Jesse Lane founder of goodmakerU, has a message to walk you through your report to let you know whats here, and how to use it.
Bill, thanks for walking through this diagnostic. You mentioned that 'this is a test test test' is what's holding your organization back — and while that's a placeholder answer, the data you provided across your other responses tells a real story. Test time is at a critical inflection point: you have budget, you have staff, and you have momentum from events. What you're missing is the infrastructure to hold onto the growth you're already generating.
Your donor retention sits in the 20–40% range, which means for every 10 donors you bring in — many of them through events — you're losing 6 to 8 of them before they ever give again. That's not a donor problem, that's a stewardship and systems problem. Events are your primary funding source, which is great for acquisition, but event-driven donors need a clear, intentional pathway into your broader community or they disappear after the gala. You've already identified donor retention as a top priority, which tells me you feel this pain acutely. The gap right now isn't awareness — it's the follow-through infrastructure to convert first-time supporters into long-term believers in your work.
You flagged day-to-day operations as the area most dependent on your founder or top leader. Combined with 3–5 staff departures in the past year, this is a compounding problem. When operations run through one person, every staff transition creates turbulence that ripples into donor relationships, program delivery, and team morale. At a $1M–$5M budget with 6–15 staff, you should have enough organizational mass to distribute operational ownership — but it hasn't happened yet. The turnover you're experiencing may not just be a staffing issue; it could be a direct symptom of unclear ownership, inconsistent decision-making, and a team that doesn't feel empowered to lead within their own lanes.
This is the good news framing: your organization has most of the raw ingredients. Solid budget, a real team, events that generate revenue, and leadership that finds a way to invest when it matters. The 'Ready to Scale' signal showing up here means you're not in crisis — you're in a growth ceiling. The blockers above aren't signs of a broken organization; they're signs of an organization that's outgrown its current systems and hasn't yet built the infrastructure to match its ambition.
Here's the through-line: your founder-dependency in operations means no one owns the donor follow-up process after an event. That gap is exactly why retention is stuck in the 20–40% range. Donors show up, have a great experience, and then hear nothing — because the system to reach back out doesn't exist or isn't consistently executed. And because operations are centralized, building that system keeps getting deprioritized. You can't scale through events alone if the back-end leaks. Fixing the operational ownership issue is actually the first domino — once someone clearly owns donor stewardship, retention starts to move.
1. Assign a stewardship owner immediately. Before you build any new system, designate one staff member whose explicit responsibility is post-event and post-donation follow-up. This doesn't require a new hire — it requires a clear job description update and accountability.
2. Map your current donor journey from event to second gift. Literally draw it out. Where does communication stop? What's the first touchpoint after someone attends an event? You'll likely find a gap within the first 30 days post-event — that's where you start.
3. Build a 90-day post-event sequence. Three to five touchpoints over 90 days: a thank-you within 48 hours, a mission update at 30 days, a soft ask or impact story at 60 days. It doesn't need to be fancy — it needs to be consistent.
4. Document one operational process per week for the next 8 weeks. Pick the 8 processes most dependent on your top leader and write them down. This isn't about bureaucracy — it's about making the organization less fragile and giving your team room to own their work.
5. Use your marketing priority to support retention, not just acquisition. Your instinct to expand marketing is right, but point it inward first. A newsletter, a donor impact report, or a simple social series about your work will do more for retention right now than any new acquisition campaign.
GoodMaker Pro is built for exactly where you are, Bill — an organization with real momentum that keeps losing ground because the back-end systems haven't caught up. The tools and coaching inside Pro directly address leaky funnels, operational bottlenecks, and the scaling infrastructure you need to stop rebuilding from scratch after every event cycle.
Get your team and your board in on this conversation. Reports like this one work best when the whole organization can tackle issues together.
