The Apollo 7-Point Fundraising Audit tells you exactly what's working, what isn't. No guesswork. A comprehensive, detailed, and action-focused diagnostic of the seven main areas of your fundraising program.
The strategic plan gives you a detailed, actionable roadmap that shows you exactly what you can do, now, to transform your fundraising program and raise more money.
Maybe you're an executive director who's been handling fundraising on top of everything else. You know there's low-hanging fundraising fruit all around you, but you barely have time to thank your top donors let alone launch a major new program.
Or maybe you're a board member who knows the organization needs to be doing more on fundraising. But there are also major gaps on governance and staffing, your attention is divided, and somehow fundraising keeps getting pushed off to another day.
Or perhaps you're a motivated volunteer, willing to put your nose to the grindstone. But there's just so much that needs to be done that when you do begin you're paralyzed by decision fatigue.
The problem isn't effort. You need direction.
A comprehensive, four-to-six-week diagnostic that examines your fundraising program from the inside out. We review your donor data, interview your leadership, survey your board, assess your communications, and benchmark your results against sector standards.
Every finding is grounded in your actual data, your actual donors, and your actual capacity.
The 12-month Strategic Plan gives you the roadmap. Together with the audit, it tells you exactly where to focus your limited time and resources for the greatest return.
A detailed, 12-month program of action, designed to maximize your revenue, based upon a clear-eyed assessment of your individual programs, resources, donors, history, and strengths.
At the conclusion of the audit and strategic plan, you have two options: implement the plan with your own team, or hire Apollo Advancement as your fractional fundraiser. We embed with your team, and actually do the work of putting the action plan into motion. We hit the ground running from day one, handling everything from donor stewardship to campaign execution to board enablement. By the time we leave, your team is empowered to take on the work and carry it forward.
Learn about fractional fundraisingEach dimension is reviewed against your actual data, then benchmarked against sector standards and peer organizations. We cut through the fog, and provide a clear-eyed view of exactly where you stand: the good, the bad, the ugly. Because we believe knowledge is power, even (especially!) when it shows us where we have to grow.
Is fundraising treated as central to the mission? Does leadership participate in donor cultivation? Is the development function set up to succeed, or set up to struggle alone?
What percentage of your board gives? Do board members open doors to potential donors? We survey your board anonymously to understand their comfort level, beliefs, and willingness to engage.
Retention rates, acquisition and attrition trends, revenue by source, giving-level distribution, upgrade potential, and lapsed donor profiles. We benchmark against industry benchmarks and peer organizations through CRA or IRS filings.
A channel-by-channel review of your annual fund, major gifts, events, grants, and planned giving. For each: structure, results, cost-per-dollar-raised, and strategic rationale. Which programs are earning their keep, and which are consuming resources without proportional return?
How quickly are gifts acknowledged? How often do you communicate with donors between asks? Are your appeals donor-centered or organization-centered? We review every touchpoint from the first thank-you letter to the annual report.
Do you have a formal prospect list? How are new potential donors identified? How many face-to-face donor meetings happen each month? For most organizations, this is where the largest untapped opportunity lives.
We map what we find in the data back to the underlying beliefs producing those results. Beliefs like "fundraising is embarrassing" or "we need to give people something in return" shape behaviour in ways that no amount of tactical advice will fix. Naming them is the first step toward changing them.
Read our series on the ten fundraising fallacies that may be killing your results
Without a clear picture of your fundraising program, every decision is a gamble. You invest in events that may not be paying for themselves. You lose donors you could have kept. You leave major gift conversations on the table because nobody is sure whose job it is to have them. Another year passes, and the board asks the same questions they asked last year.
The strategic plan translates audit findings into a concrete, twelve-month action plan - organized into three tiers.
High-impact changes your team can make right away.
For example:
Structural work that builds a durable program.
For example:
Longer-horizon work that transforms your fundraising program, and achieves long-term sustainability.
For example:
Each recommendation is paired with revenue projections. Achievable with your current team and resources.
Fees depend on the size and complexity of your organization - from a focused audit for a small shop, to a full audit plus twelve-month strategic plan for a multi-channel program.
Let's talk about what you need. We'll put together a scope and fee that fits, and you'll know exactly what you're paying for before you sign anything.
With prioritized findings and recommendations, connecting each finding to the organizational belief behind it.
Board and leadership, in person or virtual. 90-120 minutes, designed to build alignment and momentum, followed by discussion.
To answer questions and support your team as implementation begins.
With phased implementation roadmap and revenue projections. The roadmap your team can actually follow.
The audit is often the starting point for a longer engagement. But even as a standalone project, it gives your leadership team the clarity and direction to move forward with confidence, whether you work with me or build the program yourselves.
For a small organization with limited resources, having someone who could think strategically and also execute was invaluable.
Frank Callaghan Former Board Chair, Wayside Academy
A fundraising audit reviews every dimension of your development program: donor database health and segmentation, giving trends and lapse rates, current communications and their effectiveness, annual fund structure, board and volunteer engagement, major gift activity and pipeline, campaign history, and your overall case for support.
The goal is to identify what's working, what isn't, and what's missing entirely.
A typical audit takes four to eight weeks from initial data gathering to delivery of the final report, depending on the size and complexity of your program and how quickly stakeholders can participate in interviews and review sessions.
The audit is the diagnostic: examining what you have and assessing its health. The strategic plan is the prescription: what to do next, in what order, and why.
Together they give you an honest picture of your current program and a realistic roadmap for improving it. You can't build a good strategy without first understanding the foundation you're building on.
The most common triggers are: fundraising revenue that has plateaued or declined, an executive director transition, a board that wants to professionalize the development function, or preparation for a major campaign.
It's also valuable when leadership suspects there's untapped potential in the donor base but isn't sure where to find it.
No. I'm based in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, but I serve nonprofits across Canada and the United States. Interviews and presentations can be conducted in person or by video, depending on your preference and location.
Every engagement begins the same way: with an honest discussion about your organization, your mission, and where you want to go.