The Small-Shop Development Toolkit

Run a real donor program without a development team.

A guide, a workbook, and the scripts.

Maybe development is your whole job. Maybe it is one of six jobs you are doing. Maybe you have a small team, a board that wants “more major gifts,” and no real system for making them happen. Maybe fundraising keeps getting pushed behind the production, the season announcement, the grant deadline, and everything else that has to happen first.

I have been there. I co-founded an opera company in New York and ran it for almost five years, and later served as Director of Advancement at a regional opera company where the donor list, the season announcement, and the gala seating chart all lived on my desk at the same time. This toolkit comes from doing the work: what helped me build real donor relationships, what actually moved gifts forward, and the donor I lost because I stopped doing it.

What's inside

The Guide (15-page PDF). How small-shop fundraising actually works. Why your top twenty donors matter more than your mailing list, and how to be a little vicious about it. The five-stage pipeline in plain language (Identify, Qualify, Cultivate, Solicit, Steward). The weekly floor: two face times, one touchpoint hour, one phone block. Catch and release. The Giving Risk Checklist. The board giving one-pager. The 12-month rhythm on one page.

The Donor Pipeline Workbook (Google Sheets). Make a copy and it's yours. One row per donor with stage, owner, last touch, next touch, what makes them tick. A Dashboard that runs itself: due this week, no touch in 90 days, missing a next touch, renewals this quarter, open asks, pipeline by stage. A Giving Plan template. A 12-month Donor Communications Calendar pre-filled for a September to May season. A Board Report Card. A "who do you know" prospect worksheet. The Giving Risk Checklist as a working tab.

The Scripts (13-page PDF). Handwritten notecards for five situations, using the three-part formula I used for every card. Lapsed-donor outreach by email and by phone. Setting the ask meeting. The ask itself, in five beats, including what to do in the silence after you say the number. The thank-you call. What to say after a "no."

Two printables. A one-page Board Report Card to share with board members at mid-year and year-end, and the "Who do you know?" worksheet to hand out at a board meeting.

Who this is for

Small arts organizations where development is happening without enough time, staff, or structure. Maybe you are a one- to three-person team. Maybe you have a development title but no real department. Maybe you have a CRM, but it is hard to navigate, underused, or full of information that still does not tell you who to call next.

If donor relationships are living partly in your head, partly in your inbox, partly in a spreadsheet, and partly in a system nobody has time to maintain, this is for you.

Who this is not for

Large development teams with established portfolios, dedicated prospect research, clear moves management, and a CRM everyone actually uses.

If you already know exactly who owns each donor relationship, what the next move is, and when the ask is coming, you probably do not need this toolkit.

Go have the coffee.

How it's delivered

Instantly, after checkout. You get the Guide, the Scripts, and the two printables as PDFs, plus a link inside the Guide that makes your own copy of the Google Sheets workbook. Nothing to install. Updates to the toolkit go out to every past buyer for free.

A note on the spreadsheet: the workbook is built for Google Sheets and the Dashboard formulas only work there. Open it in Sheets, not Excel.