12 tips to help you flex your fundraising muscle and build (or rebuild) an effective development office from the ground up.

By Ken Burnett

These 12 strategies aren't the only things I'd do. They may not even be the most urgent things I'd do, or even the most important. But they are the things I'd do that I think would have the most lasting impact. They would make the most difference to converting my imaginary donor-development department from the under-funded, misunderstood appendage to the fundraising function that I found on joining the organization into the finely honed, high- earning core activity that I'd like to leave behind when, in the fullness of time, I move on to pastures new (you have to indulge me a little here, in this fantasy). Anyway, here we go.