Monitoring

A plan is only useful if you keep checking whether reality is developing as expected.

Forward helps you monitor fundraising performance throughout the year, understand what is changing and update your expectations as new information becomes available.

From plan to reality

At the start of the year, your plan contains targets and assumptions for income, investment, donor numbers and the fundraising drivers behind them.

As the year progresses, actual results become available. Forward combines these actuals with your updated forecast for the remaining months.

Together they create your Latest Estimate: the best current view of where you expect to finish the year.

Actuals + Forecast = Latest Estimate

This gives you more than a comparison between budget and actuals. It shows where performance is heading.

Understand what changed

Knowing that income is above or below plan is useful. Understanding why is much more valuable.

Forward helps you monitor the drivers behind your results. Are you recruiting the number of donors you expected? Is the average gift changing? Is retention stronger or weaker? Are acquisition costs developing as planned?

Looking at these drivers helps you identify changes earlier and understand what is causing them.

That makes it easier to decide whether action is needed.

Keep your forecast realistic

Your original plan remains an important reference point during the year. But your expectation of what will actually happen should develop as reality changes.

Forward allows you to update the forecast throughout the year while keeping the original plan visible.

You can therefore compare Plan, Actuals, Forecast and Latest Estimate.

This gives fundraising teams and management a much clearer view of performance than looking at actuals against an annual budget alone.

See the impact on your longer-term plan

Monitoring does not stop at the end of the current year.

Changes in acquisition, retention, gift value or investment can also affect donor numbers, income and profitability in the years that follow.

Forward helps connect what is happening today with the longer-term trajectory you created during the planning process.

If important assumptions change, you can see what that means for the future and decide whether plans or investments need to be adjusted.

Learn and adjust

Regular monitoring creates a continuous learning process.

You see which assumptions were realistic, where performance developed differently and which fundraising activities are delivering the expected results.

Over time, this improves both your understanding of the fundraising programme and the quality of future plans.

Forward keeps planning and monitoring connected, so your five-year plan does not become a document that is created once and then forgotten.

Keep moving in the right direction

Fundraising performance will never develop exactly as planned. The important thing is knowing what is changing, understanding why and responding early enough.

Forward gives you an up-to-date view of performance and where it is taking you, helping you keep your fundraising programme on course.