap of data and documents, grappling to find the right investors, preparing pitch decks for active or passive fundraising, implementing automation for fundraising is the way ahead to secure an impregnable lead.
Conclusion
Fundraising is an evergreen facet of every startup or non-profit’s initial journey, and often remains one for years to come.
There is no secret sauce for fundraising. It is a ferocious process for every founder to convince the investors to secede with their money. With automation of the fundraising process, the founders would be able to derive extensive value from it and move closer to a sweeter deal.
Post-pandemic aftermath has accelerated the need for better process automation. This is where we at CreLytics, aim to help the startup, small business and non-profit community at large.